47 – This ancestor stayed home

My mother's ancestors came from southern Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden. In each of these lands sisters were left behind, often to care for older parents who couldn't make the trip. Several letters they wrote from the "old country" survive. In Solitude I wrote about my Swedish great-aunt Valmina Wederquist who stayed behind to care for her parents in Sweden. Here I blog about the German relatives who stayed behind.

Letter from Mathilde

My great-grandfather Clemens Knaus was born in 1843, the sixth child and fourth boy born to Jakob Knaus and his wife Wilhelmina Gauggel. They lived in Harthausen auf der Scher, a small Catholic town in Hohenzollern, an island of Prussia in an area known as Swabia, now in the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg.  

Clemen's parents, Wilhelmina Gauggel and Jakob Knaus

In 1853 when Clemens was only 10, his oldest brother Jacob (named after his father), age 23, emigrated to America, settling in Syracuse, New York, where he worked as a barrel maker, a trade he had learned from his father. Eventually the other sons Johann, Alexander, and Clemens followed. Clemens emigrated in 1863 or 1865 – sources differ: they were supposedly leaving to escape conscription, so they did not leave much of a trail.

Clemen's oldest sister Johanna was 8 years older than him, and sister Mathilde was just 2 years older, and both had father-less little boys when he left, a sign that society at that time was not in great shape. Clemens lived in Syracuse and worked for his brother Jacob for a few years before traveling out west to the Colorado Territory, to an area near Boulder nearby a small town named Niwot. 

Mathilde kept in touch with Clemens as is evidenced by two envelopes and one remaining letter. In 1876 sister Johanna died, single, leaving two young boys, and in 1877 Clemen's mother Wilhelmina died. There is an envelope which probably came to Colorado with a letter carrying news of one or both deaths (Modoc was an earlier name for Niwot):

Envelope from 1877

The letter found its way to Clemens who had married Eliza Greub Bader, the widow of Nicholas Bader, in 1874, just a few years prior. Unfortunately only the envelope survives, although it's possible that the photo below accompanied it. By this time Harthausen and Hohenzollern had become part of the German Empire (1871), and in 1876 Colorado had become a state.

(Probably) Jakob Knaus with daughter Mathilde, some time after Wilhelmina's death

Clemen's father Jakob lived until 1882. Mathilde never married, and only had the single boy, Kilian, who had been just a few years old when Clemens left for America. When Kilian was 25, and his mother Mathilde was 45, another letter from Mathilde made its way to Colorado. 

1886 letter from Mathilde came in this envelope

Letter and two envelopes, now in possession of a Clemens descendant

Penned the 13th of June, 1886, it begins "Lieber Bruder" ("Dear Brother"):

I am taking up my pen to write to you for the third time. It has been three years since our father died and I never got an answer from any brother. It seems like I am not a sister anymore. I wrote to you this year on Candlemas [2 Feb]. The letter traveled 16 weeks and then came back. Kilian and I are alone now. 

Apparently Clemens and his two surviving brothers Jacob, still living in Syracuse, New York, and Alexander, living in Michigan, were not great at keeping in touch. Mathilde updates Clemens on their deceased sister Johanna's two boys Sturzis and Adolf:

Sturzis has been in the military for a year and a half and Adolf is an apprentice at a saddlery in Strassberg. I am in poor health and I have to work harder than I should. I have already been sick twice because I have to work so hard. I haven't felt well in a year. I am more tired in the morning when I get up than I am in the evening. 

Mathide goes into some detail on farming issues, exacerbated by lack of water which was always a concern in Harthausen because it is situated on limestone and rainwater drains off quickly: 

Last winter was a bad one because we had no water. The cisterns were empty and the well was low. We often had to wait 2 to 3 hours for a bucket to fill. We had to buy 45 buckets so the livestock could have water. Last summer was very dry. The fields looked pretty bad. The crops are cheap. One hundred pounds of corn cost 5 to 6 Marks, rye costs 6 Marks, barley is seven Marks. Livestock is always expensive. A pair of draught oxen cost 600 to 700 Marks, a cow 200 to 300 Marks, a heifer is 200 Marks and a calf is 80 to 100 Marks. We have two cows, a heifer and one calf. Straw and feed are always scarce. We had to buy 58 Marks worth this past winter and 68 Marks worth last year. One hundred pounds of straw costs 2.30 Marks and hay is 3 Marks. The last three years we had mediocre harvests. Last year we didn't get a lot of oats because it was too dry, and when it finally rained it was too late. 

She then adds news about a man Clemens would have known, and more news about Sturzis, Johanna's oldest son who would have been a baby when Clemens left; she also talks about her own son Kilian, who apparently is following in the family trade of barrel-making: 

Franziskus Vetter has died. I am sending a picture of Sturzis. He is stationed in Rustat. The first year he was stationed in Muhlhausen. He had it bad there. They treated him bad because he is hard of hearing and had a strict Captain. Now that he is in Rustat he is much better. He has to make shoes and work in the store. He has enough to eat but he dislikes being a soldier. Kilian works in the cooperage and always has enough work. It has been raining for 8 days now, and we can't get our work done. It's time to hoe the potatoes. The rye is mediocre and the oats are good.

(Probably) Photo of Sturzis that Mathilde included in the letter

Mathilde ends with an ask for money to enable her to visit a Catholic shrine a couple hundred kilometers south of Harthausen in Switzerland: 

Dear Brother, I have to ask a favor of you. I would like to go to Einsideln this summer, and since money is always scarce I would like to ask if you can't spare me a few dollars. If you can't spare any, I don't expect you to give me any. I am closing this letter and hope it finds you in best health. Send my love to all, your wife and children. From your loving sister, Mathilde Knaus 

Mathilde lived another 22 years, and died October 7, 1908. There is no other evidence of communication between the German and American Knaus families. Clemens and his brothers never made it back to Germany, and saw neither sisters nor parents after they emigrated. 

The brothers: Clemens, Jacob, and Alexander Knaus (Johann died on the way to California)

In 2009 I discovered in a church book that Kilian Knaus had married and had 8 sons. A German genealogy travel guide helped find some of Kilian's descendants still living in Harthausen, and a great-granddaughter of Alexander Knaus and I made it to Germany in 2010 for a reunion with some of those descendants, and for the first time in well over a century communication between Mathilde's line and those of her brothers was reestablished.

Knaus-Gauggel descendants gather in Harthausen, August 2010