Shopping Saturday: Foerstel Bros.

 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 23 December 1927, p. 27

Charles F. Foerstel, the father of my maternal grandmother's first husband William Herbert Foerstel, was a grocer in St. Louis, Missouri.

1930 United States census, St. Louis, Missouri, Ward 15 part 1, population schedule, p.25B, family 542. Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002.

Charles worked for the Foerstel Bros. Mercantile Co. Charles' brother, Michael J. Foerstel, was president of the company.

Gould's St. Louis City Directory 1931. St. Louis, MO: Polk-Gould Directory Co., 1931. P. 455. Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

My grandmother Margaret Ann Schneider married William Herbert Foerstel on  22 September 1931. By 1932, Herbert was working as a grocer.

Gould's St. Louis City Directory 1932. St. Louis, MO: Polk-Gould Directory Co., 1932. P. 397. Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. 

Margaret and Herbert had two children during the early 1930s. My aunt told me that because of the family grocery business, they always had food during the Great Depression.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9 May 1924, p. 19

Wordless Wednesday: Margaret (Schneider) Foerstel and Daughter Joan

Grandma and Grandpa Boe's Anniversary

Today is the wedding anniversary of my maternal grandparents John Boe and Margaret Ann Schneider. They married in Indianapolis, Indiana on 25 September 1939. Because my grandmother was divorced from her first husband, William Herbert Foerstel, she had his surname at the time of the marriage.

52 Ancestors: Week 28 "Road Trip": The Boe Family's Move from Chicago to Los Angeles

My mother moved often when she was growing up. Her father worked for P. F. Collier, and he started his career with them as an encyclopedia salesman. In 1947, the family moved from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California. I have heard stories about this road trip from family members, including my mother. My aunt Joan wrote a story (unpublished) which includes information about this trip. Her story was especially informative, and it helped me learn some of the important details about the trip.

U.S. Route 66 artwork on the side of a claw vending machine. By Xnatedawgx (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)]. Available from Wikimedia Commons.

On a summer day in the late 1940s (my aunt Joan said the family moved in 1947, but my mother said the family was in Chicago in 1948), John and Margaret (Schneider) Boe set off for Los Angeles with their five children: Margaret's daughter Joan and son Herb from her first marriage to William Herbert Foerstel, and their daughters Margaret and Karen (my mother) and son Dobby. Their spitz dog Skippy was also with them. My grandparents had purchased a used Chevrolet station wagon for the trip.

Drawing of a woodie wagon built on the popular Chevrolet truck chassis 1947-1953. 6 December 2010. By Truemanbruce (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]. Available from Wikimedia Commons.

To travel from Chicago to Los Angeles, they took Route 66. My grandparents took turns driving. Unfortunately, most of the children got very carsick. (My aunt Joan said that my uncle Herb did not, but the others did.) The driving speed made no difference. My grandparents were heavy smokers; the cigarette smoke may have contributed to the car sickness.

Image by SPUI. Public domain. Available from Wikimedia Commons.

At one point, they stopped at a gas station to refill the gas tank and use the rest room. They then got back on the road. About an hour later, they noticed that Skippy was missing. He had been left behind at the gas station!

Of course they had to go back. My grandfather turned the car around and drove for another hour or so, until they reached the gas station. Skippy was there waiting, and he got back in the car with the family.

The Boe family definitely arrived in California by 1948. John and Margaret Boe appear in the 1948 Los Angeles, California voter registrations. They were living at 7815 S. Dalton Av. Their political affiliation was listed as DS. A blog post at Rootdig.com indicates that DS may mean "declined to state."

Index to Register of Voters. Los Angeles City Precinct No. 208. Los Angeles County, California, 1948. Ancestry.com. California, Voter Registrations, 1900-1968 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008. Original data: State of California, United States. Great Register of Voters. Sacramento, California: California State Library.

Those Places Thursday: Saints Peter & Paul Catholic Church, St. Louis, Missouri

Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church is located at 1919 South 7th Street, St. Louis, Missouri, in the Soulard neighborhood.

Saints Peter and Paul Parish was founded in June 1849 by Father Simon Sigrist. It was created to serve the Germans of the first ward of St. Louis. The first church was made of wood and was located on the site of the sanctuary of the current church, but it faced Allen Avenue. Construction began on the second church on 1 October 1851. This church, made of brick, faced 8th Street. It was dedicated on 23 October 1853.

In the early 1870s, Father Franz Goller decided to build a new church with a German Gothic design. Franz Georg Himpler designed the new church, and the cornerstone was laid on 12 June 1872. The church was dedicated on 12 December 1875. The stained glass windows in the sanctuary and above the side altars were manufactured in Innsbruck, Austria. The church's tower was built in 1890, and in 1891, five bells were installed. The interior of the church was completed in 1895, when oil-painted Stations of the Cross from Beuron, Germany were installed.

My Schneider and Gersbacher ancestors attended Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church. Family baptisms, marriages, and funerals took place there. My maternal grandmother Margaret Ann Schneider was baptized there, and she married her first husband Herbert William Foerstel there.

My cousin and I visited Saints Peter and Paul in August 2012. We were glad that we were able to see the church that was so much a part of our family history.

References
Sanctuary in Soulard: The First 150 Years of Saints Peter and Paul Parish. St. Louis, MO: Saints Peter and Paul Church, 1999.
Sts Peter and Paul Catholic Church: Our History

Wedding Wednesday: Margaret Ann Schneider and William Herbert Foerstel

On 22 September 1931, my maternal grandmother Margaret Ann Schneider married her first husband William Herbert Foerstel at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in St. Louis, Missouri.

National Library Week

National Library Week has been observed annually since 1958. It is usually the second week in April. This year it is April 13-19, 2014. It sponsored by the American Library Association and libraries across the United States.

ProQuest is offering free access to some of its resources this week. The most useful of these for genealogists is ProQuest Obituaries. It includes obituaries from the following newspapers: Atlanta Constitution (1868-1922), Boston Globe (1872-1922), Chicago Defender (1921-1975), Chicago Tribune (1852-1984), Los Angeles Times (1881-1984), New York Times (1851-1994), and Washington Post (1877-1950). Many of my ancestors lived in Chicago, so I have made good use of this database to find family members' obituaries in the Chicago Tribune.

Another of the offerings is CultureGrams, which provides cultural information about countries of the world. It is a good source of background information on the countries our ancestors lived in.

More information and links can be found at http://go.proquest.com/national-library-week-2014/.

National Library Week is also a good time to mention the librarians in my family. I am one of them; I am a reference librarian at a college. My uncle Herb was also an academic librarian, but is now retired. My mother's first cousin's wife also has a degree in library science.

Here is a link to an interview with my uncle Herb about book banning and censorship: Celebrating Banned Books Week: Herbert N. Foerstel on Book Banning and Curriculum Censorship

52 Ancestors: #10 Margaret Ann (Schneider) Boe

Today would have been the 103rd birthday of my maternal grandmother, so it is the perfect time for me to write about her. She was a wonderful grandmother and was one of the best people that I have ever known.

Margaret Ann Schneider was born in St. Louis, Missouri on 16 March 1911. She was the third child of John Schneider and Paulina Gersbacher, both German immigrants. The family lived at 2024 Russell Boulevard, St. Louis. Margaret began was a gifted pianist who began playing at the age of nine. She attended Rosati-Kain High School, and and studied music at Fontbonne College (now Fontbonne University). On 22 September 1931, she married William Herbert Foerstel at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in St. Louis. They had a daughter and a son, but were divorced in June 1939.

My aunt Joan, Margaret's oldest child, told the story of how my grandparents met. Margaret had taken a job as a pianist at a beer garden. One night a fight broke out, and she took cover under the piano. So did a man, who introduced himself and offered her a cigarette. That man was my grandfather, John Boe.

John and Margaret left St. Louis, and married on 25 September 1939 in Indianapolis, Indiana. They were still living in Indianapolis at the time of the 1940 United States Census. Soon afterward, they moved to Detroit, Michigan, where Margaret had two more daughters and another son. John worked for P. F. Collier, and the family moved frequently. They lived in Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, California; New Hyde Park, New York; Redwood City, California; Highland Park, New York. When John was appointed Vice President of P. F. Collier and began working at the New York office, the family bought a home at 506 E. Saddle River Road, Ridgewood, New Jersey. John and Margaret lived there from 1956 to 1974, and then moved to an apartment in Ramsey, New Jersey.

Margaret played piano for the Ridgewood High School Jamboree for 25 years. She was a member of the Valley Hospital Auxiliary, and volunteered at Valley Hospital's Kurth Cottage.

Margaret died unexpectedly on 4 August 1986. She died in New York City, shortly after heart surgery. The day she died was one of the saddest of my life. She was always there for me when I was growing up. She was a warm, caring, loving, entertaining person and I was so lucky to have had her as my grandmother.

Margaret's funeral was held on 10 August 1986 at Christ Episcopal Church in Ridgewood, and was buried at Valleau Cemetery in Ridgewood, next to her husband John. Their gravestone inscription reads "THEY WERE LIFE ITSELF".

Margaret's graduation

Margaret's wedding picture, 1931

Margaret and John Boe

 

Grandma Boe and me