After the “Firebrand” of Europe had been subdued and was lodging quietly on the island of St. Helena, conditions in Germany again took on their normal aspect, as before the Napoleonic Wars.
On the shores of the Bodensee, this being the westerly end of Lake Constance, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, there is the small hamlet of Goldbach, about two miles from Ueberlingen, and it was here, on the 25th December, 1821 that Ludwig Karl Gnaedinger was born.
Farming seems to have been the chief occupation in this district, but Ludwig, while passing to and from school would stand and admire the furs exhibited in the window of Karl Weber’s fur store in Ueberlingen, and no doubt in looking into the future, must have let his imagination carry him to a day when he would be standing in a store, but with the name of Ludwig Gnaedinger in place of Karl Weber on the sign, for at an early age he took to the fur business and after his apprenticeship, got what is called in Germany, the “Wanderlust” for in the year 1841 we find him in Montreal, Canada, and following his occupation as furrier, working at his trade with the firm of Greene & Sons.
On January 19th 1846 he married Elizabeth Burrowes, the ceremony taking place at Trinity Church, by the Rev. Dr. Willoughby.
About the same year that Ludwig Gnaedinger left his home in Germany, Mary Burrowes, widow of Brooks Burrowes, living in a district called Lisnaboe, near Langford, Ireland, turned all her assets into money and with her family of seven children, five girls and two boys took passage on a sailing vessel for the New World, and after six weeks sailing, landed in Montreal. Situations were not hard to find, as each member of her family found something to do and eventually got married, with the exception of her son Robert, who remained single.
After Ludwig Gnaedinger got married, they started housekeeping on St. Constant Street (now Bullion Street) and in conjunction with their dwelling, kept a small grocery store. While Ludwig worked at his trade, Elizabeth took the oversight of the grocery business. Thus they carried on for four years, when a change of residence to No. 41 St. Dominique Street took place, giving up the grocery business, as no doubt with her household duties, and looking after her family, it kept her pretty well occupied, as by this time she had her second child, but only one living, Isabella, aged two years. Their next move was to a dwelling over a store opposite the Court House, on Notre Dame Street.
In the employment of Greene & Sons, there was another German named Emanuel Haeusgen, who was their bookkeeper, so he and Ludwig started in the fur business on the year 1852 under the name of Haeusgen & Gnaedinger, at No. 39 St. Peter Street and later a retail store on Notre Dame Street. As the population of Montreal consisted principally of French speaking people, they concluded it would be a good idea to use a French name in place of their own, so engaged a French clerk named Brault for this purpose. Business up to now had been good, and as they could well occupy the space taken up by the family, they moved to No 7 Berthelot Street in the year 1857. At the present date there is a Fire Hall on the spot where No. 7 Berthelot Street formerly stood. Eleanor, Edward, and Frederick (Fritz) were born here.
As all things had been well managed and they were prosperous in business, both Ludwig and Emanuel Haeusgen concluded they were in a position to own a house of their own, so lots were purchased in the year 1862 and houses erected thereon, being Nos. 13 and 11 Plateau Street. There were two large houses containing fourteen rooms each. We moved to No. 13 in the year 1863. Julius Theodore was born here in the year 1965 and as our family now consisting of two girls and four boys were growing up, father found the house to small for his growing family, so in the year 1868 he decided to build a wing to the house which would then give seven additional rooms making 21 rooms in all.
To keep the children out of the way during building operations, the family with exception of Emanuel who was in Germany, were taken over to Longueuil where we had a nice comfortable house. Father lived in town but would come over and spend Saturday afternoons and Sunday with us. He would always bring over baskets of fresh fruit which was a great treat for us children.
As the house would not be ready for occupation till sometime in November, Fritz and I were sent to the French College on September 1st and Ellie to the Convent, where we spent a couple of months out of mischief’s way.
In November the new wing on our house 13 Plateau Street was finished and the weather was cold and wet in Longueuil, so we were all delighted to again be in our home in Montreal, everything seemed to be lovely to us children, large rooms, plenty of furniture and as we thought “just like a castle”, and many are the happy hours we spent there, till father’s death on January 20th 1880.
In the year 1874 Mr. Haeusgen died and for four years the business was conducted under the same name, when it was then changed to L. Gnaedinger Son Co., the partners being: father, brother Emanuel and Joseph Bourdeau.
Father had two brothers. Joseph the elder when last heard was living in Zurich, Switzerland, with his son-in-law. This was several years after father died, and Joseph wrote, that having heard that his brother was dead, he requested the executors of the estate to send him his portion of it.
Several years after father had emigrated to America, his younger brother Nebemuk left home to find his brother. He set sail for America but was never heard from again. The people around father’s home had a very vague and almost childish conception of America and what it comprised. One must however remember that this was way back in the eighteen hundred and forties.To most Europeans in those days and even later, America was a land of indefinite size, populated principally by wild Indians, and the places of which they may have heard the names, contained all the Europeans that dwelled in the land. Each white person knew every other one, and Montreal, New York, and Chicago all lay a walking distance between them. Visiting was indulged in on Sunday or any evening. So if Nebemuk left home with these ideas he would have expected to find his brother easily in or around New York, or someone could direct him to where he was. Nebemuk was only a young chap and one can readily imagine the consternation and plight that he found himself in, stranded alone, because most likely the only thing he knew was that his brother Ludwig was in America, so it is possible that he wandered from New York on a hunt for his brother, and settling elsewhere he became the founder of one of the other groups of Gnaedingers sprinkled over the United States. The name has been come across in New York, Rochester, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, and one other place in the west, of which Otto Gnaedinger of Chicago knows. In Europe the name is found only in the south of Germany and in the neighborhood of Lake Constance (Bodensee).
In 1868 while brother Emanuel was at school in Leipzig, father decided to visit him and his home once more after an absence of twenty six years. He took mother along. They left Montreal in the early part of February and were away about four months. During their absence our house was left in charge of sister Bella who was not quite twenty years old. Ellie was eleven, Edward nine, Fritz not six and Theodore was not yet three, so Bella must have had quite a serious proposition on her hands. The night the travelers were leaving, our home was packed full of friends, in to whish them good bye, every body seemed to be crying, which was taken up also by baby, as Theodore was called. He had hold of mother’s skirt and sobbing out, “mama take off ouse close and put me to bed.” One can hardly realize today what an undertaking it must have been in those days to contemplate a voyage across the Atlantic. The travelers went and returned by Allan Line Steamers, the S.S. Corsican going and the S.S. Scandinavian on the return. These were the large steamers of those days, both around two thousand tons and which in stormy weather took bad medicine. They had a very rough passage on their way home and were battered nearly to pieces as at one time they were afraid the ship was going down. The waves were so great that they rolled over across the decks. The captain’s bridge was torn clean away, the wheel house smashed and life boats torn from the ship and washed away. The ship’s carpenter got battered up with ribs and both legs broken. His assistant was washed overboard by a wave and landed back on deck by another.
Father had a fine tenor voice and belonged to a singing club. On the night of their departure, while the general hubbub and weeping was going on, the sound of music stole through the din and silenced it, the harmony of male voices came from the street in front of the house; father’s “Gerangverein” was serenading him. Fritz got outside for a few minutes and watched them standing in the center of the street between high snow banks, singing, each singer with a book on one hand and a tallow candle in the other. The streets were very dimly lighted in those days. Gas lamps were the medium and the nearest was 40 feet to one side of the singers, and the next about 150 feet to the other side.
Before visiting his old home father had written from Leipzig to his old friend Karl Weber that he was coming and was bringing his wife and eldest son with him. He arrived at Ueberlingen by boat and as they approached the landing he beheld a crowd of people gathered, men and women by the hundreds, and as he went off the boat with mother following, he heard from every side the same loud whisper – “where is his wife, where is his wife.” The people standing in the back rows were craning their necks to get a glimpse of the squaw father had brought home and of his Indian boy. They remained at and around the old home for a month. While here mother had a visit from a strange lady one day who explained that she hoped mother would excuse her calling, but she had two boys out in America, and having heard that mother was from there, she would like to know how they were doing; but mother told her, I am from Canada, and the lady replied, “oh yes. I know that and they live right near Canada, they live in Minneapolis.“
After a lapse of four months the day for the return of the travelers at last came round and those at home were a very much excited group of children. After dinner everyone was dressed up in their Sunday clothes, and we smaller ones did not even go to play on the street but sat for hours on the front doorstep awaiting their arrival. There were three cabs required to convoy the welcoming party home form Bonaventure station. Mother’s trunks were packed full to bursting with presents for everyone – all the family and special friends. There were toys, silks by the yard for dresses, fancy parasols, perfumes, kid gloves, laces, and many other things.
In 1868 when the wings were added to the house, the shed that was provided, was in the shape of a long two storey brick encased building, ninety feet long and twenty three feet wide, divided, forty five feet long each for father and Mr. Haeusgen. They had made the sheds this length in order to install a bowling alley for themselves and their friends, where they could enjoy themselves of a winter’s evening. Bowling was one of their greatest pleasures, but could only be indulged in during the summer months, as the only available alley around Montreal was a flimsy light construction located at Wiseman’s hotel in Mile End, situated at the corner of the present St. Lawrence and Mount Royal Avenues: and to get there on a hot summer’s day was a very long walk across the old racecourse, later known as Fletcher’s Field and now Mount Royal Park.
Father was a kind and generous man, lavish to his family and gave unsparingly to the needy poor. The influx of German emigrants in the early sixties showed the group of your Germans already in Montreal, that there was need of some organization among them, to look after and assist the new arrivals. This was particularly called for when an exceedingly bad accident occurred on the Grand Trunk Railway at Beloeil, where a full train load of emigrants plunged through an open drawbridge into the Richelieu River, and there were hundreds of German emigrants on board. The entire baggage was lost. This included all the worldly possessions of the survivors. This brought into existence a society to look after the welfare of those that were saved, and it was called “The German Society” Father took an active part in this work and at the time of his death he was their honorary president, having previously been treasurer for a number of years. His lavish kindness to his family was continuously shown throughout his life. We enjoyed a happy home. Christmas day was his birthday and the occasion was always a beautiful festival which began days ahead when he provided each one of us with funds to be spent on gifts for one another. In the later years of father’s life the family festivities began on Christmas Eve. The tree would be decorated and all ready right after supper, and about eight o’clock our gifts were given and enjoyed for two hours until ten o’clock, when we then gathered around the dining table for cards, and played Bank, Vingt et un and other games of chance until midnight. We did the same every night until New Years night. We settled up for chips at the end of each evening, keeping all our gains and father paying all our losses.
Father was a man who very rarely went out to social gatherings. He spent his evenings at home. In the earlier days he had a small ring of close friends who came regularly several times a week and played whist or bagatel. After the introduction of a billiard table into our home, most evenings were devoted to this game, five or six nights a week and the card game was changed from whist to “skat”. Among his regular visiting friends were Messrs Bolte, Vogt, Riepert and Davidson.