The Gottlieb Letters

Number Three

Graciously Provided by Marian Price

Transcribed by Jerry Zeisler

[please see the overview for background]

8 Dec 1979

Dear Marian and Bob,

I hadn't realized, Marian, that you didn't know about your "American" great-grandfather.  I can add only a few additional bits about him.  Reggie recalls that mother (your grandmother) said he was known in their home area for his ability to read aloud effectively, and that groups--probably men only--gathered in the inn for evening after evening one season to hear him read "The Count of Monte Cristo."  That was certainly a useful talent for an inn and tavern keeper to have in the days before radio, TV, movies, public libraries and paperbacks.  And I remember that my mother said all of her father's socks were knit of wool at home by his wife and daughters.  My mother became such an expert that she could knit socks and read at the same time.  She said that when she was a young girl, most of her reading was done while knitting.

Love, Mother

29 Dec 1979

Dear Marian and Bob,

Yesterday’s mail also brought a letter from Else and Leo Gottlieb of Woodbine, New Jersey. Leo is my first cousin and a brother of Irma Hayum. They wrote that Carl (Charles) Hayum, Nora’s father, died on Dec. 2. He had been in and out of the hospital in recent months and then had a fatal stroke. They say it was a mercy for him and for Nora, who had done so much for him. But I also think it must greatly have improved Nora’s finances. The Hayums had acquired a lot of real estate which must be worth a lot more than when they bought it, not only their farm but also a house they owned in Binghamton. That house was rented out, and several years before Werner (and Irma) died, she told me that they were letting Nora have the rent collected on that house.

Leo’s and Elsa’s letter was really a response to the copies of the Sandra letters I sent them recently. Leo says the Gottliebs were in Bosen at least as early as 1770 (over 200 years ago) but he doesn’t know where they came from. The old house was replaced by the new one some time in the 1890s, I think. Leo says he was born in the new house (1902) and I think it had probably been replaced by 1898, the year of my father’s first return trip since his emigration in 1884. He went back in 1898 to marry my mother, who had been a schoolmate. Another new item: their son, Gerd (Gene), has left RCA for a better job with Burroughs, which takes him to California & Texas from time to time.

But Leo seemed to be unfamiliar with the Passover eve story & says he doesn’t recall any big oven fires in their home on that date. He also doubts that the low structure in the Bosen picture is an oven - says it could have been a dog house, a wood shed, or a well house. Well, let him stick to his story, I’ll stick to mine.

Love,

Mother

8 Jan 1980

Dear Sandra,

Reggie said that you received an A- on your school report (congratulations) and that your teacher's only suggestion was that more family tales would have added interest.  That's understandable so here is a tale but in Pleasanton, Kansas it was told for family ears only.

When my mother came to Pleasanton from her native Germany as a bride in 1898, my father said to her:  "There is a 14 year old boy in this town being brought up in the household of one of our well-to-do elderly citizens and his second wife.  The old man claims him as a son but the boy is alleged to be the child of one of your cousins who is a traveling salesman based in Kansas City.  Shall I tell you who he is or would you like to see if you can spot him?  My mother chose the latter course and it did not take her long to identify a chubby red head who, it happened, did not bear the slightest resemblance to the tall lean brothers among whom he grew up.  He lived in Pleasanton all his life, married and was our next-door neighbor for 30 years.  My parents, of course, kept completely quiet and never breathed to anyone that our families were related in any way.  But the story of Frank's illegitimacy and his Jewish connection was apparently known.  During the Ku Klux Klan revival period of the early 1920s, Ferd reported hearing someone say that Frank might not feel so warmly toward the Klan if he knew who his father was.  And I recall that on a weekend visit to Pleasanton, Gus Sanders of Kansas city (son of the other immigrant cousin of my mother) had to be shushed when he told us in surprise that Frank's young son looked very much like his (Gus's) cousin, the son of the traveling salesman.

Now for just a final bit for your files, I enclose two photos. The house is the one in Bosen in which my father and generations before him grew up. Cousin Leo Gottlieb who was a year younger than your Grandmother Bodovitz and who was born in Bosen and grew up there, says that the family had lived in Bosen since 1770, but added that he did not know where they came from. Also, he seemed unfamiliar with the Passover eve story and doubted my identification of the low structure at the left as the Bosen equivalent of the outdoor oven that figures in the Passover eve stories. It could be a doghouse or a woodshed or a well, he says. Well, I like my story better. Anyway, the photo reproduced very well, I think, considering its great age.

The second photo did not come out nearly so well though more recent (1930). I snapped it with a Brownie Kodak from a 3rd floor window sill of the Gasthaus-am-Bahnhof (inn at the railway station) in Nahbollenbach in which my mother grew up. It had been my mother’s room, I was told by the innkeeper’s wife, but I knew the furnishings would mean nothing to my mother so I snapped the view from the window. I was right. The original shows forested (not snow covered) hills and meadows and a mud-covered rocky road.

With love.

Selma