Below is a document put together by Kate (A, Caroline) - date and location not known.
Below is a document put together by Kate (A, Caroline) - date and location not known.
Gespräch Mit Clare
The following history of family Schulte was related to my mother and me by Clare Kranefeld during our visit to her home on 8 August 1987. At this time she is 84 years old and suffering some from arthritis. She is alert and mentally acute, living alone in the Bochum, just south of Essen, in the heart of Ruhrgebiet. Her home is a small apartment with two floors, in a house owned by the Damsky family. Herr Damsky is a doctor employed by the Thyssen Steel Company.
Family Schulte was a very well do to bunch of people. They were very hard working farmers and by the 1880's were capable of moving large groups of the family to the U.S. They did not arrive there in abject poverty, having prepared very carefully for two years before making the move.
Family Kranefeld (Walder? DPF), on the other hand was very poor, and the girls came into contact with the Schulte's because they worked in the house as maids. There were three girls, Louisa, Julia, and Franciza. Both Louisa and Julia worked at times in the house of a Belgian count, attending the children. Louisa was for a time, nanny to the young Count Phillippe de Hautphinne. Clare did not say, but Louisa must have been a young teenager at the time. Young Phillipe grew up in good health and during the second WW was taken as a hostage to Germany by the German army. There he was beaten to death.
After Louisa returned to Germany from Belgium she found employment with the Schulte's. She made a very good impression there. Joseph Schulte was at this time, engaged in very serious contemplation of the then local wife prospects, although his eye was not initially drawn to Louisa. As she was after all, a family servant. However one of his brothers, (Jacob?) noting that Louisa was a very hard worker and very thrifty told Joseph that if he were not going to marry her he would please hurry up and marry someone else because he, Jacob, would like to marry her. That motivated Joseph and he did marry Louisa.
Louisa made her name as a thrifty and hard working woman. She was so thrifty that she felt guilty about her new position as Lady of a very prosperous house. It was quite a novelty at that time for a rich farmer not to marry the daughter of another rich farmer. She must have felt quite a bit of social pressure. She went so far as to hide her can of coffee which she used to make herself in the morning while her husband was out at work. She was embarrassed at this extravagance. One day Joseph found the coffee and figured out what his wife was doing. He made her sit down and told her "You are no longer the maid here. You are now the lady of the house and you can make coffee whenever you like." Tuchtig was the word Clare used to describe Louisa.
When the family prepared to emigrate they started getting ready two years in advance. Julia came to live with them during this time to help out. They had a cobbler in to make new shoes for everyone, a tailor to make new sets of clothing and various other tradesmen to make all the things deemed necessary for the trip to Nebraska. The tailor also made special sleeping bags for the children. The last thing the family bought was in Amsterdam, just before they boarded the boat. Several dozen eggs. The eggs were fried and packed in bread and butter for the family to eat during the voyage.
After the Joseph Schulte's were established in Nebraska Louisa sent money back for Julia to come over. She did this several times. At this time Julia was working for the Count in Belgium. Her mother received the money. It never reached Julia and Julia never emigrated.
Last revised June 18, 1999.