We called my maternal great-grandparents “Granny & Grandpa.” In reality Granny was Amanda (Steinhaus) Beiersdorf (1894-1973) and Grandpa was Herman Beiersdorf (1895-1983). They were born and raised in Sheboygan, Wisconsin; both being first generation descendants of German immigrants. They were each part of large families in the German Lutheran community of Sheboygan. Herman was baptized and confirmed at Immanuel Lutheran Church and Amanda was baptized and confirmed at Bethlehem Lutheran Church. They attended the church affiliated schools, but I don’t think they went to High School. 

In the 1910 U.S. Census, when they were both around 15 years old, they were already working. Amanda was sewing in a glove shop along with her sister, Martha. Herman was wood turning in a chair factory and his brother, Albert was also listed as a laborer in a chair factory. 

I’m not sure how they met, perhaps through family, friends or Lutheran events in Sheboygan. Regardless, they were married July 3, 1916 in Sheboygan. Their witnesses were his brother, Ewald & her sister, Clara. Their church marriage certificate is written in German. I don’t have a formal wedding picture for them, but I wonder if this served as their wedding photo.

Grandpa kept a few notes of special days through many years in a “1955 desk diary” calendar. He marked a note on February 25 that they moved to Port Washington, WI in 1917. His WWI draft card states that at the age of 22yrs he was a department foreman for the Wisconsin Chair Co. in Port Washington. Herman is listed in the 1920 U.S. Census as a boarder and working as a shop foreman. Amanda is not listed with him and I couldn’t find her in the 1920 census at all. She may have been in Sheboygan visiting relatives and missed the census taker in each city. On August 23, 1920 in Port Washington, their daughter, Lucille was born. The family continued to live there until 1923. He noted that they moved back to Sheboygan March 28, 1923. 

Herman also noted that on October 1, 1923 they had a “new home.” 

The young family moved into a new house in Wedemeyer’s addition on South 14th Street in Sheboygan. They lived in this house for 50 years. In this home, they hosted family gatherings and “card parties” through the years. They remodeled it a few times; in particular, they enclosed the porch before I remember visiting as a child. On that enclosed porch they had toys for us to play with. The interior stairs were perfect for us as kids to scoot down on our backsides. There was an alley and garage in the back of the house. Posts were set in the ground in the back yard for clotheslines. Mom remembers that they had a wringer washing machine in the basement and as a child she would sometimes help run the clothes through the wringer to the rinse water & through the wringer again to baskets. The clothes were hung on the lines behind the house. The house is still standing.

The 1928 City Directory of Sheboygan has Herman working for the Bemis-Riddell Fibre Company. In the 1930 U.S. Census, the home is valued at $3000. Herman is a laborer in a Fiber Factory. In the 1940 U.S. Census records, Herman is listed as working as a finisher in a Leather Factory. He reported on his WW2 Draft card that he worked for the Armour Leather Company. In 1950, the U.S. Census has Herman listed as a leather finisher for a Tanning Company.

In 1930, there was a newspaper article reporting that Herman Beiersdorf of N. Fourteenth street was sentenced to 90 days in jail for beating his wife. Three days later, The Sheboygan Press printed another article clarifying the address again, stating that Herman Beiersodorf of S. Fourteenth street was not the same man. I guess someone had mistaken Grandpa for the convicted man. 

My Mother remembers that “Grandpa was a gentle man, hard worker, always pleasant to be with.” She said that when he would come home from work, he would change clothes & hang his work clothes in the back hall so the smell wouldn’t get inside the house. I expect the smell was from formaldehyde, which was used in the tanning process. In fact, I remember as a child rummaging through old “formaldehyde barrels” that he had used for storage. Looking back, it may not have been a good idea to reuse those barrels for personal storage.

Mom remembers Granny as being “kind, gentle, pleasant, submissive, usually doing something in the kitchen wearing an apron or working in the garden.” She would walk a few blocks to the butcher shop & would order weekend breakfast coffee cake from a local German bakery.

She also told me that Granny didn’t write much and may have been embarrassed by her lack of education. We have only this one note in her handwriting.

The couple started traveling some as they got older. In 1955 they took a “Happiness Tours” trip to New York where they visited Niagara Falls and New York City. They managed to visit their daughter, Lucille’s family in Missouri when the family was stationed there with the U.S. Army. Lucille and her two daughters would also sometimes stay with Herman and Amanda if they were not able to move with Lucille’s husband, John Chvarack.

They celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in 1956.

Herman retired in 1958.

On March 18, 1961, The Sheboygan Press reported that Herman & Amanda were traveling to visit their daughter Lucille Chvarack and family in Frankfurt, Germany. They planned to spend the summer in Europe. While there they planned to visit Holland, Paris, Garmisch, Berchtesgaden & other tourist attractions.

Here they are in front of the apartment  complex where they were visiting. 

They did manage to tour the country, however, the trip did not quite go as they expected. The Sheboygan Press reported on July 19, 1961 that Amanda had a “serious heart attack” while in Germany and was hospitalized at an American hospital. She was to stay in the country for four more months for recovery. The Press also included a mailing address for her in Germany. She did recover from that event and they eventually returned home. 

They spent their 50th wedding anniversary in 1966 with family in San Antonio, TX. Their daughter and family had returned to the U.S. by then and they had two great-grandchildren as well. I remember that Granny and Grandpa would visit us wherever we lived in the U.S.

Amanda died in Sheboygan June 20, 1973 from heart failure. Soon after this, Herman sold the house and moved to Salinas, California to live with his daughter & granddaughter, Lois (1947-1991). I remember visiting them & he always had gum or candy for us if we behaved in church. He liked to laugh & tap us playfully with his cane to get our attention. He spent the rest of his life in California, where he died April 19, 1983 from a stroke. He and Amanda are entombed at the Garden Terrace Mausoleum in Sheboygan. 

© MJM 2026

I was going through and scanning the many piles of photographs from my maternal side of the family and came across this picture:

At first I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on in the scene. Taking a closer look, I see that the men are standing at the bank of a river and the one on the left with the guitar is sitting on a boat. Looks like there is a tent on the right side of the frame. Then, looking even closer, I noticed that there were three turtles hanging from the cross bar.

And there is what looks like a cooking pot sitting on logs behind the turtle on the right.

So what is this all about? Did people really catch turtles? Were they going to make turtle soup?

First, to set the location. Most of my maternal ancestors lived in Sheboygan, WI. The Sheboygan River runs through the city. I figured I would try to find out if there were any newspaper articles about catching turtles in Sheboygan.

Using Newspapers.com, I found that indeed, people did catch turtles in the Sheboygan River. There were a few references in the Sheboygan Press. A notice from July 9, 1909 stated that turtle season was now open & some large turtles had been caught “up stream.” It stated that “young men enjoy fishing” for the turtles & “Mr. Kempf has purchased 4 large ones which he will serve to his trade on Saturday night.” The next year, on April 22, 1910, there was an advertisement from Kempf’s that said a “Big Turtle Caught. Come and have the first Turtle soup of the Season at Kempf’s.” Another article in 1910 tells of some “turtle fishers” catching a 37 pound turtle in the Sheboygan river. In November 1921, instead of fishing, they were shooting mud turtles off the branches of trees.

There was another article in November of 1947 telling of a man who caught turtles and sold them to customers in New York. He said that snapping turtles would eat the fish in the streams and clearing out the turtles from the streams would improve the trout fishing. Instead of fishing for turtles, he would wade into the shallows and when a turtle was disturbed, he would “clamp a booted foot down on the turtle’s back, hook the prongs of his steel rod under the snapper’s back and lift it up to see which end is which.” Once the hunter determines which is the tail end, he grabs the turtle by the hind leg or tail to pick it up to put in the sack. He seemed to have a lucrative business, selling thousands of pounds of turtles a year.

The Milwaukee Public Library Digital Collection Historic Recipe File includes a recipe for Turtle Soup that was published in the Milwaukee Journal on April 4, 1964. The ingredients for this version of Turtle Soup were peas, carrots, celery, onion, barley, tomato pulp, egg dumplings. The seasoning for the soup included garlic, parsley, bayleaf, salt, pepper and sherry. Cooked turtle meat was added to these ingredients to make the soup. The recipe also includes quite detailed instructions for preparing & cooking turtle. Snapping turtles were the preferred variety over mud turtles which were considered too small. Preparing the turtle seemed like a labor-intensive process.

So, back to the picture. It doesn’t look like these young men had been wading in the water to make their catch. My guess is they used the boat and baited hook and line to catch the snapping turtles.

Looks like they were having a good day of it. Also noted in the picture, almost every one of them is holding a glass of beer. The beer keg is in the foreground of the picture. So I expect they were celebrating a good catch and looking forward to a good meal & a good time with their buddies.

Unfortunately, there was no information with the picture so I cannot identify any of the young men. If they are related to me, they are either of the Chvarack, Beiersdorf or Steinhaus lines. Maybe someday I’ll be able to figure out who they are.

I hope they enjoyed their turtle soup.

©MJM 2022

While most of the early ancestors on Dad’s side of the family were primarily hard-working farmers, those on Mom’s side of the family were factory workers.

They immigrated from Germany and Croatia and settled in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Sheboygan was a factory town on the shore of Lake Michigan.

So for Labor Day, I figured I would recognize these workers in the family.

First, going back in time: Mom’s parents were Lucille Beiersdorf (1920-2011) & John Chvarack (1916-1967 ). Lucille’s parents were Amanda Steinhaus (1894-1973) & Herman Beiersdorf (1895-1983). John’s parents were Mary Siprak (1876-1960) & Steve Chvarack (1872-1938).

US Census records from 1900 have my great-great grandfather, August Beiersdorf, working as a Coal Handler; his 18 year old son, Fred, was a Band Sawyer; and his 15 year old son, August, was a Factory Hand.

By 1910, August, Sr. had died. His son, Fred still worked as a Sawyer in a Chair Factory, August worked as a Cabinet Maker in a Furniture Factory, son William, 23, was a House Painter, son Albert, 17, worked in a Chair Factory, son Herman (my G-grandfather) at 16 years old was working as a Wood Turner in a Chair Factory.

Based on US Census Records in 1900 &1910, Otto Steinhaus, my great-great grandfather, worked in a chair factory. In 1910, his sons, Walter, 19 & Willie, 14, also worked in a chair factory. His daughters, Martha, 16 & Amanda, 14, (my G-grandmother) worked at sewing in a glove shop.

1n 1910, 1920 and 1930, Steve Chvarack shows up working in a chair factory. He died in 1938. In 1920, his son, Joseph, age 22, was working in a chair factory, & son, George, 20, worked as a shoemaker in a shoe factory.

Seems like it wasn’t until my Grandparent’s generation, the “Greatest Generation”, that children stayed in school at least through High School.

Great Grandpa Herman Beiersdorf retired from Armour Leather Company after 25 years in 1958, but as mentioned earlier, he started working at age 16.

Grandpa John Chvarack worked at a Tannery in 1940. Later, he made a career in the Army

I asked Grandma, Lucille, why she chose to go to Sheboygan Business College. She said she didn’t want to go to college and got a job at a factory where they knit stockings. Said she learned how to “hold your stocking here and go this way and that way and make perfect stitches.” She said she lasted 10 days & then enrolled in the business college. The business education came in handy later when she had to support herself after John’s death.

So there we have a few of the early jobs my maternal ancestors had. Many of them stayed with those factory jobs through their entire lives. Hard to imagine the working conditions in the early 1900’s.

©MJM 2016