ROOTS - In Europe

Our Great-Grandparents in Europe
Great-Great-Grandfather Kellenberger
Great-Great-Grandfather Kellenberger

All of our ancestors came to this country from central Europe at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. When you look at the table of immigration information you will notice a couple of interesting things. First, the families came over in order: Kellenbergers, Novaks, Snobls, and then Tschopps. Second, Novaks, Snobls, and Tschopps came over as family units while Emil Conrad Kellenberger and Clara Maria Schoenfelder came over separately and met in Iowa.

This section contains the information - stories and photos - that I have been able to find that documents our great-grandparents lives before they came to this country.

It can be of interest to consider some of the issues facing our great-grandparents as they weighed their options for migrating to the United States. Great-Grandmother Clara Maria (Schoenfelder) Kellenberger, for example, immigrated in 1880 as an infant. That is a mere 15 years after General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Her future husband, Emil Conrad Kellenberger, arrived 15 years later in 1895.

The Novaks, Snobls and some of the Tschopps immigrated in the decade preceding World War I. This period was characterized by a build-up of arms and the creation of two opposing coalitions, France, Russia and Britain allied against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalist, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, ultimately leading to "the war to end all wars" which ended in November, 1918.

This period also included the 1918 influenza pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920; colloquially known as Spanish flu). An unusually deadly influenza pandemic involving H1N1 influenza virus, it infected 500 million people around the world, including people on remote Pacific islands and in the Arctic. Probably 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million (three to five percent of Earth's population at the time) died, making it one of the deadliest epidemics in human history.

Grandfather Joseph Snoble served in the Army in WWI (see “In Uniform”) but other than that I found no other direct references to either of these events in the documents I had from various family members. However, it is hard to believe that the decisions made by our ancestors were not affected by these global events.

Great-Grandparents Friedrich & Anna Maria (Ammann) Tschopp
Friedrich Tschopp - Anna Marie Ammann Wedding
Friedrich Tschopp - Anna Marie Ammann Wedding (October 1, 1883)
Fullinsdorf, Switzerland
Fullinsdorf, Switzerland
Fullinsdorf, Switzerland, 1960
Fullinsdorf, Switzerland, 1960 (Arrow points for Fritz Tschopp house)
Tschopp Churchin Ziefen
Tschopp Church in Ziefen
Flag for Basel Canton
The Flag of Basel Canton in Switzerland
Friedrich Tschopp son of Friedrich and Anna Tschopp
Friedrich Tschopp son of Friedrich and Anna Tschopp
Rosalie Tschopp daughter of Friedrich and Anna Tschopp
Rosalie Tschopp daughter of Friedrich and Anna Tschopp
Reinhart Tschopp son of Friedrich and Anna Tschopp
Reinhart Tschopp son of Friedrich and Anna Tschopp
Anna Tschopp daughter of Friedrich and Anna Tschopp
Anna Tschopp daughter of Friedrich and Anna Tschopp
Theodor Tschopp
Theodor Tschopp
Theodor Tschopp
Theodor Tschopp

 

Great-Grandparents Frank & Maria (Neshvera) Snobl

Great-Grandmother Maria Nesvera was born on October 3, 1857 in Cerveny Kostelec, Bohemia in what was then a part of Austria. Maria could read, write and speak both German and Czech. Little more is known of her early life and family other than she had two sisters and two brothers.

Frantisek Snobl was born on March 31, 1862 in Maly Ujezd, Bohemia and he had one sister and two brothers. It is believed that he spent at least two years in military service. His parents were John Snobl and Mary Hendrick Snobl and they live in the same village of Maly Ujezd which is located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Prague. Frantisek was said to have sometimes traveled to Prague to make a living. One task that it is thought he performed was the repair of pots and other cooking utensils.

Maria Nesvera married Frantisek Snobl on November 25, 1884 in Bohemia.

All nine of Frantisek and Marie Snobl’s children were born in Maly Ujezd. The oldest child James (Vasclav) was born in 1886. The second child, Marie was born in 1888 and the third child, Anna born in 1889 was probably buried in the Catholic Cemetery in Maly Ujezd after she died in infancy in 18i91. The fourth child, Frank A. was born in 1891, the fifth child, Bessie (Bozena) was born in 1893 and the sixth child, Julia was born in 1895. The seventh child, Josef was born in 1897, while the eighth child born in 1900 was given the same name Anna as the third child who died in infancy. The ninth and final child was Antonin born in 1903.

Frantisek’s father, John Snobl, died in 1905 at the age of 96 and his mother, Mary Hendrick Snobl, died two years later in 1907 also at the age of 96. It is assumed that they are buried in the Catholic Cemetery in Maly Ujezd.

Great-Grandparents Joseph & Rosalie (Karban) Novak

Great-Great-Grandfather Vaclav Novak was born in 1814 in Kluky, Cechy, (Bohemia). His mother’s surname was Lizar. She was a daughter of a French soldier who had remained behind in Cechy when Napoleon returned to France from Russia after the disaterous Napoleonic War of 1812. Vaclav was a big husky man. At the time of his birth the village close to the city of Podybrady was in the district of Caslav of Cechy, a kingdom and crownland of Austria Hungary. Like most of the country people he was a serf and had to work certain days of the week for his Lord. As a boy he was employed as a bank messenger and was dressed as a tramp and carried a wooden cane for self-defense. He had no specific trade but was a capable handy man and could do all the work in the fields. He could thatch roofs and do other building and repairs. He knew how to prune trees and had grapes, walnuts, pears, apples, and other fruit trees in his garden. There were no schools for the common people at that time, so Vaclav never learned to read or write.

Vaclav died in 1884 at the age of 70 of natural causes. Vaclav had been married three times. Great-Great-Grandmother Anna Horackova, a petite lady, was the third wife of Vaclav Novak. She was born in Podebrady, Cechy (Bohemia) in 1824 and died in 1880 of small-pox.

Joseph Novak, our Great-Grandfather, the son of Vaclav Novak and Anna (Horackova) Novak was born March 13, 1866 in Kluky, Cechy, (Bohemia). Little Joseph was a sickly child; his parents had been at an advanced age when he was born (Anna was 42 and Vaclav 52). Whatever his problem was his mother said he owed his life to the medical service a Prussian Army doctor.

Joseph, like all boys, was a mischievous child. He would take his meal in a cup, climb a tree and eat it up there like a squirrel. In their home, close to the ceiling, they had an open ventilator. Joseph would catch sparrows, push them through the ventilator and they would fly all through the house. The family had an apple orchard and Joseph was told not to give the good apples away to the other boys. He would take a bite out of each apple and then give them away because then they were not good for harvest.

On June 15, 1880, Joseph’s mother went on a holy pilgrimage to Prada (Prague) where she contracted small pox and died at the age of 56. Joseph was locked in his bedroom while the rest of the family attended his mother’s funeral. He was also infected with the small pox but crawled out of his window and went for a swim to cool off. His doctor said only one out of a hundred would have survived the swim in his condition.

Joseph attended school at Podebrady until age 14 when he became an apprentice carpenter. He also worked in the sugar beet fields and the sugar mill. When carpentry work was slack he did odd jobs such as cutting hay with a scythe, digging ditches, etc. He also worked in the woods hauling sand and gravel. A crew of four men would pull a scow several miles up the Elbe River. Three men pulled the scow with a rope along the riverbank while one steered and pushed the scow in the river. They anchored the scow in a suitable spot and loaded it with gravel or sand. When they had loaded 110 cubic meters, they floated the scows back down the Elbe River. They arose as early as 2:30 A.M. to start work so they could return by 3:00 P.M. to where wagons were waiting to haul the sand or gravel to the work site.

Joseph enjoyed the early morning treks. To him it was a time of nature study with the many birds waking including the enchanting nightingales. Often in the eroded banks the men would find oak logs that had been uprooted and covered by floods centuries ago. The oak was shiny black or a beautiful red and was used for decorative purposes. Because the woodlands were private nobody could pick up any dry wood but the wood at the river bottom was free for the taking and this actually helped clear the river for navigation. Most of the woodlands belonged to Prince Ernest Von Hohenlake whose brother the was chancellor or Prime Minister of Germany. Prince Hohenlake was married to Baroness D. Este of Italy. They resided in the old castle at Podebrady which was over 700 years old. Joseph often worked in the castle as a carpenter to help modernize the interior. It was great castle on level land, protected by the Elbe River, moats, swamps and walls at least 10 feet thick at their base.

Joseph built houses, churches and steeples, barns, lodges and dams wherever construction jobs were available to him. Much of the work was manual including logs that had to be planed by hand for siding. He also built many smaller articles of wood such as water pumps, furniture, cupboards and toys. Carpenters were paid slightly more than common labor. Often on foot, carrying their tools and a week’s worth of food – mostly bread – they traveled to distant places where work was available returning home on weekends.

Joseph attended the village church every Sunday. The concerned women of the church decided that he needed a wife, so they matched him up with Great-Grandmother, Rosalie Karban when she was 19 and he was 23. They were married June 2, 1889 at Libice, Cechy and continued to live in Joseph’s small family home. Eighteen months later, November 11, 1890, Maria was born followed on October 13, 1892 by Anna. When the third child was due Joseph and Rosalie bought a larger home which also allowed them to rent out two of the rooms. Joseph was remodeling the house but before it was completed it burned to the ground.

Rosalie Karban was born October 18, 1870 at Chotanky, Cechy (Bohemia). She was brought up by an aunt as a companion to her two sons. Rosalie worked on the farm and had no formal schooling so could neither read nor write.

Grandmother Rose (Babi) was born in Podebrady, Czechoslovakia, July 26, 1899, the fifth child of Joseph and Rosalie Novak. She was a fat baby; good and healthy. When she was two years old, she nearly drowned in the Elbe River, but her life was not to end so quickly. Hand-in-hand she often guided her maternal grandfather, who was blind.

In 1886 Joseph, like all men at age 20 had to register for military service. It was required that all children be baptized into some church. A record was kept, and this constituted the official birth registration. When a man reached 20 his name was automatically reported for military induction. He reported but the class of 1886 was not inducted. They were told they would be called the following year but even though Joseph reported every year until he left for America 15 years later he was never inducted. It was rumored that money appropriated for this class was misspent and then hushed up.

In 1901 Joseph was 35 ½ and still of military age but since he had never served, he faced having to pay a tax or indemnity to the government. Like many other men, he decided to leave the country without notice. Many of his peers went to Germany for employment since Germany was more industrial than Austria. Their passports throughout Austria, Hungary and Germany were their employment record books which contained their identification, work record and the signatures of their employers.

Great-Grandparents Conrad Emil & Clara Maria (Schoenfelder) Kellenberger
Kellenberger Home in Switzerland
The Kellenberger Home in Switzerland. (The bottom floor is a lace shop.)

In the "Gemeindekanzlei" (district or municipality) of Walzenhausen, Kt. (canton) Appenzell, Switzerland, he was registered as Emil Konrad Kellenberger. When he came to the U.S. in 1890, he used the name Conrad E. Kellenberger. Under this name on 24 October 1895 in the County Court of Livingston County, IL, he filed his intention to become a citizen of the U.S. The county seat of Livingston county is Pontiac, which is approximately 100 miles southwest of Chicago. On October 28, 1897 the Swiss consul in St. Louis, MO, Jacob Buff, and Gustav Niederer signed notarized statements that C. E. Kellenberger had been a resident of the U.S. for at least five years and that they had known him for about eight years. On October 29, 1897, Conrad E. Kellenberger was sworn in as a U.S. citizen before the Honorable W.S. Withrow, Judge of the District Court of Henry County, Iowa.

Kellenberger Family in Switzerland
The Kellenberger family in Switzerland; (L to R) Augusta's daughter Elsie (Beck) Bishof, Augusta's son Freddie Beck, Hanna (Kellenberger) Von Tobel, Rosalie (Kellenberger) Shelker, Augusta's daughter Selma (Beck) Koch, Selma Kriemler, Augusta (Kellenberger) Beck (second marriage Gering), Augusta's son Rudy Gering, Clara (Kellenberger) Claus, Selma (Niederer) Kriemler (second marriage Johann Kellenberger), Frieda Kellenberger, Johann Conrad Kellenberger