G.043.01 - Residence of Mrs Otto Young, Lake Geneva, Wis. (1909)

 

Residence of Mrs Otto Young, Lake Geneva, Wis. (1909)
R.B. Arnold, Lake Geneva, Wis. No 112

To: Mr Gustaf Ekman, Galeton, Box 342, Pa.
From: Gerda (Lake Geneva, Wis, Jul 23, 1909)

Käre bror! Jag är nu på landet, och jag har ej hört någonting från dig på så länge. Jag undrar hur du mår. Jag mår fint. Jag minns ej om jag skref till dig innan jag lemna Chicago, så kanske är min tur. / Här är förtjusande vackert, jag önskade du kunde komma hit. Jag kanhända lemnar här nästa vecka. / Min adr. är c/o Mrs Seipp, Lake Geneva, Wis.

Dear brother, I'm now in the countryside, and I haven't heard from you in so long. I'm wondering how you are. I'm fine. I don't remember if I wrote to you before I left Chicago, so perhaps it's my turn. / It's charmingly beautiful here, I wish you could come here. I might leave next week. / My adress is c/o Mrs Seipp, Lake Geneva, Wis. 

***

So, just like last summer (G.038.01) Gerda is spending some time at Lake Geneva. The address she gives on this card seems to confirm that she was there with the family she worked for in Chicago. Compare an old post of mine from 2012-09-03:  Otto L. Schmidt, Gerda's employer in Chicago 1910.  Dr. Otto Schmidt's wife was Emma Seipp, daughter of Conrad Seipp, a Chicago brewer. 

On a whim, I also googled "Mrs Seipp, Lake Genva, Wis." (... even if that was 112 years ago...) This led me first to a magazine entitled At The Lake - Geneva Lakes Area Magazine, and an article from Nov 20, 2017, entitled In Her Own Words. This article turned out to be about one of the daughters of Otto and Emma, Alma Schmidt Petersen. In 1914, as a young upper-class woman in her early 20s, Alma was travelling in Germany to visit relatives there when WWI broke out; and she kept a journal and wrote letters, which have been preserved and are held at the Newberry Libarary in Chicago. 

This strikes me as quite a remarkable coincidence, as I know that when WWI broke out, Alma's parents' former maid Gerda was in France (and got 'trapped' there during the war). As far as I know, Gerda did not keep a journal (or if she did, I've never heard of it being preserved). But there are some WWI postcards sent from France, which will turn up here later on, if I manage to keep up the blogging.

The same Google search also took me to the website of Wisconsin Historical Society, and a photo of what seems likely to be the very house that the Schmidt family (including their maid Gerda) visited in the summers: Bartholomay House* - built in 1905 for Emma Schmidt's mother, Catherine Orb Seipp. (Follow the link to the website for more details.) 

 

As for the building featured on this postcard, entitled "Residence of Mrs. Otto Young", a search on that takes me to a blog article from 2010 about Otto Young and his stone manor. It seems that Young was another German immigrant who arrived in New York in the 1850s, worked his way up in business, involving jewelry and real estate, and ended up very rich. He had this stone manor built at Lake Geneva, and died there in December 1906. I suppose that after his death the manor came to be known as the residence of his widow, and so named on this postcard.

Really, once again I'm amazed at how much history can be "hidden" in a simple postcard.