Christian Theodore "Ted" Hockemeyer Family

Christian Theodore "Ted" Hockemeyer Family

by: George Hockmeyer

My father, Christian Theodore Hockmeyer, was born in 1877 on a farm near Campbellton, Franklin County, Missouri. When he left school, he left the farm.

Cupples Company was (and still is) a large mercantile firm in St. Louis and my father went to work there when he left Franklin County. After a variety of jobs at Cupples, he was trained as a salesman and sent out on the road to Texas and New Mexico.

In 190? an International Exposition opened in St. Louis and my father attended it. It made a lasting impression on him and he made many references to it. So I believe it was shortly after this that he left Missouri and came South. About this time, my father shortened the spelling of our name from Hockemeyer to Hockmeyer. His brother, Ed, then followed suit.

In 1905, my father met and married Pearl Rothgeb of Las Vegas, New Mexico. They settled in El Paso and my half-sister, Frances, was born there in 1906. Later, they moved to Dallas, where my half-brother, Ted, was born in 1909. Pearl died in 1910, leaving Dad with a four year old girl and an infant boy, and he employed a governess to help raise them.

Around 1915 they left Texas and relocated in Los Angeles, California, where Dad went to work as a salesman for The Sierra Paper Company. It was here that he met my mother's older brother, Alan Dunlop, who had just recently gone to California from Houston, Texas. My mother, Georgie Dunlop, was born in Houston in 1887. The daughter of a newspaper publisher, her family had lived in this city since the 1850s.

In 1908 my mother married Thomas Ariel Andrews, who was from Fountain Inn, South Carolina. He was the manager of the Southwestern Paper Company of Houston. Tom Andrews died in 1916, leaving my mother with a 2 year old girl, Ariel, who became my half-sister.

In 1917 my mother and Ariel made a trip to California to visit her brother, Alan. During their brief stay there, Alan brought my father home to dinner and this is how my parents met. They later married in Houston's St. Paul's Methodist Church in March of 1918 and I was born the following year in Los Angeles. My birth required the deaths of two people. And it was indeed a coincidence that both of my mother's husbands were in the paper business.

During the time we were in California, my mother was always very homesick for her family. So in 1935 my parents, Ariel and I returned to Texas and have been here ever since. Frances and Ted were both grown by this time and remained in California.

Dad never knew much about our family's origins, other than the fact that his father had been brought to a Missouri farm from Germany when he was a small boy. By the time my father was born, the family was speaking mostly English, although many of the older people still preferred German. As an adult, my father remembered a number of German words and phrases but was no longer able to converse in that language. He had never had a formal education in German. My parents frequently talked about making a trip to Europe. Dad was curious to visit Germany and especially Osnabruck, for this is where he said the Hockemeyers were from. But by the time they were able to make such a trip, my Dad had developed a heart condition and was reluctant to stray too far from his doctor. He suffered a fatal heart attack in January of 1954.

After his father's death, George learned much about his ancestors and relatives, and wrote a book about it.
Ned and Ted Ted, Georgie, Dayton
Dad (Dayton Young) thinks that this is Ned and Ted Jr. (George's half brother). Ned Hockmeyer is probably Ted's cousin, but I do not know which cousin was nicknamed Ned.
Ted Hockmeyer Sr. with wife Georgie and nephew Dayton Young. Taken early 1940's in front of Ted's sister's house (Ida Hockmeyer Young) in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

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