FROM BOHEMIA TO OHIO & TEXAS:

OUR LORENZ FAMILIES

By KATHERINE BERTSCH COMPAGNO

COPYRIGHT 2005 By KATHERINE BERTSCH COMPAGNO
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED  

DIE FAMILIE LORENZ 
	Family tradition (via Rosa Heidler Lorenz) tells us that our Lorenz family were originally Alsatian; they came from an area which borders both modern Switzerland and Germany west of the Rhine River. Alsace includes the French towns of Strasbourg and Mullhouse; it is now part of Alsace-Lorraine, a region in northeastern France on the border with Germany. This area’s ownership has been the cause of many wars between France and Germany through the centuries. Circa 400 AD, Teutonic bands drove out the Celtic tribes then living there. Alsace-Lorraine beonged to Austrasia within Charlemagne’s empire, but then became part of central Germany (Alemannia) when his three grandsons divided the empire in 843. The treaty of Verdun gave Francia Media to Lothair (parts of Belgium, Netherlands, western Germany, eastern France, Switzerland and Italy), while Charles received Francia Occidentalis (the core of modern France) and Louis was given all the land east of the Rhine River, from the North Sea down to central Italy. Lothair’s central portion effectively divided parts of France and Germany, which led to a thousand years of warfare. 
	The region remained predominantly German for over seven hundred years; we can imagine our Lorenz forebears were settled on the fertile farmland of the Alsatian plain which stretches along the Rhine River (it now grows wheat, rye, barley and oats). Or perhaps they lived in the Vosges Forest and Mountain region near the Bruche River, whose slopes are today dotted with vineyards which produce both white and red wines. Or perhaps our Lorenzes were merchants; the Rhine River valley was a major medieval transportation corridor, with wine and other products being carried north on the Rhine to the North Sea markets with England, Sweden and Denmark. 
	During these centuries, skirmishes and wars continued between the French and Germans. During the 1500’s, France gradually gained control of the area. By the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1638, France had Alsace and Lorraine; many ethnic Germans left the area while others stayed (which set the stage for future conflicts and two eventual ‘World Wars’ in the 1900’s). This is perhaps when our Lorenz families left Alsace in search of a more hospitable German-speaking area. They may have moved gradually over several generations, sampling different places, or they may have moved directly to the area then called Bohemia, which is now the Czech Republic. Germans had lived for centuries in Bohemia, but they kept their separate language, culture and identity. It is an area which 
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became known during the 1930’s as the Sudetenland, or the German ‘Southeast’, when the presence of Germans became Hitler’s pretext for invasion and annexation. 
	Ken Meter tells the earlier story in Border People, the Böhmisch, 
		“The German presence was minor until 973 when the Catholic Church put Prague under the archbishop of 	Mainz. Missionary Catholics then brought more and more Germans into Bohemia, trying to bolster the influence 	of the church. German merchants set up shop in several Bohemian commercial centers in the tenth century. 	Families of farmers and craftsmen migrated to border zones from the 1100’s to the 1700’s. In Bohemia’s Golden 	Age under Karel IV (from 1346 to 1378), Germanic settlements became important even though the majority of 	the population was Czech. Germans were viewed as valuable settlers by a manorial lord who sought to increase 	his tax base. They worked diligently. . . At times entire communities were imported.
		“An unusual deal was cut. The Germans were invited to settle the border and were granted freedom. Simply 	by populating these remote lands they brought stability to the border. . . Fluent in German, they could keep their 	ears tuned to changing political winds in the German territories. . . They could watch for invading troops . . . or 	potential smugglers. They were given free land to till and were exempt from robot, obligatory feudal service.” 
	The Thirty Years’ War had begun in 1618 with a Bohemian revolt, and this area shared in the general European devastation caused by the lengthy religious war. Fifty percent of the German population died from famine, disease or war during this conflict; industry, trade routes, markets and farming were all shattered. Towns were destroyed and culture suffered. War’s end in 1638 began a time of rebuilding; many moved in search of new beginnings. 
	In 1628, Bohemian King Ferdinand II had authorized the use of the German language and required conversion to Roman Catholicism. Many of the Protestant Ultraquists and Lutheran Bohemians left the area rather than convert. Wars continued and the populace bore the additional financial burden of defending the borders against the French and the Turks. During the 1700’s, Bohemia was eventually absorbed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Taxation continued for aristocratic courts and buildings. From 1740 to 1780, Empress Maria Theresa ruled Bohemia with the Hapsburg Empire. A gradual transition from the manorial system gave full ownership of land to the peasants. New agricultural methods were introduced, which increased productivity. 
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	This is when we find the earliest documentation for our Lorenz ancestors, a wedding in 1789. These documents were researched in 1990 by a professional genealogist at the archives in Plzen; PhDr. Vladimír Bystricky CSc was hired via the Czechoslovakian embassy in Washington DC. His report was written in Czech, and the records that he found in the old German parish registers were written in the German language (these have been translated by Kathy Bertsch Compagno and Judith Lightner Baker). PhDr. Bystricky also correlated the names of the old German villages and parishes with those of their modern Czech equivalents, which enabled us to easily find them on modern maps (and confirmed the earlier work done by Hugh and Kathy Bertsch). The towns are all in the northwestern area of the modern Czech Republic. Picture a triangle formed by drawing one line north and another line west of Karlovy Vary (formerly Karlsbad), whose hypoteneuse is the modern border between Germany and the Czech Republic. Within that triangle you will find our ancestral villages, in the political region now called West Bohemia. 
	In 2004, research at the Pilsen Archives commissioned by Glenn Allen Nolen established a link between the ancestors of his family in Texas and our ancestral Lorenzes in this area. This work was done by Christine Obermeier, Familien Geschichts Forschung, Haus-und Hofchroniken, Wasenmeistereien in Westböhmen; family history research in West Bohemia. Several towns were named Schönlind in old Bohemia; ours was Schönlind bei Heinrichsgrün, which is now called Krásná Lípa near Jindrichovice. Nolen’s website, Benner, Gotthardt, Hagelgans & Lorenz Genealogy, gives precise map coordinates for some of our ancestral villages: 
	The area of Schönlind 83.3 miles WNW of Prague includes these towns in the Czech Republic: Rothau, coordinates - 5018 1235, 1.9 miles SW of Schönlind, coordinates - 5019 1237; Ptaci (Vogeldorf), coordinates - 5020 1238, 1.4 miles NNE of Schönlind, coordinates - 5019 1237; Graslitz, coordinates - 5020 1231, 4.6 miles WNW of Schönlind, coordinates - 5019 1237; Neudek, coordinates - 5020 1245, 6 miles E of Schönlind, coordinates - 5019 1237; and NeuHammer, coordinates 5022 1244, 6.2 miles NE of Schönlind, coordinates - 5019 1237. 
	Nolen states, “Schönlind, 83.3 miles WNW of Prague, was first mentioned in 1508 and Vogeldorf 1555 in connection with the founding of a glass-hut or glass manufacturing facility. The village around the glass-hut was developed later. Schönlind was a very small dominion headed by a tribe of the Schlick family.” 
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	The villages lie within the hills of the Ore Mountains, called Krusné Hory by Czechs and Erzgebirge by Germans. The hills rise to an elevation of more than 2,500 feet and contain large deposits of coal and uranium ore (other metals, such as silver, nickel, lead, copper, cobalt blue smalt glass, tungsten, tin and iron, were more important during the 1600’s and 1700’s). Keilberg, now Klínovec, is the highest peak, reaching 1244 meters; it offers stunning vistas of surrounding valleys and mountains. Gottesgab (now Bozí Dar) is the highest village at 1028 meters; both places are in St. Joachimsthal Bezirk, now Jáchymov District. 
	A German Genealogy website for the Sudetenland area states that despite a harsh climate (much appreciated by wintertime ski enthusiasts) and meager soil, farming reaches up to 1,000 meters in elevation, although the harvests are not bountiful. Many in the Erzgebirge were dependent on cottage industries for their income, such as Holzspielwaren, wooden toys; Spitzenklöppeln, pillow lace work; Sticken, embroidery; Musikinstrumente, musical instruments; and others. The Erzgebirge remained a mainly agricultural area until the 1800’s (with pockets of mining and smelting), when the industrial revolution encouraged large scale manufacturing and mining industries and the construction of roads and rail lines. 
	The Sudetenland German Genealogy website also has a timeline of various natural disasters and military occupations beginning in the 1500’s; we can only imagine the suffering of our forebears as they endured these events. 
1542: Plague in the Upper Erzgebirge Mountains; Pest. 
1551/1552: Several earthquakes and renewed epidemic of Plague; Erdbeben. 
1561: 88 children died in one children’s hospital; Kinderkrankheit. 
1561/1562 &1581: Many men froze to death during an especially harsh winter. 
1562, 1567, 1582, 1589, 1607: The Hungarian Plague; die Ungarische Pest. 
1590: Drought. Strong earthquake; many died under collapsing buildings. 
1593: The Turkish Tax was levied on cities and landowners, to help Vienna repel the siege of the Turkish invaders; Türkensteur um die Belagerung Wiens. 
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1597: Drought and forest fires in Erzgebirge mountains; Dürre, Waldbrände. 
1607: Another disease epidemic; over 200 people died in the Platten area. 
1608: Another cold winter; danger from wolves close to towns; Wolfsgefahr. 
1612: Wars come closer, with the occupation by Mansfeld Troops [they were remnants of a Protestant Army during the Thirty Years’ War, remembered mostly for their vicious and widespread plundering]; von Truppen besetzt. 
1617: Another drought caused famine and high inflation; Teuerung. 
1622: The Protestants were expelled at the Battle of the White Mountains. 
1626: Renewed heavy plague and epidemics; Schwere Pestepidemie. 
1632/1633: Croatian Troops under General Holk came to settle the Erzgebirge Mountains, especially at Neudek and Bärringen; Kroatische Truppen suchen heim. 
1635: Spanish troops were quartered in the Platten District, which was nearly as bad as a plundering; Die Einquartierung war fast so schlimm wie eine Plündering. 
1640: Swedish troops occupied the area; most of the people fled to the forests; die Bevölkerung flieht größtenteils in die Wälder. 
1651: All Lutherans were ordered to leave the country. Many of those from the cities emigrated to Saxony until 1676; Reformationspatent. 
ca1670: Decades after the end of the Thirty Years War, the mining industry revived in the Erzgebirge area; Bergbau wird allmänlich wieder aufgenommen. 
1758: During the Seven Years War, Prussians were captured near Neudek.
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1843: Central Committee established for promotion of gainful employment of Bohemian Erzgebirge and Reisengebirgs Inhabitants under Richard von Dotzauer; Zentralkomittees zur Förderung der Erwerbstätigkeit der böhmischen bewohner. 
1849: Hereditary subservience and patronage jurisdiction was abolished; Aufhebung der Erbuntertänigkeit und der Patronatsgerichtsbarkeit. 
1858/59 : Famine, typhoid fever epidemic; Hungersnot, Typhusepidemie. 
	Nolen has collected records of various Lorenz families in nearby areas. No links have yet been documented to our Lorenz family, but the records are shown here as they are posted at his website in hopes of encouraging further research. 
LORENZES FROM SCHOENLIND (NOW KRASNA LIPA) & NEARBY TOWNS 
MATTHES LORENZ from Bockau, Saxony, Germany was born circa 1440 having numerous descendants who lived at Vogeldorf, Czech Republic, which is 15.2 miles S of Bockau. 
JOSEF LORENZ, the son of THOMAS LORENZ, was christened on 3 May 1549 in Grünhain, Zwickau, Saxony, which is 19.1 miles NNE of Vogeldorf, Czech. 
MICHAEL LORENTZ was born circa 1634 in Neugruen, Falkenau, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria. MICHAEL LORENTZ and his wife had a son: PHILIP LORENTZ, christened 14 October 1660 in Neugrün, Falkenau, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria. Ober Neugrün and Unter Neugrün (Lower and Upper) were 4.7 miles S of Schönlind, which was 83.3 miles WNW of Prague. Falkenau was 9.2 miles S of Schönlind. 
MARTIN LORENZ, son of JOHANN LORENZ, married ANNA WERNER, daughter of WOLFGANG WERNER of Werth, on 15 Nov 1667 in Gossengrün, Bohemia (Krajkova). Gossengrün is located 9.2 miles SSW of Vogeldorf. MARTIN LORENZ and ANNA WERNER had the following children who were born in Plumberg, Bohemia: 1. JOHANN LORENZ born on 7 Oct 1668; 2. BALTHASAR LORENZ born 21 Jan 1670; 3. GEORG LORENZ born 15 Feb 1672; 4. MATTHAUS LORENZ born 3 Oct 1674; 5. EVA MARIA LORENZ born 19 Feb 1676; 
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6. SUSANNA MARIA LORENZ born 18 Nov 1677; 7. SIMON LORENZ born 4 March 1679 married SUSANNA MAYER on 30 Oct 1708 in Gossengrün and died 17 Feb 1753 in Hartenberg, Bohemia, at the age of 73; 8. ANNA LORENZ born 27 Dec 1681. 
ANDREAS LORENTZ married MARIA SCHUERER, born in Doglasgrün, Elbogen, Boehmen, on 2 NOV 1664 at Lanz, Falkenau, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria. Doglasgruen is 6.5 miles SSE of Vogeldorf. 
JOSEPH LORENTZ was christened on 4 May 1718 in Prausnitz, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria the son of FREIDRICH LORENTZ and his wife MARIA. 
ANNA MARIA LORENZ was born about the year 1722 in Griesbach, Elbogen, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria marrying JOHANN MODER about 1743 at Griesbach, Elbogen, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria. Griesbach was 4.5 miles SE of Schönlind. 
FRANZ LORENZ was born circa 1769 in Neudorf, Graslitz, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria marrying MARIA ANNA KEILWERTH, circa 1794 in Neudorf.
	The following records are much closer to our ancestral villages; although we are probably related, the link has not been documented: 
SUSANNA LORENTZ was born circa 1659 in Scheft, Neudek, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria. Scheft was 2.5 miles ESE of Schönlind, and Neudek was 6 miles E of Schönlind. 
ANNA MARIA LORENTZ was born circa 1697 in Schönlind, Neudek, Boenmen, Austria. Nejdek (Neudek) is 5.1 miles E of Vogeldorf. 
JOHANN LORENTZ was born circa 1716 in Schönlind, Neudek, Boehmen. Nejdek (Neudek) is 5.1 miles E of Vogeldorf. 
JOHANN LORENZ of Nejdek and his wife had a child JOSEPH GEORG LORENZ born circa 1750 at Schönlind, Nejdek. JOSEPH married KATHARINA RUDERT on 6 Nov 1775. Nejdek (Neudek) is 5.1 miles E of Vogeldorf. 
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JOHANN CAROLUS LORENTZ of Schönlind, Neudek, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria married MARIA ELISABETH HOYER of Rothau, Graslitz, Boehmen, on 29 April 1749 in Henrichsgruen, Graslitz, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria. 
ANTONY LORENTZ born circa 1740 in Schönlind, Neudek, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria married ANNA MARIA PLECHSCHMID on 4 February 1766 in Rothau, Graslitz, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria. ANNA MARIA PLECHSCHMID was born about the year 1744 in Rothau, Graslitz, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria. 
JOSEPH ANTON LORENZ, born circa 1814 in Schönlind, Neudek, Boehmen, Koenigreich, Austria, married KATHARINA OBENDOERFER circa 1839 in Waldl, Falkenau, Boehmen. Waldl is 6.9 miles S of Vogeldorf. 
FRANZ XAVER LORENZ was christened on 27 Nov 1852 in Scheft, Neudek, Boehmen, the child of JOSEPH KARL LORENZ and THERESIA ROSSMEISSL. 
JOSEF LORENZ
HAUSWIRT AUS VOGELDORF
	Our earliest known ancestor Josef Lorenz, “Hauswirt aus Vogeldorf”, house owner at Vogeldof, is only known to us from the marriage records of his two children, a son and daughter. The elder Josef Lorenz was already deceased by 1789, when his son Josef Lorenz, aged twenty years, married Anna Maria Franziska Rudolf at Schifferhütten, a village within the parish of Frühbuß. Unfortunately, we do not know the name of the elder Josef’s wife; the mother of his children was not named in their wedding records. 
	Vogeldorf was a small town located about two kilometers from Schönlind bei Heinrichsgrün; the 1930 German census counted 364 inhabitants with a school and a mill. The major industry then was the Rothau-Schindelwald Iron Works, while others worked at a glove factory in Frühbuß, a lathe works for mother of pearl (Perlmuttdreherei, which probably made buttons), or forest work, Waldarbeit. Some made Klöppelei, pillow lace, which was one of the local cottage industries, while still others (surprisingly!!) bred canary birds (die Kanarienvogelzucht). An area of Vogeldorf called Mühlhäuser dates from a glassworks established there in 1555. The Schlick brothers, lords at Heinrichsgrün, permitted Georg Reckenzagel and Melchior Ditrich to be glass masters, Glashüttenmeister. The glassworks continued 
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to operate after the Thirty Years’ War, although the Lutheran owner Weidl had emigrated to Saxony to avoid forced conversion to Roman Catholicism. Vogeldorf village developed along the core of the glassworks, entstand das Dorf, and by 1654 the cluster of seven houses was called Vogeldorf. A map dated 1726 put the name Alte Hütte, ‘Old huts’, next to that of Vogeldorf. The town belonged to the manor, Rittergut, of Schönlind, and is called Ptací in the Czech language. Although a German Genealogy website for Sudetenland Orte states that the town no longer exists, der ort nicht mehr existent, the name Ptací can still be seen on a modern map on the northeast edge of Krásná Lípa, while Ptací h. appears on the same map as a hilltop just north of Krásná Lípa. 
	The Nolen documents found another child of the deceased Josef Lorenz, Hauswirt, house owner, at Vogeldorf Number Two. Maria Anna Lorenz, born circa 1766, married the widower Karl Hergeth on 23 June 1795 at Schieferhütten (now Bridlova), Früehbuss Parish (Fary Prêbuz). Karl was Hauswirt, house owner, and day-labourer in Mühlhäusen, aged 51 years. The wedding witnesses were Anton Lorenz, house owner in Vogeldorf, and Johann Hergeth, house owner in Mühlhäusen. Could this Anton Lorenz be Maria Anna’s uncle, standing in for his deceased brother Josef, or was he possibly another brother to Maria? 
JOSEF LORENZ
AND ANNA MARIA FRANZISKA RUDOLF
	On 3 November 1789, at Schieferhütten (now Bridlova), 
		“Brautigam: Lorenz, Joseph, des + Lorenz Joseph Sohn aus Vogeldorf, Alter 20 Jahre, Stand ledig; mit 	Braut: Rudolfin, Franziska, des Rudolf Christoph ehel. Tochter in Mühlhäuseln, Alter 18 Jahre, Stand ledig;” 
		“Bridegroom Josef Lorenz, age twenty, son of Josef Lorenz from Vogeldorf (now Ptací, in the parish of 	Krásná Lípa), married Anna Maria Franziska Rudolf, age eighteen, daughter of Christof Rudolf of Mühlhäusen.” 
	This Mühlhäusen, now called Mlynske Domky, was the old glassmaking area of Vogeldorf (another Mühlhäusen, now Mylnske Chalupy, is found slightly to the north). These towns are close together in an area south of Prêbuz and east of Kraslice (both Vogeldorf and Mühlhäusen appear to have been incorporated within the modern Krásná Lípa town limits). Although a German Genealogy website for Sudetenland Orte states that the town no longer exists, der 
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ort nicht mehr existent, variants of the name remain in the area: Stahlerovy Domky, Anyzovy Domky and Guntrovy Domky. Ptací (which still appears as a hamlet near Schönlind) and Mylnske Chalupy are in low valley plains along the road from Prêbuz to Jindrichovice, while Bridlova is slightly west of Mylnske Chalupy at a higher elevation in a forested area. We do not know why they chose to marry at Schieferhütten; perhaps it was a festive outing to a more scenic location. 
	It is interesting to note that the meaning of the names of the towns did not really change in most cases when Czechoslovakia became a nation after World War I and the Czech language replaced German. For instance, both vogel and ptací mean birds in their respective languages, while Mühlhäusen and Mylnske Domky both translate as small house by a mill, although the Czech Domky is more precise with domkar meaning a ‘crofter’. The OED defines croft as “a piece of enclosed land used for tillage or pasturage, a plot of arable land attached to a house, or a smallholding worked by a tenant”, suggesting the Rudolphs were farmers. 
	We also have the baptismal record for Anna Maria Francisca, dated 2 August 1773 at the Roman Catholic parish of Frühbuß: 
		“Locus: Mühlhäussln Nr. 14; Infans: Anna Maria Francisca; parentes: Ruttolph, Christophorus et Maria 	Susanna uxor”; 
		“Anna Maria was born at Mühlhaussen in house numbered 14, the daughter of Christophorus Ruttolph and 	his wife Maria Susanna.” 
	Frühbuß, now called Prêbuz, is located about five kilometers to the north of Krásná Lípa; with an elevation of 2,924 feet, this is the highest village in that area. The German Genealogy website for Sudetenland Orte states that Frühbuß was founded on the southern side of the western Erzgebirge during the 1300’s (the modern town office displays a coat of arms with the founding year ‘1347’). It belonged to Herrschaft Falkenau, who later ceded the town to Grafen (Count) Schlick. Local mineral resources include tin, tungsten, cobalt, arsenic, bismuth and pitchblende uranium, while blast furnaces are a major industry. Embroidery is a local craft, while pearl buttons are made in a factory founded by the town. In 1869, a huge fire consumed the city hall; many documents and records were lost. 
	The parish includes the hamlets of Frühbuß (Prêbuz), Sauersack (Rolava), Schieferhütten (Brîdlová), Mühlhäuser (Mlynske Domky), Vogeldorf (Ptací), and Hochgarth (Obora). In 1930, the parish counted 2422 Catholics and 113 ‘not Catholics’. In 1552, Graf, Count Viktorin Schlick appointed a Lutheran preacher, Johannes Frentzel from Lösnitz. 
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Another important Protestant minister was Adam Zepfel, who published theological works. The last Protestant minister, Matthäus Betulius, was removed in 1624, during the Counter Reformation, and the parish became Catholic once again. By 1672, 400 Protestants (called Ketzer, heretics) still remained in the parish; Book One of the Parish Records includes the names of 86 Evangelische, Protestant families, while only nineteen had converted to Catholicism. Father Daneil Ignaz Josef Mayer was appointed the Catholic parish priest in 1679; thanks to his eforts, 394 Protestants converted to Catholicism by 1684. Father Mayer later became Archbishop of the Prague Archdiocese. 
	The 1789 wedding record tells us that Josef Lorenz from Vogeldorf was born circa 1769, but without his birth record, we do not know the name of his mother. Josef’s father Josef Lorenz was deceased by 1789. 
	Young Josef and Anna Maria Franciska settled in Vogeldorf, now Ptaci, for that is where their son Franz Wenzel was born circa 1800. The researchers have found no birth records for children of Josef and Anna Maria, but wedding records reveal two siblings for our Franz Wenzel. One Philip Lorenz married circa 1815 at then Schönlind, Bohemia, now Krásná Lípa, Czech Republic; his bride was Maria Anna Moeschel, daguhter of Joseph Moeschel, Hauswirt at Vogeldorf, and Theresia née Schoedl of Schönlind. Their wedding witnesses were Georg Moeschel, Hauswirt at Vogeldorf, and Wenzl Rudolph, Spitzenhändler, lace dealer, from Schieferhütten (perhaps Philip’s uncle or cousin by his mother Anna Maria). Philip and Maria Anna settled in Vogeldorf, where they were still living in 1831 when they served as godparents for the baptism of their nephew Philip (son of Franz Wenzl). In 1831, Philip was a Hauswirt, house owner at Vogeldorf. 
	Circa 1820, one Maria Anna Lorenz married Anton Pleyer at then Schönlind, Bohemia, now Krásná Lípa. Maria Anna was ledig, single, age 19, daughter of Josef Lorenz, deceased farmer of Vogeldorf; her mother Franziska née Rudolph of Muehlhausen was still living at the time of the wedding. Anton, age 24 and single from Kohling (now Milirê, this village is located very close to Krásná Lípa on the road leading to Nejdek), was the son of Andreas Pleyer, bauer, farmer, and Katharina née Ott; both parents were also from Kohling. The German Genealogy website for Sudetenland Orte states a sawmill was the major local industry; Milirê is now part of Sîndelová, or Schindelwald. In 1938, Kohling had 873 inhabitants.
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FRANZ WENZL LORENZ
AND THERESIA SCHOEDL
	We have neither the birth nor the wedding record for young Franz Wenzl Lorenz, but the birth record for his son Philip, dated 23 June 1831, names Franz Wenzl as the legitimate son of Josef Lorenz (Hauswirt, houseowner at Vogeldorf) and Franziska Rudolph from Schieferhütten. Franz Wenzl was Hauswirt, house owner, at Schönlind, and his gebürtig, birthplace was house numbered Two in the village of Vogeldorf, 
		“Vater: Lorenz, Wenzl, Hauswirth im Markt Schönlind, gebürtig aus Vogeldorf Nr. 2, ehel. Sohn des + 	Joseph Lorenz, hauswirths alldort, u. der Franziska geb. Rudolph aus Schieferhütten.” 
	Philip’s birth record also tells us about his mother, Wenzl’s wife, 
		“Mütter: Schödel, Theresia, gebürtig aus Schönlind Nr. 4, ehel. Tochter des Joseph Schödel, 	Tischlermeisters u. Hauswirths allda, u. der Maria Elisabetha geb. Friedl aus Schönlind”; Theresia Schödel born at 	Schönlind number four, legitimate daughter of Joseph Schödel, master carpenter and house owner, and of Maria 	Elisabeth née Friedl. 
	Philip Lorenz was born at house number 74 in his mother’s hometown of Schönlind (now Krásná Lípa, which means beautiful linden tree). This town and parish is about five miles south of Mylnske Chalupy on the road to Jindrichovice; it was first mentioned in 1508 as the location of a manor under Niklas von Globen. The German Genealogy website for Sudetenland Orte states that a quartz deposit in the nearby mountain Hüttenberg was probably the reason for the settlement. In 1512, the town had a mill, a glassworks (called Althütte, the old houses, it operated until the Thirty Years’ War), Zinnseifen (tin or pewter working) and a quartz mine. Since 1618, Schönlind had a school, which existed up until 1945 as a “2-Klassige” School. In 1631, the town received the privilege of a market town (and in fact, our family remembered it as Markt Schönlind). In 1680, plague struck the village, remembered in a pestsage, a legend about the local steward’s family, the Schaffners (unfortunately, the website only mentions the legend with no further details). In 1784, Schönlind became a branch church, filialkirche, of Heinrichsgrün (now Jindrichovice, this nearby larger town now attracts tourists with the Schloß, Castle of Graf, Count Nostitz, which has a schönen Park und Tiergarten, beautiful park and zoo). In 1831 Schönlind became its own parish due to the reorganization of the old 
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Schloßkirche, castle church. In 1938, the parish district included the hamlets Schönlind (Krásná Lípa), Schindlwald (Sîndelová), Kohling (Milirê), Vogeldorf (Ptací) and Hochgarth (Obora, now in Graslitz district). The 1930 census counted 3052 Catholics and 136 ‘not Catholics’ living at Schönlind; the Catholic parish church is dedicated to Heilige Saint Joseph.
	Contour maps show Schönlind surrounded by fields and high meadows or pastures. With the fall of the iron curtain, this area now attempts to attract tourists from western countries (much of the advertising is dual language, in both Czech and German). It has developed several ski resorts, and ‘auto tire chains are sugested in winter’. Pictures of a pension named Modrinka (located in Sindelová, three miles away from Krásná Lípa) show green meadows with evergreen trees; mist low in the valley reveals the next mountain range. A small river winds through the valley. 
	We are fortunate to have two Correspondenz-Karten, postcards from our ancestral village, found recently amongst the postcard collection of Josephine Lorenz Lightner. They were probably sent within a cover envelope, as neither has an address, message nor a postmark to suggest when or by whom they were sent to Ohio. However, even a blank back has information; one of our cards dates from before 1905, when postal rules first allowed a message to be written on the same side with the address. This card shows a black and white photograph of a row of four buildings along the bank of a river or canal; their images are reflected in the water, while we see a small village in the distance with a tall church steeple rising out of the trees. Most of the buildings are large and white with steep gable roofs, while their small windows have no shutters. Some are one story, others are two-story, but all have ‘extra windows’ on the taller sides of the house which suggests the attic area was also used. Farm fields with varying crops are seen behind the houses, with a slight hill slope on one side. Captioned Radfahrerheim, Gruss von Teich bei Schönlind i. Erzgeb. (Place for Bicycle Riders; Greetings from Teich by Schönlind in the Erzbegirge), this postcard was published by Münchener Chromolith Kunstanstalt. 
	Our other postcard, printed by Verlag von Franz Koestler, Neudek, shows black and white photographic views of Schönlind, Unterer Marktplatz, the market square. The smaller image, tucked in the top corner, shows Richter’s Gasthaus ‘Gold. Adler’, Richter’s Inn or Tavern, the ‘Golden Eagle’. We see a large white two-story building, with windows from an extra attic story tucked under the gable roof. A stake fence along the roadway provides some privacy for the inn’s yard. Later in this story, you will see that our Josef Lorenz married Regina Katharina Richter on 3 
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November 1857 at Markt Schönlind. Although Regina’s father Adalbert Richter was a Flaschenmeister, master glass bottle maker, we can imagine that this tavern might have been owned by one of our relatives. 
	The other photo on the postcard shows the Marktplatz, central square in the town, with a wide street that narrows in the distance. A large brick three-story building on the right has a complicated gable roof with several dormer windows. An elderly woman sits on a bench by the front door, while a child stands nearby petting a dog and three other children stand in the Platz. A smaller house nestles next to the larger brick one, and a church tower stands above the trees at the end of the street. Other buildings stand across the street, with steeply pitched gable roofs which would be useful to help shed the winter snowfalls) and dormer windows; captioned arrows point to Schule, school (with long windows and two stories); K.u.K. Post, post office (a small one-story building with a large dormer on the attic level); and Musikschule, the music school (a large one story building with small dormers in the gable roof). Chimneys can be seen on the top roof line for all the buildings. The ‘street’ or Platz area appears to be tamped dirt; the buildings have no sidewalks or front yards to separate them from the Platz, although the large brick building has a side yard with a large deciduous tree. 
	The Nolen documents tell us this Philip had a younger brother named Franz Xaver Lorenz, born on 30 July 1834 at Schönlind. We also know of an older brother, Josef Lorenz, the ancestor to our Lorenz family at Dayton, Ohio; Josef was born 15 April 1827. We know nothing further about Franz Xaver Lorenz, but our Kathryn Lorenz has recently made contact with Glenn Allen Nolen of Texas, who has documented his Lorenz ancestors back to this Philip Lorenz in 1831.

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PHILIP LORENZ 
AND WILHELMINE SCHUERER  
Philip Lorenz was born on 23 June 1831 at 2:00 pm in Schönlind, Bohemia, now Krásná Lípa, Czech Repulic. He is the second documented son of Franz Wenzl Lorenz and Theresia née Schoedl. Philip settled in Schönlind, where he married Wilhelmine Schuerer between 1851 and 1854. Their wedding record has not been found, but they were still single when the first son Franz was born on 13 January 1851; they were married by 25 March 1854, when their second child, Maria, was born. Parish records note that the wedding legitimized their son Franz as well. 
	Wilhelmine was the daughter of Ignatz Schuerer, master shoemaker in Schönlind at number forty, and Anna Theresia née Erhart, also from Schönlind. Ignatz was the son of Andreas Schuerer and Maria Anna née Roedig, while Anna Theresia was the daughter of Joseph Erhard and Maria Anna née Pleyer. 
	Philip and Wilhelmine baptized a total of ten children, of whom five died in infancy. Maria, Josef, Adolf, Theresia and Barbara were all buried during the same year that they were born, while babies Anton and Julia are known only from their baptismal records. But the second baby named Maria did much better; baptized on 19 May 1865, she married Josef Schuerer on 27 May 1890 (as noted in the margin of her baptismal record) and died at age 76 on 2 April 1942. We do not know what happened to her daughter Barbara Lorenz, who was baptized on 5 November 1884 at Schönlind. It is interesting to note the godparents’ names for the various babies, as some appear to be relatives, such as Johanna Lorenz, wife of Venanz Lorenz; Alois Schuerer, home owner and head of district council; Josef Schoedl, teacher; Maria Lorenz, daughter of hauswirt, houseowner at Number Nineteen; and Wilhelmine’s sister Maia Schuerer. Others were probably friends, with surnames such as Roedig, Goetz, Janetschek, Lill and Rossmeissl; most were hauswirt, house owners. 
	Nolen states that Philip apparently died on 9 October 1910 in Bohemia. We do not know when or where Wilhelmine passed away. Their two surviving sons had emigrated to Texas in the United States of America long before, Franz in 1867 and Robert in 1886. Both Franz and Robert settled in Guadalupe County, in south central Texas, where they both married and many of their descendants are still living. 

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FRANZ SCHUERER LORENZ 
AND THERESA HAGEN

	Franz Schuerer Lorenz was born and baptized on 13 January 1851 at Schönlind, Bohemia; both parents were named in his parish baptismal record, and his godmother was his mother’s sister, Maria Schuerer. We next see Franz in 1867, when he emigrated to the United States at the young age of sixteen. His ship Karlshaven arrived on 24 June 1867 at Baltimore from Bremen, Germany. The ship’s manifest states “Fr. Lorenz, Schlosser”, locksmith or machinist, from Schönlind was headed to Cincinnati, Ohio. It is intriguing to note that over twenty years later, when our Dayton Lorenzes emigrated, they first settled in Cincinnati, where they also worked as locksmiths, machinists and safe makers; their father Josef Lorenz (uncle to this Franz Schuerer Lorenz) had worked as a Schlosser in Schönlind, Bohemia. The Erzgebrige Mountains had foundries and smelting works for iron production as early as 1500, which would have easily provided materials for ironworking and lock making. But Franz did not continue as a locksmith in Ohio; he left Cincinnati and settled in Guadalupe County, Texas, as a farmer. 
	Guadalupe County is located east of San Antonio and south of Austin, near New Braunfels; its county seat is Seguin. The Handbook of Texas Online states,
 
		“Guadalupe County is ninety miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico in south central Texas, bordering the San 	Marcos River. . . Over 700 square miles range from flat to rolling terrain, from the Blackland Prairie to the Upper 	Coastal Plain. Vegetation in 	drier areas is primarily mesquite, scrub brush and grasses, with water tolerant 	hardwoods and conifers near creeks. The subtropical climate ranges from 42º in January to 96º in July, with 33 	inches of annual rainfall. 
		“After the Texas Revolution ended in 1836, many Texan veterans were given land in Guadalupe County for 	their military service. A group of former Texas rangers settled in 1838 in the community of Seguin, which 	ultimately became the county seat. German immigrants had settled in northern and western parts of the county 	by 1850, as a result of colonization efforts by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels at nearby New Braunfels, across the 	river in Comal county, [so when Franz arrived ca 1870, there were probably many others who still spoke the 	German language]. In the 1860 census, the primary occupations were stock raising [cattle, hogs and sheep] and 	farming [cotton and corn were major crops]. 
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		“[When Franz arrived, the county] was sufering a severe economic decline after the end of the Civil War 	and throughout the Reconstruction period. Total farm acreage, farm value and livestock value all declined over 50 	percent by the 1870 census [perhaps this facilitated Franz’ eventual purchase of farm land]. The Galveston, 	Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway reached Seguin in 1876, giving easier access to markets. The towns of 	Kingsbury, Marion, McQueeney, Cibolo and Schwetz grew up along the railroad. Area farmers could now sell 	livestock for good prices without the risks involved in extended cattle drives (which had taken cattle to California 	and New Orleans markets before the Civil War). Many farmers imported fencing supplies and heavy ginning 	machinery. Cotton became a major crop for the county, growing from 12,000 acres in 1880 to 100,000 acres by 	the 1900 census, but as the soil depleted and the Great Depression arrived, farmers switched to more corn or to 	livestock such as poultry. 
		“German Americans were the dominant influence in shaping the county’s cultural identity. By the 1880’s, 	more than forty percent of the population was of German descent. Continuing immigration was such that native 	Germans consistently represented about ten percent of the county’s 
	population.” 
	
	The 1880 census shows a Mr. Lorenze (sadly, his given name was not recorded by the enumerator) living in District 72 at Guadalupe County. He was age 30 born in Austria (the empire which controlled Bohemia at that time) of Austrian parents, and was “Farming’. He was a boarder with a widow named F. Cartwright (age 49 and born in Georgia), and her children Lenard and Joanna, both born in Texas. The widow was ‘tending to the farm’. Perhaps this is our Franz. 
	We can assume that Franz wrote encouraging letters back home about his life in Texas, for his brother Robert arrived from Bohemia on 16 April 1886 at the port of New York City on the ship Elbe, with his final destination listed as “Texas”. The following summer, Franz made a momentous decision and filed papers to become a citizen of the United States of America, 

THE STATE OF TEXAS. DISTRICT COURT, COUNTY OF GUADALUPE. 

	Personally appeared, FRANZ LORENZ who declares upon oath that he is the natural born subject of FRANCIS JOSEPH, EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA; that he was born in Schonlin; that he is 36 years of age; 
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that he emigrated to the United States of America and arrived at the port of Baltimore in the State of Maryland on or about the 23rd day of June 1867; that it is his bona fide intention to become a Citizen of the United States and renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign Prince, Potentate, State or Sovereignty whatsoever, and particular any and all allegiance to FRANCIS JOSEPH, EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA; and that he will bear true allegiance to the United States and support the Constitution of the same.
 
FRANZ LORENZ. 

	Sworn to and subscribed before me this 15th day of July 1887; C. L. Arbuckle, Clerk and the seal of the District Court of Guadalupe County, in said State. 

	Notice that his legal name remained ‘Franz’, although in later documents and census records he used the Americanized version ‘Frank’. The following year, after only two years in Texas, his brother Robert also filed papers for citizenship. 
	We next see Franz on 12 March 1888 at the Guadalupe County Courthouse, where he married Theresa Hagen. Census records tell us she was born in Bohemia (or Germany, or Austria, depending on the varying politics through the years) of Bohemian parents who spoke the German language; she immigrated circa 1887. Theresa’s death certificate from 1945 states that her parents were Andrew Hagen and Annie née Lorenz, but we do not know if this Annie Lorenz might be related to our Lorenz family. Both Andrew and Annie were ‘born in Austria’. 

MARRIAGE LICENSE - THE STATE OF TEXAS - COUNTY OF GUADALUPE. 

	To any Regularly Licensed or Ordained Minister of the Gospel, Jewish Rabbi, Judge of the District or County Court, or any Justice of the Peace in the State of Texas - Greetings: You are hereby authorized to Solemnize the Rites of Matrimony Between Mr. FRANK LORENZ and THERESA HAGN and make due return to the Clerk of the County Court of said County within Sixty days thereafter, certifying your action under this License. Witness my Official Signature and Seal of office, at office in Seguin, Texas, the 21st day of February 1887(8). A. E. WILSON, Clerk of the County Court, Guadalupe County, Texas. 

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	I, J. W. WEST Certify that on the 12th day of March 1887(8), I united in marriage Mr. FRANK LORENZ and Miss 
THERESA HAGN the parties above named. Witness my hand this 12th day of March 1887(8). J. W. WEST. 

	Returned and filed for record 14 March 1887(8), and recorded the 14th day of March 1887(8). Deputy A. E. WILSON, County Clerk. 
	
	We have no census records for 1890 in Texas, but Draft Registration Cards filled out ca 1917 and 1918 for the ‘World War’ tell us that Frank and Theresa were living in York Creek in October 1888 and September 1890, when Robert and Sidney, their first two sons, were born. The Handbook of Texas Online explains,
 
		“York Creek, also known as York Creek Ridge, was located on a hill above the intersection of York 	Creek 	and Farm Road 20, about thirteen miles northeast of Seguin in Guadalupe County. In its early years, the town 	centered around a school built in 1854 by German immigrants. York Creek Post Office opened in 1886, and in 	1890 the town had a grocery store, a general store, a cotton gin, and twenty-five inhabitants [four of these 	inhabitants would be our Lorenz family]. Two gins were in operation by 1896. The post office closed in 1906.” 

	Their next son Frank was born in 1892 in ‘Guadalupe County’, while Louis was born in Kingsbury, Texas, in 1894. The Draft Registration Card for the last son, Helmuth, states he was born in ‘Texas’ with no further details. 
	Frank and Theresa continued to live in Guadalupe County; the 1900, 1910, and 1920 census records show them living in Precinct Seven, which in 1920 was further described as “Kingsbury”. Recall this was one of the towns which began along the Galveston-San Antonio railroad line, with a post office opening in 1875.
 
		“The townsite was laid out in 1876. By the mid-1880’s, Kingsbury had a steam gristmill, cotton gin, general 	store, church, district school, and a population of 130. By 1904 [when Frank and Theresa first settled there], the 	population had risen to 346. Cotton was the leading product of the area during the late nineteenth and early 	twentieth centuries [when Frank was farming]; oil became important when Gander Slu and Darst Creek oilfields 	came in during the 1920’s.” 

	The 1900 census finds Frank age 49 and Theresa age 37 at home with six children (Robert age 11, Sidney age 9, Frank age 7, Louis age 5, Emma age 3, and Helmuth age 1); seven children had been born to Theresa, so one had 

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sadly died in childhood. They had been married for twelve years, and both were born in Austria of Austrian parents. Frank was a farmer who owned his farm with a mortgage; he had come to the U.S. in 1867 and was a naturalized citizen. Their eldest son Robert, age 11, was working as a farm laborer. Frank’s brother Robert seems to have lived nearby, as he was recorded as a farmer on the same census page. 
	In the 1910 census, Frank age 59 and Theresa age 46 were at home with six of their seven surviving children; Clara age 7 had joined the family, but Robert (age 21 and single) was living by himself and working as a farm laborer. The records show that Theresa had nine children total, so another baby had sadly died during the previous decade. Sidney age 19 was a laborer ‘working out’ for wages, while all the other children at home, from Frank age 17 to Clara age 7, were working as Laborers on their Home Farm. Frank was a General Farmer, and he still owned his farm with a mortgage. The children were all born in Texas, and this decade Frank and Theresa were from Germany with German parents. The Nolen website has the following list of the seven known surviving children: 

ROBERT LORENZ: 13 Oct 1888-1920. 
SIDNEY LORENZ: 8 Sep 1890-May 1945. 
FRANK LORENZ: 29 Oct 1892-1 Jan 1960. 
LOUIS LORENZ: Jun 1894-1950. 
EMMA LORENZ (mrd BENNO KARRASS): Born Jul 1896. 
HELMUTH LORENZ: 2 Apr 1899-18 Aug 1946. 
CLARA LORENZ (mrd WALTER HELMKE): 27 Aug 1902-20 Mar 1975. 

	In 1916, an odd possible intersect with the Ohio branch of Lorenzes might have happened. Young Joseph Lorenz was a member of the Wisconsin National Guard and he spent most of that summer on maneuvers in Texas, some of which included overnights at New Braunfels near Guadalupe County. 
	In August 1916, the Wisconsin Brigade left Camp Wilson (located at Fort Sam Houston near San Antonio, Texas) on a march to Landa’s Park, at New Braunfels, about thirty miles to the north. They marched for two days, spent a few days at Landa’s Park, then marched back to Camp Wilson. On September 16, the Wisconsin Brigade left for Camp Mabry at Austin, a hike of 83 miles one way. Along the way, they stopped again at New Braunfels and participated in a mock battle, the biggest one staged by the Army since the Civil War. The troops left Austin on September 27 and returned to Camp Wilson six days later, suffering “discomfort and inconvenience from a dust storm near the San 

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Marcos River” along the way. In September 1916, Joe sent his parents (Frank and Rosa were living in Dayton) a postcard showing an irrigation dam from San Marcos, Texas. 
	By now, some of the Guardsmen were being sent home, but the Wisconsin Infantry were among those chosen by General Funston to stay for winter duty ‘if there should be a crossing of the Mexican Border’. With cotton picking season over, the men kept busy learning War business by maneuvering in the fields, with sham battles and battle formations, ‘digging trenches and building up defenses with cotton stalks’. Dare we imagine that our Joe might have maneuvered with his fellow Guardsmen in his cousin’s cotton fields? 
	Both Louis Lorenz and his cousin Oscar Julius Lorenz also served in the U.S. Army during World War One; they were listed in Guadalupe County's Contribution of Man Power To The World War For Liberty, published December, 1918. Louis Lorenz was on the roster in September 1917, while Oscar Julius Lorenz was listed in February 1918, as was Oscar’s future brother-in-law Benno Karrass. 
	All the Lorenz ‘boys’ had registered for the military draft; the cards are now viewable at Ancestry.com. They show residence, birthdate, birth place, ocupation and employer, list of dependents, and a brief physical description. Robert is the only one with blond hair and blue eyes, while Louis had blonde hair and gray eyes (all of Louis’ children had blue eyes instead of gray, but his son Eugene had blonde hair). Sidney, Frank and Helmuth had dark eyes and black hair. All are described as ‘Tall’, Robert, Frank and Helmuth were ‘Slender’, while Sidney and Louis were of ‘Medium’ build. Robert was a married farmer, who was responsible for the support of his wife and one child; Sidney was a single Laborer, employed by Robert Lorenz; Frank was a married laborer for the Farmers Union Gin, responsible for the support of his wife and one child; Louis was a single clerk who worked for a Liquor Dealer; and Helmuth was a single farmer who worked for his father Frank Lorenz at Rural Free Delivery Route 2 in Kingsbury, Texas. 
	The 1920 census form stated Judicial Precinct 7 was part of Kingsbury; Frank age 69 and Theresa age 55 (both of Bohemia this time) were living near Seguin Road and New Braunfels Road with four unmarried children still at home. Frank was working as a General Farmer, Employer, and owned his own farm, while Sidney age 29, Louis age 25, and Helmuth age 20 were all Home Farm Laborers. Clara age 17 also lived at home, but Emma age 23 was boarding with the widow Mrs. Alice Langley in Kingsbury Town at Center Street and working as a telephone operator. Robert and Frank had each married and moved away from Kingsbury with their families. 

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	Robert married Pauline Schoelzel on 29 December 1913. Pauline was born in Texas; her parents Joseph Schoelzel and Katherine Annie née Hagelgans were both born in Germany. Sadly, Robert and Pauline’s baby son Sidney passed away on 14 May 1918 from the ravages of whooping cough; his story is preserved in an article published in a German language newspaper in Guadalupe County,
 
		“Um 31 Januar dieses Jahres wurde Herrn Robert Lorenz und dessen Gattin Pauline geb. Schoelzel ein 	Söhnlein geboren, namens Sidney Lorenz. Leider kränkelte das Kind von seiner Geburt an und konnte nie so recht 	zu Kräften kommen. Als nun 	das Kind am Stickhusten erkrankte konnte der zarte Körper diese Krankheit nicht 	überwinden und am 14. Mai, abends schlief es hinüber in eine bessere Welt. Es brachte sein leben auf 3 Monate 	und 14 Tage. Außer seinen tiefbetrübten Eltern gehören zu seinen Hinterbliebenen: ein Brüderlein namens 	Harry, die Großeltern: Herr und Frau Frank Lorenz und Herr und Frau Joseph Schoelzel, sowie zahlreiche Onkel 	und Tanten. Die sterbliche Hülle wurde am 15. Mai, Mittwoch, nachm 3 Uhr, vom Trauerhause bei Zorn nach dem 	Zorner Friedhöfe gebracht und dort beerdigt. Pastor Koerner amtirte im Kaufe und am Grabe.” 

	This translates as, “On January 31 of this year, a baby boy was born to Mr. Robert Lorenz and his wife Pauline née Schoelzel. The baby was named Sidney. Unfortunately the child had health problems from birth and was never able to gain necessary strength. When the child contracted whooping cough (the modern German word is Keuchhusten), his weakened body was unable to throw off the sickness and on the evening of May 14 he slipped into a better world. His life lasted three months and fourteen days. In addition to his deeply saddened [grief stricken] parents, he is survived by a brother named Harry, the grandparents: Mr. and Mrs. Frank Lorenz and Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Schoelzel, along with numerous uncles and aunts. At 3:00 in the afternoon on Wednesday May 15, the mortal remains were carried from the Zorn Mortuary to the Zorn Cemetery and buried. Pastor Koerner officiated both in the chapel and at the grave.” 
	It is interesting to note that the newspaper had continued to publish in the German language, despite strong anti-German animosity created by World War I. 
	In 1920, Robert and Pauline were living in Brewster County, Texas, on a road with ‘no name’. Brewster County contains Big Bend National Park and is located in West Texas on the Rio Grande River. Robert and Pauline were probably living in the town of Alpine (the county seat located in a wide valley in the foothills of the Davis 
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Mountains), where their son Clifford was born. Their sons Harry age four years and Clifford age five months were at home in 1920. Robert had no occupation, and they were renting their home. Perhaps he was too sick to work, as he died later that same year. His granddaughter Joan Lorenz Waldbusser remembers that Robert suffered from tuberculosis, which is why they had originally moved to the ‘fresh mountain air’ in Alpine. Robert William Lorenz died on 25 January 1920, barely three weeks after the census was taken on January 1, and shortly after he and his family had returned to Kingsbury. He is buried in Kingsbury Cemetery, and his obituary was published in the Seguin Enterprise on 6 February 1920. 

ROBERT LORENZ DEAD 
BORN: OCT. 13, 1888 
DIED: JAN. 25, 1920

		“Mr. Robert Lorenz died at his home in Kingsbury, Jan. 25 after a long illness, the result of a severe attack 	of influenza last 	year [this suggests he was a delayed victim of the infamous Spanish flu]. Mr. Lorenz was born 	and raised in this county, his parents coming here from Austria. He was married Dec. 29th, 1913 to Miss Paulina 	Schoelzel, who survives him. An honest, industrious citizen, he will be sadly missed by many friends and 	neighbors. 
		“Interment was made in the Kingsbury Cemetery on the 26th services being conducted by Rev. S. P. Harris, 	of the Seguin Baptist Church. Mr. Lorenz is survived by his wife; two little sons, Harry and Clifford; a brother, Mr. 	Frank Lorenz of Seguin, and other relatives, to whom we extend sympathy.” 

	Robert’s brother Frank Lorenz had married Elsie circa 1917; she was born in Texas of an English father and a Texan mother. In 1920, Frank and Elsie were living in Seguin, the county seat of Guadalupe County, on Sanders Avenue. Seguin is located on the Guadalupe River,
 
		“With land suitable for agriculture and ranching, the economy has mainly been agricultural. . . With the 	influx of the German population [circa 1850], farming methods improved and trade increased. By the time of the 	American Civil War, the residents were growing cotton, corn and peanuts, and raising hogs and cattle. . . The 	economy improved dramatically in the late 1920’s, when oil was discovered in the nearby Darst Creek fields. . ." 	
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	The greater Seguin area was the setting for author Janice Wood Windle’s successful novel True Women, based  on the author’s family history, which was featured as a TV miniseries in 1997 “filled with tales of strength and bravery of Texas women”. 
	Frank age 27 and Elsie age 21 were at home with their son Clifton age two years and eleven months; all were born in Texas, but Elsie’s dad was from England. Frank worked as a grocery store salesman and they were renting their home. 
	Frank Schuerer Lorenz passed away on 26 June 1927 at home in Kingsbury, where he had lived for 26 years, from myocarditis complicated by Influenza. His death certificate states he was born in Schoenland, Austria, with parents Philip Lorenz and Wilhelmine Schuror, both of Schoenland, Austria. Frank was a farmer, his widow Mrs. Frank Lorenz of Kingsbury, Route Two, signed as the informant, and he was buried at Kingsbury Cemetery. 

FRANK LORENZ 
JAN. 10, 1850 
JUNE 14, 1927 
OUR BELOVED FATHER
 
	The 1930 census shows the widow “Mrs. Frank Senior Lorenz” as Head of Household age 68, living with her son Helmuth age 30 and her grandson Harry age 14 (son of Robert and Pauline). Mrs. Frank owned her home and had no occupation listed, but her son Helmuth was a General Farmer and Employer, suggesting that he continued to manage his father’s farm. The family was living in Guadalupe County at Justice Precinct 7. Theresa was born in Austria with German as her native language; it is interesting to note that while her mother was also born in Austria (this would be Annie née Lorenz), her father was born in Germany. Helmuth passed away on 18 August 1946 while still livng at Guadalupe County, and he is buried in Kingsbury Cemetery in the Anton Lorenz family plot, 

LORENZ 
OUR BELOVED BROTHER 
HELMUTH 
APR. 2, 1899 
AUG. 18, 1946 

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	Clara Lorenz had married Walter Helmke on 8 December 1924; the 1930 census found them living in New Braunfels, Texas, on San Antonio Street. This census record was very difficult to find; the family was indexed as ‘Helmps’ at Heritage Quest Online and as ‘Halmpe’ at Ancestry.com. Adding to the confusion, Clara appears to be called ‘Clarie’ and was indexed as ‘Claric’ or ‘Clarice’. Fortunately, Walter was Walter!! Walter Helmke, age 24, was working as a Loom Fixer (repairman) at a cotton mill; he was born in Texas of Texan parents. Clarie was age 23, born in Texas of parents born in Czechoslovakia; their son Walter Junior was age 5 and also born in Texas. Walter and Clara were married ‘ages 19 & 18’, which nicely matches the known 1924 wedding date. Although the family remembers that Clara only had a daughter, recent research by Joan Waldbusser discovered a booklet at the Seguin Library with details about the local Helmke family, which confirms that the 1930 census record is our Clara with her family. 
	The family history states that Walter Henry Helmke, born 12 October 1905 in Marion, Guadalupe County, Texas, was the oldest son of Otto Helmke (a farmer) and Emma née Zunker. Otto Helmke died on 3 March 1906 (his second son, Otto Junior, was born posthumously on 31 August 1906), and the widowed Emma then married again. In 1910, the census found Emma living in Guadalupe County with her second husband Otto Bulgrien; both were age 26. Otto was renting a general farm, while Emma worked as a labourer on their home farm. Three sons lived with them, Walter Helmke age 5, Otto Helmke age 3, and Herbert Bulgrien age 2. Sadly, the 1920 census found Emma widowed again at age 35, and working as a hotel chambermaid in Seguin, Texas; she now had five children at home with her, Walter and Otto Helmke, and Herbert, Leka and Freda Bulgrien. By 1930, Emma (age 45) had moved to New Branunfels with her third husband, William Koepp (age 33), who was working as a quilter at the cotton mill. Recall that her son Walter was also living in New Braunfels and working at the cotton mill in 1930. 
	Walter and Clara had two children, their son Walter Junior born in 1925 (he died circa 1965) and a daughter Barbara Joan ‘Micky’ Helmke born in 1933 (she married Frank Dibrell and died circa 1984). Sadly, Walter Junior suffered from severe epilepsy; his cousin Vernon Helmke remembers, “This was a great strain for both Clara and Walter and the sister. They cared for him with all they had to give. It really was a strain for Clara, bless her heart.” Walter and Clara divorced during the 1930’s. On 15 December 1939, Walter married Eudie Dickinson and they settled in Lafayette, Georgia; death records show that both died in Walker County, Georgia, on the same day, 27 December 1961. Social 
Security Death Records show that Clara Helmke died in March 1975 at Seguin, Texas. 

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	After Robert Lorenz had died in 1920, his widow Paulina remained in Guadalupe County and lived with her parents, who were farmers at Kingsbury. In 1930, the Schoelzel farm was valued at $10,500 and described as a General Farm. Joe Schoelzel age 73 and Annie age 65, married ages 31 and 23, were both born in Germany of German parents. Their daughter Pauline Lorenz age 32 had no occupation listed. The family remembers that she became very ill shortly after Robert died, and was unable to care for her children; Pauline stayed with her parents until her own death in 1933. She was buried at Kingsbury Cemetery with her husband Robert, 

LORENZ 
ROBERT †  PAULINA 
1888 - 1920 1897 - 1933 

	The 1930 census finds their son Harry living with his grandmother ‘Mrs. Frank’ in Kingsbury; Clifford age 10 was with his Aunt Emma Karrass on a farm in Guadalupe County. Clifford’s daughter Joan explains,

		“My father's childhood was not pleasant. His mother was 	too ill to care for him. He would not speak of it 	very much. For a 	while he stayed with relatives of his mother. At one point he and Harry were taken to live with 	members of the Lorenz family. My 	father lived with his Aunt Emma. Her first husband and my father did not get 	along. My father ran away in 1934 at the age of 14 and took care of himself from then on. He never wanted to 	return to Texas. These sad stories seem to be common for some of the grandchildren of Frank Lorenz. I do not 	know very many of my father's relatives, but because of the internet several of us are now getting acquainted 	and sharing our stories.”

	Clifford served overseas in Europe as a Military Policeman during World War II and was awarded three Bronze Stars. He was an excellent marksman. Because of his childhood knowledge of the German language, Clifford was able to translate for the German prisoners. Clifford’s first language at home was German, which he spoke until he was seven years old; he learned English when he started school. This shows what a strong German community there was in rural Guadalupe County during the 1930’s; most of them spoke German when dealing with each other.
	Clifford was asked to stay in Berlin, Germany, at the war’s end to continue his translations, but he wanted to return to Champaign, Illinois, where he had met his future wife Lura Tharp while on leave. 
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	Lura and Clifford were introduced by a mutual friend, who was one of Clifford’s army buddies (a few years earlier, Lura had introduced the buddy to his future wife!). Clifford returned after the war to marry Lura and they settled in Champaign, located in central Illinois east of the capital at Springfield and about fifty miles from the Indiana border. Their daughter Joan was born in 1946 in nearby Urbana (the towns are so close that they are usually called Champaign-Urbana). Joan remembers, “I am an only child. My dad did not want to return to Texas but I couldn't wait to move here. I have raised four Texans and will probably never move away.”
	Lura was originally from Kentucky, but had moved to Illinois to live with one of her sisters when their father died in 1933. In 1930, Lura was in Magnolia, Kentucky, with her widowed father Christoher C Tharp, a farmer who owned his own farm. Her mother Sallie née Hornback had died in 1925, after having had ten children. The 1920 census found the Tharp family living in Hodgenville (close to Magnolia), Kentucky. Christopher age 40 and his wife Sallie M age 38 had seven children at home, including Lura; all were born in Kentucky.

		Joan remembers Clifford’s home business, “My dad owned a bait and tackle business in our garage. He was 	well known as an excellent fisherman. He introduced ice fishing to the area, although there were no major rivers 	or lakes nearby. It really was a strange thing. Someone introduced ice fishing to my Dad and he started 	fishing himself, then other people began fishing this way. One time I ice skated while he fished, but it was too 	cold for me! I have a picture of my Dad fishing that was on the front page of the local newspaper. He also 	manufactured a special catfish bait that was very popular and quite good at catching channel catfish. However, 	he refused to give the recipe to anyone and took the recipe to his grave. My parents ran a real ‘mom and pop’ 	business. 
		“My childhood was very unique and we met everyone in the community from all walks of life. My mother 	had a keen business sense and my father was an expert at his craft; they worked well together. I think anyone 	who fished knew my parents. At an early age I was working in the business and helping my parents. The people 	skills I learned from these experiences have very much enriched my life. However, I do not like to fish! My middle 	son inherited the fishing gene. My dad also liked to read, which is very much one of my favorite things to do. 	Many people called my dad "Tex." Oddly, he never had a Texas accent. I often wondered if this was because he 	spoke German as a child.”
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	Social Security death records show that Lura Tharp Lorenz, born 21 August 1916, died in November 1978 in Champaign, Illinois. Clifford’s death certificate states that he died age 78 on 8 September 1997 in Champaign, Illinois, where he was living at 108 West Green Street. He suffered from congestive heart failure, complicated by prostate cancer. Clifford worked in Retail Sales and had attended eight years of elementary schooling. He was born on 29 August 1919 in Alpine, Texas (where his family was living during the 1920 census), and was Widowed by 1997. The informant was his daughter Joan Waldbusser, of DeSoto, which is located south of Dallas, Texas. Joan now lives with her family in Mesquite, a suburb east of Dallas, including her oldest son, Joseph Lorenz Waldbusser (who resembles the photos from a previous generation of Dayton’s Joseph Lorenz).
	The Nolen documents posted online include the death certificate of Clifford’s brother Harry Sidney Lorenz, dated 1 May 1973; Hary died age 57 in Sierra Vista Hospital at Cochise, Arizona; his last residence was 310 Apache Street in Huachuca City, Arizona, where he had lived for seven years. Harry had lived in Arizona for 36 years, so he moved there circa 1937. He worked in ‘Civil Service’, and his Social Security card was issued in the state of Arizona. Harry was a military veteran, having served during World War II. Harry died of metastatic lung carcinoma and he was buried in Green Acres Cemetery at Tempe, Arizona. The death certificate informant was his second wife Grace E. Lorenz, née Bennett, who died at Mesa, Arizona, on 25 November 2001. Grace’s Social Security card was issued in Michigan, and she was born on 15 June 1916. Harry had two children by his first wife Ora Dean Tuttle, Monty Sidney Lorenz and Teddy Deanna Lorenz; both were born at Globe, Arizona.
	Returning to the children of Frank and Theresa, their son Sidney age 40 was living in 1930 on Glisson Street in Electra City, Wichita County, Texas, located fifteen miles northwest of Wichita Falls, near the Oklahoma border. Sidney was working as a Garage Mechanic, and he owned his home valued at $600 with his wife Rosa I. (Rosa Ida née Stautzenberger), age 30. Rosa was born in Texas, and they had married ‘ages 31 and 21’. Four children lived at home: Marvin G. age 8, Dorothy M. age 6, Sidney Junior age 3 and Rose L. age one year and eleven months. Marvin and Dorothy were attending school. The Nolen website states that Sidney died in May 1945, and the Social Security Death Index shows that his widow Rosa died on 3 June 1996 at Electra, Texas.
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	In 1930, Frank age 37 and Elsie age 31 (married ages 24 and 18) were living on Route 7 leading out of Seguin, Texas, with their two children, Clifton age 13 and Eloise age 10. Frank was a Salesman at a General Merchandise Store and he owned his home valued at $4,000. Frank died on 1 January 1960; Social Security death records show his wife Elsie died in October 1982, living at Seguin, Texas. The online Texas death index states that ‘Elizabeth Derham Lorenz’ died on 24 October 1982 at Guadalupe County.Clifton William Lorenz had died earlier in March 1969, also at Guadalupe County, while his sister Eloise Theresia married Mr. Brobeck and still lives in Texas with her family.
	Louis Lorenz age 35 was living in Iowa Park Town, Texas, which is located in Wichita County five miles west of Wichita Falls. Texas Online Handbook tells us the town was “founded in 1888 along the route of the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway, and it soon became an agricultural marketing center. Oil was discovered just south of town during World War One, causing a small population boom. By 1927, a concrete highway connected Iowa Park to Wichita Falls. Circa 1935, Iowa Park had 2,000 residents and ninety businesses.” In 1930, Louis was working with an oil company as an oil pumper for wages; he rented his home for $12 monthly.
	Circa 1922, ‘ages 28 and 21’, Louis had married Madie Mae Glasse; in 1930, ‘Meady’ was age 30 born in Oklahoma (her father was born in Texas and her mother was from Illinois). The couple were living with four children: Quintine L. age 5; Lorena C. age 4 years and 3 months; Billy R. age 2 (Billie Rae was erroneously listed as ‘son’); and Robert W. age 1 month (Robert’s birth was registered as ‘Louis’ Lorenz on 5 March 1930 at Wichita County with mother “Glass”). As an aside for other researchers who might wish to find this 1930 census document, it is worth noting that this family was indexed as ‘Landis’ at the Ancestry.com website, which is the surname of the family living next door to our Louis Lorenz’s family. We found the record only by searching for all ‘Quintine’ living in Texas; we are lucky this son was not named ‘John’! All of the children were born in Texas, and none were attending school.
	Louis and Madie had three more sons, Eugene, William and Donald, before Madie died from cancer in 1939. She is buried at Montague Cemetery in Montague County, Texas (about thirty miles east of Wichita Falls), and Louis returned to live in Guadalupe County with most of his children. The two youngest sons were ‘adopted out’ and given new surnames. William Lorenz Osborne was living with his wife Betty in Torrance, California, when he died in the 

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1990’s, while Donald ‘Don’ Lorenz Sterling is still living with his family in Wichita Falls, Texas. Louis was a despondent  
widower who was ‘never the same’ after losing his wife; he died in 1950 and is buried in Kingsbury Cemetery, Texas.
	Quintine L. Lorenz joined the US Army during World War Two and served in combat during the European Battle of the Bulge. On 16 December 1944, German forces launched a surprise counter-attack against Allied Forces in Belgium who were headed to cross the Rhine River into Germany after all their advances since the D-Day landings at Normandy six months previously. Cassell Atlas of the Second World War calls the Battle of the Bulge a major turning point of the war,

		“Hitler had determined to attack the Allies before they reached Germany. His plan was to break through the 	Allied front in the Ardennes Forest, split the Americans from the British, and capture Antwerp, disrupting Allied 	supplies and destroying their armies. . . The offensive was imaginative and daring and came very close to 	success. [They lacked] air cover, but low clouds and a heavy snowfall [covered the advance] of eight Panzer 	divisions on 16 December. German success. . . Eisenhower was compelled to commit reserves. . . By 20 	December Bastogne [Belgium] was encircled. . . German forces headed for the Meuse River. . . Allies had 	recovered from their surprise; St. Vith fell [to the Germans] on 22 December, but the delay [had stalled the 	Germans]. The 24th saw the high water mark of the German offensive. With empty fuel tanks and stiffening 	opposition, the Ardennes offensive ground to a halt and the Allies proceeded to [slowly] squeeze out the bulge 	[which had reached almost as far as Dinant, Belgium, on the Meuse River].”
	
	Quintine kept close to his brothers and sisters during WW2; he managed to locate the two adopted out brothers and the family re-united in the late 1960's. After the war, Quintine settled in New Jersey; Social Security death records show that he died age 55 in June 1979 in Trenton, New Jersey. His three daughters, Sandra Lorenz Cannon, Dee Lorenz Mallam, and Pat Lorenz Smith still live in the New Jersey area with their families.
	Lorena C. Lorenz continued to live in Texas. Her first husband died during the 1960’s, and she then married Corky Hoffman of Liberty, Texas. The family remembers that Lorena passed away while being treated in a hospital in Houston, Texas; Texas death index shows ‘Lorena Clara Hoffman’ died on 10 January 1991 at Galveston County. Her brother Robert passed away in Liberty, on 15 November 1999. Their sister Billie Rae Lorenz Grote is still living with her family in New Braunfels, Texas.
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	Eugene Lorenz served with the U.S. Army during the Korean conflict, which began in June 1950 when North Korean troops invaded South Korea. The United Nations demanded immediate withdrawal, but the Communist government of North Korea continued to fight. World Book Encyclopedia explains,
		
		“The war was a major challenge for the United Nations, which had been born only five years earlier. . . the 	UN asked its member nations to give military aid to South Korea. Sixteen countries sent troops, while 41 sent 	supplies and aid. The United States sent more than 90% of the troops and supplies. It was one of the bloodiest 	wars in history; both troops and civilians were killed by the millions. A truce was signed in July 1953; a 	permanent peace treaty has never been signed.”
	
	Eugene retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1973; his last assignment was working as Superintendent of Base Security at Randolph Air Force Base, located north of San Antonio. The Randolph Air Force Base website explains,

		“Randolph Air Force Base was dedicated in 1930 as a flying training base for the Army Air Corps and 	continues in that mission today for the U.S. Air Force. . . It was the largest construction project undertaken by 	the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers since the Panama Canal. The dedication fly-by of 233 military planes was the 	largest assembly in the world at that time. . . The School of Aviation Medicine and the Air Corps Flying School 	relocated to Randolph. . . Since then, pilots have trained in basic and primary phases of flying, returned for 	instructor training, or completed combat crew training. From 1967 to 1971 [when Eugene was serving there] 	1,269 pilots earned their wings at Randolph.”

	Eugene passed away in Brownsville, Texas, in 2002, survived by his wife Rose, and his children David, Judy, and John; David (who continued Eugene’s tradition of military service as a U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman) remembers,

		“My father's mother passed when he was age seven and he suffered greatly until he was old enough to 	leave Kingsbury and enlist in the US Army. My father seldom talked about his childhood nor mentioned his  

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	mother's family; he stayed in the present and took great care of my mother and his children. Eugene Lorenz was 	a "man’s" man in every word. He was strong and quite a "looker", with blonde hair and deep blue eyes. All my 	girlfriends while I was at home mentioned his looks, my brother John resembles him mostly. Dad stood 6’ 1'' and 	weighed 200 pounds (he had little fat, with strong arms and legs), when a stroke hit and he passed two years 	later.”

	Emma Lorenz Karrass was living in 1930 on a Private Road near Kingsbury Mail Route Road with her husband Benno Karrass; they were ages 34 and 33 and had married at ages 24 and 23, presumably shortly after the 1920 census was taken. They had no children of their own at home, but Emma’s nephew Clifford Lorenz age 10 was living with them. Benno was a General Farmer who rented his farm, and he had served in the American military during World War One (records show him on the Roster of the White National Army from Guadalupe County on 26 February 1918). Benno was born in Texas, as was his mother, but his father was born in Germany (while Emma’s parents were listed as from Austria). Benno’s 1917 Draft Registration Card stated that he was single age 21, worked as a Farmer for his Father, and was responsible for the support of his parents. Benno had been born in York Creek, Texas, and was tall with a medium build. His eyes were grey brown and he had dark hair. Texas birth records show that their son Benjamin Franklin Karrass was born on 18 December 1930; he still lives in Texas.
	Benno Karrass died on 18 August 1946 in San Antonio, Texas; the widowed Emma married again on 9 March 1953 at Lovington, New Mexico, in Lea County. Her new husband was Mack I. Royalty, born 13 September 1901 at Rotan, Texas, which is located about thirty miles northwest of Abilene in Fisher County. The 1910 census found Mack age 7 at home on the family farm in Fisher County with his parents (Ben B and Myrandia Royalty, ages 54 and 36) and six siblings: Gordon, Ada, Robert, Willie, Anna and Etta. Mack and his siblings were all born in Texas, but their father was born in Missouri and their mother came from Arkansas. Ben worked as a laborer with odd jobs, while the older children worked on their home farm. In 1920, the family was still living in Fisher County; Mack age 18 and Etta age 15 were still at home with Ben B age 63 and Mirandy age 56, while Gordon and his wife Maud were renting their own farm next door. Ben owned his general farm with a mortgage. Unlike the incomplete 1910 census record, this time we learn that Ben’s parents were from Virginia and Mirandy’s parents were from Alabama. In 1930, Mack was still at the home farm 

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with his parents and his sister Etta, but he had married his first wife Dora age 19 of Texas and they had a nine month old daughter, Hallie. Both Ben and Mack were cotton farmers.
	In later years, Mack proudly told Emma’s family about his Native American heritage, but we do not know which tribe it was, nor if it was through his mother’s or his father’s family. Earlier census records give us no clues; in 1880, ‘Benj’ age 23 was at home on the family farm in Ashley, Missouri in Pike County (located south of Hannibal on the Mississippi River; Ashley is a small town about ten miles inland), with his parents George age 71 and Margaret age 69; both parents were born in Virginia of Virginia parents. Clifford’s daughter Joan remembers meeting Mack when she was about nine years old; a ‘very nice man’, he made quite an impression, as he was very tall and wore boots and a cowboy hat. Social Security death records show that Emma Royalty died in July 1987, while Mack passed away the following year in August 1988; both were living in Abilene at the time.
	The surname Karrass is of great interest to the Ohio branch of our Lorenz family, as the mother of our Rosa Heidler Lorenz was Ottilia Rosa Gareis or Kareis from Bohemia. Perhaps Benno’s ‘Karrass’ name had originally been Kareis, but tracing his family in Texas reveals no Bohemian roots. The 1880 census shows his father Emil Karrass living in New Braunfels, Texas, at Comal County, with his widowed mother Wilhelmine; both stated they were from Prussia. Later census decades repeatedly state that Emil was from Germany, and never from Austria. By 1900, Emil age 39 had married Anna age 37 (born in Texas of German parents) and moved to Guadalupe County, where they lived with seven children, Walter age 15, Dorothe age 13, Willy age 12, Hulda age 10, Edna age 7, Benno age 5, and Anna age 3. The census states Anna, married for seventeen years, had 8 children; presumably an older child had moved away. Emil owned his own farm ‘free of mortgage’; he had come to America in 1873 and was not yet a citizen.
	Mrs. Theresa Lorenz passed away on 10 April 1945 at the age of 82 years and 27 days, suffering from acute myocarditis complicated by nyphritis. Her last residence was Kingsbury, where she had lived for 58 years and worked ‘at home’. She was born in Austria, and now both parents were also born in Austria. The informant was her son Helmuth. Theresia was buried in the Lorenz Family Plot at Kingsbury Cemetery, where she rests with her husband Frank, their sons Louis, Helmuth, and Robert, and Robert’s wife Paulina. The plot also includes “Twin Babies Lorenz”, who have no date listed in their cemetery records.

THERESIA LORENZ 
MAR. 13, 1863 - APR. 9, 1945 
OUR BELOVED MOTHER 

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ROBERT LORENZ AND LIZZIE BENNER

	We now turn to the family of Robert Lorenz, the other son of Philip Lorenz and Wilhelmine Schuerer who emigrated to the United States and settled in Texas.
	Robert was baptized on 28 May 1859 at Schönlind, then Bohemia, now Krásná Lípa, Czech Republic. His godparents were Franz and Theresia Rossmeissl, brother and sister; their father was Josef Rossmeissl, Hauswirt und Schenker, house owner and publican at Schönlind Number 76. When Robert was eight years old, his elder brother Franz emigrated to the United States. Robert must have read Franz’s letters home; almost twenty years later he followed him to settle in Texas. Robert arrived from Bohemia on 16 April 1886 at the port of New York City on the ship Elbe, with his final destination listed as “Texas”. Two years later, he appeared at the Guadalupe County Courthouse to petition for Naturalization,

THE STATE OF TEXAS. DISTRICT COURT, COUNTY OF GUADALUPE.

	Personally appeared, ROBERT LORENZ who declares upon oath that he is the natural born subject of FRANZ JOSEPH, EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA; that he was born in Scheudlind; that he is 29 years of age; that he emigrated to the United States of America and arrived at the port of New York in the State of New York on or about the 20th day of April 1886; that it is his bona fide intention to become a Citizen of the United States and renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign Prince, Potentate, State or Sovereignty whatsoever, and particular any and all allegiance to FRANZ JOSEPH, EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA; and that he will bear true allegiance to the United States and support the Constitution of the same.

ROBERT LORENZ.

	Robert Lorenz married Louisa Benner at the Guadalupe County Courthouse on 2 November 1890; the ceremony was performed by W. J. Avrette, J.P.

MARRIAGE LICENSE - THE STATE OF TEXAS - COUNTY OF GUADALUPE.

	To any Regularly Licensed or Ordained Minister of the Gospel, Jewish Rabbi, Judge of the District or County Court, or any Justice of the Peace in the State of Texas - Greetings: You are hereby authorized to Solemnize the 
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Rites of Matrimony Between Mr. ROBERT LORENZ and LOUISA BENNER and make due return to the Clerk of the County Court of said County within Sixty days thereafter, certifying your action under this License. Witness my Official Signature and Seal of office, at office in Seguin, Texas, the 28th day of October 1890. A. E. WILSON, Clerk of the County Court, Guadalupe County, Texas.

	I, W. J. AVRETTE Certify that on the 2nd day of November 1890, I united in marriage Mr. ROBERT LORENZ and Miss LOUISA BENNER parties above named. Witness my hand this 2nd day of Nov 1890. W. J. AVRETTE, J. P. Guadalupe County.
	
	Louisa, called Lizzie in most records (including her death certificate), was born on 18 May 1870 in Texas. Her father was August Benner of Germany, and her mother was Helene Adle, also of Germany, according to the death certificate informant A. W. Seiter (Albert W. Seiter was the husband of Robert and Lizzie’s daughter Anna). However, family research documented at the Nolen website suggests that Lizzie’s mother was possibly named Caroline Ertel, who married one August Benner at Kendall County, Texas. Lizzie has not been found in the 1870 or 1880 census, so we have not seen her at home with her parents. Notice that Robert and Lizzie named one of their daughters ‘Caroline’; none are named Helen.
	Robert and Lizzie settled in Guadalupe County; we find them in Precinct 7 during each of the following census decades. By 1900, Robert age 40 and Lizzie age 37 had been married for ten years; they had five children, of whom four were still living. Oscar age 7, Carolina age 5, Walter age 3 and Anton age five months were all born in Texas. Lizzie was also born in Texas, of German parents, while Robert was born in Austria of Austrian parents; he had filed papers to become a citizen of the U.S.A. Robert worked as a Farmer on a farm that he owned with a mortgage. He apparently lived near his brother Frank, as they were recorded on the same census page, although this does not happen in later census decades.
	In 1910, the census found Robert age 52 and Louise age 39 still in Precinct 7 of Guadalupe County; they had been married for 19 years and six of their seven children were still living and at home with them. Oscar age 17, Carolina age 15, Walter age 13, and Anton age 10 were all working as Laborers on the Home Farm, while Ludwig age 8 and Anna age 3 had no occupation. Robert owned his farm with a mortgage and worked as a General Farmer. He was born in Austria (Bohemia) and was now a Naturalized Citizen. Louise’s parents were born in Germany.
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	The Nolen website lists the six known children of Robert and Lizzie,

OSCAR JULIA LORENZ [also Julius]: Sep 1892-12 Sep 1964.
CAROLINE LORENZ (married John C. Steffens): 21 Jan 1895 - Oct 1973.
WALTER LORENZ: Jan 1897-Oct1975.
ANTON LORENZ: 5 Sep 1899-1 Oct 1937.
LUDWIG LORENZ: 1902.
ANNA LORENZ (married Albert W. Seiter): 17 June 1907 - 1 Nov 1995.

	Notice that Ludwig has no known death date; he was not at home for the 1920 census. Perhaps he had moved away at age eighteen. However, it is more probable that he had passed away; his three brothers filled out Draft Registration Cards in 1917 and 1918, but none has been found for Ludwig. Oscar, Walter and Anton were all born in Kingsbury, Texas, where they still lived at Rural Route 2. Walter was ‘Tall’, while Oscar and Anton were of medium height; all had slender builds. Oscar and Walter had brown eyes and dark brown hair, while Anton had gray eyes and light brown hair. Walter was married and responsible for the support of his wife, Mrs. Arva Lorenz, while Oscar and Anton were single farmers who worked for their father Robert Lorenz.
	In 1920, Robert age 63 and Lizzie age 50 owned their farm, which Robert worked as a General Farm on his Own Account. Three of their children were still living at home, Oscar age 28, Anton age 20 and Annie age 14. Oscar and Anton were working as Farmers. Robert was born in Austria, as were his parents, and German was their native language.
	Caroline Lorenz had married John C. Steffens (spelled Steffins in earlier records) circa 1912 at ‘ages 22 and 17’. In 1920, the couple (aged 30 and 25) were living in Staples, Texas, with three children (Cora age 6, Viola age 5 and Richard age 3) and John’s widowed mother Pauline age 69; all were born in Texas, but John’s father and Pauline’s parents had been born in Germany. John rented his land, which he worked as a General Farmer on his Own Account. In both 1900 and 1910 census records, John had been living with his widowed mother Pauline in Precinct 7 Guadalupe County on farm land that they owned free of mortgage; we do not know why he became a renter in 1920. In 1900, Pauline stated she had 9 children, of whom 7 were still living. Three sons were still at home: Adolph age 17, Otto age 15 and John age 10. The 1880 census for Seguin, Texas, shows Pauline age 30 ‘Keeping House’ and living with her  
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husband (John’s father) Christian Stefens age 40; he was a Plasterer who was born in Germany of German parents. Four children were at home: Annie age 9; Ida age 6; Pauline age 4; and Willie age 2.
	Robert’s son Walter Lorenz had married in 1917. In 1920, Walter age 23 and his wife Arva age 20 were living in Guadalupe County Precinct 6 at Kingsbury and Martinsdale Streets with their son Wallace age 2. Walter rented his General Farm which he worked on his Own Account. Arva was born in Texas of Texan parents.
	In the 1930 census, Robert age 73 and Louisa age 61 were stil in Guadalupe County’s Justice Precinct 7. Robert was born in Austria of Austrian born parents who spoke the German language, while Louisa was born in Texas of German parents. Robert was a naturalized citizen who had come to the United States in 1886; he owned his own farm which he worked as a General Farmer and Employer.
	Robert and Louisa were living with (or next door to) their daughter Anna age 23 and her husband Albert W. Seiter age 30, who had married circa 1926 ‘ages 25 and 19’. Anna was at home with their son ‘Wilbert’, age three years and two months, while Albert (born in Texas of Texan parents) was a barber who was the Proprietor of his Own Shop. Albert’s 1918 Draft Registration Card states that he was born in Johnson City, Texas, in Blanco County; at the age of 19, Albert was farming for his father Frank Seiter in Johnson City. Albert was Tall of Stout build, with brown eyes and dark brown hair. Texas online birth records show two children for Albert and ‘Annie’ Lorenz: Albert Wilbur Seiter Junior in 1927 and Robert Franklin Seiter in 1935 (he died in 1997 in Houston). Social Security death records show that Albert died on 18 March 1992, while Anna died on 1 November 1995 at Sugarland, Texas (a suburb southwest of Houston in Fort Bend County).
	Robert’s son Anton lived nearby with his family in 1930 and they were listed on the same census page. On 3 November 1920 in Guadalupe County, Anton had married Josefina Paulina ‘Josie’ Gotthardt, the daughter of Rudolph Gotthardt and his wife Josefina. Josefina was born in Texas, as were both her parents; Anton met her at a local dance. By the 1930 census, Anton age 38 and Josefina age 32 were living with two children, Milton age seven and Rubey age one year and eleven months. Anton and Josie had one more daughter, Lillie Mae, born in 1932 in Galle, Texas, where the family had moved shortly after the 1930 census was taken.
	In 1930, Anton rented a Farm which he worked as a General Farmer. A few years later, the family moved from Galle to nearby Staples, Texas (located on the San Marcos River in northeastern Guadalupe County). Tragedy struck the young family when Anton Lorenz died on 1 October 1937, age 38, from injuries suffered during a barn fire; 
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Anton thought his son Milton was inside the barn, and so he went into the barn to rescue him. Anton is buried at Kingsbury Cemetery, with a grave marker that has his embedded photo on a small oval plaque. We see a thin man with dark hair wearing a suit coat and a bowtie.

ANTON LORENZ
SEPT. 5, 1899 
OCT. 1, 1937 
GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

	In 1946, Anton’s widow Josie married Joseph August Hagelgans, who had recently returned from his World War II military service with the U.S. Air Corps as a member of their Bomb Squad Group. Joe served nineteen months in Italy and the British West Indies with the 15th Air Force, receiving the Good Conduct Medal, European Theater Ribbon, and seven Battle Stars. In 1957, Josie and Joe moved north to Graham, Texas (located about fifty miles south of Wichita Falls), where Joe worked in the oil fields. They lived in Graham for over thirty years, then moved to the Fort Worth area to be near relatives as their health declined. Social Security death records show that Joe Hagelgans died age 83 on 15 October 1992; his obituary described Joe as a “retired oil field roughneck”. Joe’s stepson Milton Lorenz also worked as a roughneck in the oil fields of West Texas, and injured his hand while working with the pipe. Glenn Nolen says a roughneck was a “general laborer in the oil fields, someone who did manual labor putting up the oil drilling rig. Roughnecks worked with loading and unloading pipe, putting the pipe into its drilling position, and any other manual labor required during the oil drilling process. It was a very oily mess. I saw my grandfather, Joe Hagelgans, go off to work and come home many times covered in oil.” The online Oil Field Glossary (“where the oil field meets the dictionary”) defines a roughneck as “A low-ranking member of the drilling crew. The roughneck usually performs semi-skilled and unskilled manual labor that requires continual hard work in difficult conditions for many hours. After roughnecks understand how the rig operates and demonstrate their work ethic, they may be promoted to other positions in the crew. The word is often used more generally, to refer to any member of the drilling crew, ranging from those who perform roughneck duties, or those with other crew positions, such as lead tong operator, motorman, derrickman, assistant driller or even driller.”
	
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	Josefina Pauline Gotthardt Lorenz Hagelgans died age 94 on 8 June 1992 in Fort Worth. She rests with Joseph in Fort Worth at Greenwood Memorial Park.
	In later years, Lillie remembered helping to pick cotton in her father’s fields as a young child; she also remembered having to walk around York Creek every time it flooded, which was quite often. Lillie Mae Lorenz married Johnie Arzell Nolen (born in Sugar Grove, located near Booneville in Logan County, Arkansas; his parents were William Doyle Nolen and Virdie). In 1968, Johnie and Lillie settled in Fort Worth. Staff Sergeant Johnie Nolen retired from the U.S. Air Force after twenty years of service, having served during both the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
	Johnie Nolen passed away on 26 June 1986 (age 57) and was buried at Greenwood Memorial Park in Fort Worth. The birthplaces of his children reflect Johnie’s varied Air Force postings. Sharon Lynn was born at the 1707th USAF Hospital located at Palm Beach Air Force Base in Florida. Glenn Allen was born in Longview, Texas, because Johnie had just been posted overseas and Lillie Mae went to stay with her sister Ruby Lorenz Bishop. Their last son was born at the ‘U.S. Army Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany’. Officially called Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, it is the U.S. military’s largest overseas hospital and is often seen on television news receiving our wounded from Afghan and Iraqi missions. ‘Ramstein Air Base’ is listed on all the birth records and reports of David’s birth; it is located approximately two miles west of Landstuhl, in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz. Ramstein Air Force Base is the largest U.S. Air Force installation outside of North America and the home of the USAFE Headquarters. It is also the largest NATO base in Europe. Ramstein is part of the Kaiserslautern Military Community, the largest American community outside of the United States.
	Johnie’s daughter Sharon Lynn Sorenson and both sons David Brian Nolen and Glenn Allen Nolen still live in Fort Worth near their widowed mother. Glenn is a family historian who manages the Benner, Gotthardt, Hagelgans and Lorenz Genealogy Website; he has generously shared information from his research with the author of this story. 
	Milton Lorenz married Bertha Rosa Barth in 1944 and they had six children: Kenneth Anton Lorenz, Elaine Marie Lorenz Thompson, Ronald Lorenz, Donald Lorenz, Betty Louise Lorenz Dorsett, and Kathryn Lorenz Searsy. Milton’s family lived in Odessa, West Texas, for many years; by 1992, when Milton’s mother died, he was living in Kingsland, Texas, about 35 miles northwest of Austin. All of his children married, and most still live in Texas. In 2004, Milton was serving as Vice-President of the Llano Highland Lakes Lodge No. 317 for The Order of the Sons of Hermann in Texas. Their website explains,

		“[The Order] is a not-for-profit fraternal life insurance company, also referred to as a fraternal benefit 	society. It was founded in Texas in 1861 by two German immigrants who had migrated from New York City. 	Hermann Sons is the largest fraternal benefit society operating in only one state (Texas) with more than 76,000

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 	members. Membership is conferred by a local lodge with the approval by the Grand Lodge of a life insurance
	contract or annuity.
		“This insurance protection-plus concept is possible because, in accordance with state and federal laws, 	Texas Hermann Sons, as a fraternal benefit society, is a not for profit organization that exists solely for the 	benefit and protection of its members. Texas Hermann Sons rigidly observes the laws that govern fraternal 	benefit societies. Over the years, it has successfully passed the periodic examinations that are conducted by the 	State Department of Insurance.
		“[Social benefits include] Personal recognition and the development of lasting friendships at lodge 	meetings in 140 Texas communities; Socials, including picnics and parties, sponsored by local lodges; A 	Retirement Home for members in their senior years; Junior chapters in which youth develop leadership skills; 	Summer youth camp, which can accommodate some 4,100 junior members, offered at an attractive rate; Tuition-	free Hermann Sons Schools of Dance; and Scholarships for graduating high school seniors from a variety of 	sources.”

	Many immigrant groups established such benevolent societies, including the Italians in New Orleans and other cities; often, the prime focus was the guarantee of payment for proper burial for needy grieving families in a shared mausoleum. The Bohemians had also founded such an organization (although remember our Lorenzes ‘back then’ would have identified more strongly with a German speaking community, as they were not Czechs),

		“CSA Fraternal Life is America’s Oldest Fraternal Benefit Society. It was founded in 1854 in St. Louis, 	Missouri, as the 	Cesko-Slovanske Podporujici Spolecnost (Czecho-Slovak Protective Society) by Czechoslovak 	immigrants who wanted to provide some security for their widows and children upon their death. It also was and 	is a social outlet for people of similar background and interests. CSA has developed into a network for members 	helping each other with various needs in life, as well as providing insurance products. CSA’s other purposes are 	to: (1) foster fraternity, charity & patriotism among its members; (2) promote the social, recreational & spiritual 	welfare of its members and mankind in general; (3) encourage its members to practice physical fitness; (4) 	encourage and support every effort to perpetuate the Czechoslovak heritage, language and customs.”
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	While these societies fostered American patriotism, they also had relatives who had remained in the ‘old countries’, so they retained an interest in European affairs. During World War I, the CSA supported a Czech nationalist movement,

		“During World War I there was no Czechoslovak Army (there was no such country at the time) and Czech 	and Slovaks were conscripted to fight for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Posters were used in the U.S. to recruit 	young Czech and Slovak men here to join what was called the Legionnaires. They fought on the side of the Allies 	to help form a free and independent Czechoslovakia.” 

	Milton’s wife Bertha Rosa passed away at Kingsland in 2001 aged 76, 

		“Bertha Rosa Barth Lorenz, 76, died Monday, August 20, 2001, at her residence. Graveside service will be 	at 2 p.m. Thursday in Kingsbury Cemetery. Arrangements are by Waldrope-Hatfield-Hawthorne Funeral Home. 	Survivors include her husband, Milton Lorenz of Kingsland; sons, Kenneth Lorenz of Topeka, Kansas, Ronald 	Lorenz of Nacogdoches and Donald Lorenz of Odessa; daughters, Elaine Marie [Lorenz] Thompson of Midland, 	Betty Louise [Lorenz] Dorsett of Odessa and Kathryn [Lorenz] Searsy of Spicewood; brothers, Robert Barth of 	Seguin and Harry Barth of Luling; and sister, Hulda [Barth] Pape of Gonzales.”

	Milton’s son Kenneth Lorenz served overseas during the Vietnam War, with the Tall Comanches Unit, Company C 2nd Battalion 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division Airmobile. In March 1969, he was serving as a Specialist 4th Class ‘Trains’ when he was promoted to Sergeant E5.

	The Tall Comanches website (which includes a photo of Kenneth) details the unit’s movements during 1968 and 1969, 

		“C2/5Cav moved a lot in 1968. Beginning on the Bong Son plains in II Corps, the company saw the 	beginning of the 	infamous Communist 1968 Tet Offensive. Next was a move north into Quang Tri and Thua Thien 	provinces in northern South Vietnam where they saw combat in the ‘Street Without Joy’. Comanche participated 	in the relief of Marines at the Khe Sanh combat base near the Demilitarized Zone, then moved back to Thua
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	Thien province. Fall brought a major move as the entire 1st Cavalry Division moved south into III Corps, and 	Comanche went to the vicinity of Quan Loi near the Cambodian border. The new mission was to interdict the 	flow of enemy supplies coming into Vietnam through the Ho Chi Minh Trail from Cambodia. For Comanche in 	1969, that meant moving around the western side of III Corps, usually near the Cambodian border. Comanche 	began near Quan Loi near the Parrot’s Beak area, then moved into Tay Ninh province. Names such as LZ Jesse 	[LZ stands for Landing Zone, usually for helicopters], LZ Ike, LZ Rita, Quan Loi, Tay Ninh Base Camp, and Phouc 	Vinh became part of our vocabulary. The company even operated in IV Corps, making it one of the units that 	operated in all four of the Corps areas of South Vietnam.”
 
	Kenneth found it difficult to return to civilian life after his military service; he moved several times while working with a forklift machine company and in the oil industry. In 2001, Kenneth was living in Topeka, Kansas, and he had received a Veteran’s Administration Disability Classification due to his wartime service.
	Several of Kenneth’s children now live in Florida with their mother Carolyn, who has now remarried. One evening, Dana Michelle Lorenz Crockett atttended a concert featuring the heavy metal hard rock band Poison; afterwards she went backstage and met the bass guitarist Bobby Dall (born Robert Harry Kuykendall in 1965 in Miami, Florida). Michelle and Bobby married in 1989 in Tarrant County, Texas, and they settled in Melbourne Beach, on the east coast of Florida. Michelle is now divorced from Bobby; she continues to live in Florida with their son Zachary Brandon Dall. Bobby also has a daughter from another marriage, Zoe Brianne Dall.
	The band Poison, originally called Paris, was formed in 1983 in Harrisonburg, Pennsylvania, where they played local clubs before moving to Los Angeles. Their music through the years has been variously described as Pop-Metal, Hair Metal, Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Rock/Pop. Barry Weber at the website mp3.com states,

		“In a decade fueled by party anthems and power ballads, Poison found a high amount of popularity, with 	only Bon Jovi and Def Leppard outselling them. While the group had a long string of hits, they soon became just 	as renowned for their stage show, and continued to be a major attraction over the course of their first three 	albums. Although their success was rather short-lived, one cannot deny the major effect that Poison had on the 	music industry during their career.
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		“The group was signed to Enigma Records in 1986, where they released their first album, Look What the 	Cat Dragged In. The record, spawning the Top Ten hits "I Want Action," "Talk Dirty to Me," and "I Won't Forget 	You," was a surprise success, selling two million copies [also called ‘going double platinum’] within a year 	following its release. While the band was already quite popular by the end of 1987, 1988's Open Up & 	Say...Ahhh! was their commercial breakthrough, due to the massive hits "Fallen Angel," "Nothin' But a Good 	Time," and "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" [the band’s first U.S. Number 1 title].
		“After a prosperous tour with David Lee Roth, the group returned to the studio to record Flesh and Blood in 	1990. This album, which included the upbeat "Unskinny Bop" and the sentimental "Something to Believe In," was 	another major success. The dynamic tour [which included concerts in Britain] supporting the record brought on 	the release of Swallow This Live, a double-disc set which included live versions of their biggest hits, along with 	four new studio tracks. The 1993 Native Tongue album was a commercial disappointment, despite some strong 	reviews and a hit single, "Stand". This album added brass with the “Tower Of Power Horns” and established the 	band alongside Bon Jovi as purveyors of image-conscious, hard melodic rock. This inevitably also saw them 	pilloried by more purist elements in heavy metal fandom.
		“The band had a successful reunion tour in the summer of 1999; the Crack a Smile sessions were released 	the following spring, soon followed by the mostly live Power to the People. Another tour was cut short by an 	accident that left Dall with serious back surgery and at least a six-month break from the band. When he got back 	into shape, the band recorded Hollyweird in the studio, which was released in the summer of 2002. The following 	tour was promoted as a nostalgia experience.”

	A concert review posted at hardrock.com by Howard Wentley in September 2000 described Poison’s current show and their continuing popularity,

		“Anyone who thinks the bands from the eighties are forgotten relics should come to a show like this one. . 	. It was Poison's turn to rock the house. With the use of pyrotechnics and arty backdrops, their stage show has 	always been nothing but a party. They are masters at creating a rowdy good-time atmosphere. This particular 	Poison stage featured ramps on each side and around the back for everybody but the drummer to run around on. 	The hits got huge enthusiastic responses. . . the crowd singing along with every line. Poison songs are the 

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	antithesis of the dark music that emerged from Seattle during the early nineties and supplanted Poison's ilk. 	Their metal-lite stuff is sunny and goes down easy.
		“Bassist Bobby Dall was a fireball throughout the show, laying down solid bass and supplying vocal 	harmonies. Signifying the end of the regular set, confetti dropped from the ceiling and the energy level soared as 	the band left the stage to tumultuous applause and cheers. . . A second encore, more confetti, and it was over -- 	until next year?”
	
	The band continues to tour; in 2004 an enthusiastic fan posted a tribute at reviewcentre.com, 

		“Poison has been coming to Pittsburgh for the past 4 or 5 years, and it has always been my favorite 	summer concert. They are a very good band, past their days of selling millions of albums - but full of energy and 	they can sing like the old days. . . They have so much fun, on stage. They are all smiling, rocking out, running 	around - like they did twenty years ago. They have all aged, physically - but the music has stayed the same. I 	can't say enough about the energy and longevity of this band. . . truly one of my all time favorites.”

	Milton’s sister Ruby Lorenz married Hubert ‘Red’ Bishop (son of Hubert and Emma at New Braunfels) circa 1946; in 1955, they settled in Longview, Texas. Hubert had served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II, and then became an insurance agent. He passed away on 18 January 2003 in Longview, leaving his ‘wife of 56 years’ Ruby and two children, Keith Bishop and Dianne Bishop Smith.

		“Mr. Bishop had been a resident of Longview since 1955. He was a member of several organizations, 	including the Masonic Lodge No. 404, Scottish Rite, F. O. E. 4125, Gregg County Scottish Rite and the VFW Post 	4002.”

	Oscar Julius or Julia, the oldest son of Robert and Lizzie, married his wife Olga Mary Pauline née Wagenfuehr circa 1921, ‘ages 28 and 26’. They settled in Guadalupe County; by 1930, Oscar age 37 owned his farm which he worked as a General Farm. His wife Olga was age 33, born in Texas of Texan parents; they had five alliteratively named children at home: Leone age 7, Lesley age 6, Lorene age 4, Lola (Wanda Lea) age 3 years and 2 months, and Leroy age 3 months. None of the children were attending school. The Texas birth online index shows two more children for Oscar and Olga Mary, Leland in 1934 and Lester Monroe Lorenz in 1940; both were born in Guadalupe County.

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	An online website found by Glenn Nolen gives us an interesting personal account of life during World War II for an Air Corps pilot and military wife, which mentions two of Oscar’s daughters, Alton’s wife Lorine, and her sister Leona Lorenz Zunker (Zunker was a local family; recall that Emma Zunker was mother to Walter Helmke who married Clara Lorenz). Alton Pendleton was born in New Mexico in 1922; shortly afterwards his family returned to their native Texas and settled on a farm near Hamilton, Texas.

		“The 109 acre farm was located five miles south of Hamilton, Texas, in a school area known as Blue Ridge. 	It had a five room frame house painted white, and an unpainted barn with fenced corral for horses and one for 	cows. We had a deep water well (100 feet deep), and a long bucket to draw the water. Each bucket drawn was 	about two gallons of water. We also had a storm cellar and a two hole privy. We had a small chicken house and 	the pig pen was located near the barn.”
	
	We do not know how Alton met Lorine Lorenz, but they married circa 1941 when Alton was ‘barely’ 19 years old and Lorine was only 15 years old. He had joined the U.S. Air Force when his story begins, and was stationed at Garden City Army Air Field (in western Kansas), when he applied for Aviation Cadet training,

		“I wanted out of Garden City for many reasons. I was frozen in my job and there were only three ways out: 	take the Warrant Officers Test, apply for OCS [Officer Candidate School], or Aviation Cadet Training. I had a 	serious talk with the little wife and she gave me the OK for Aviation Cadets. She was getting tired of Kansas 	and was homesick to be back in Kingsbury. I could not take her with me if I became a cadet. She would have to 	wait for me at her home or mine. She was a big help around the house and my mother loved her company. My 	mother was very lonely at home on the farm; she rarely went any place. I think she had been depressed for 	years and spent much of her time in bed. After Lorine stayed with her for a couple of weeks, my mother became 	active and was a different person. She seemed happy and gay. This in turn pleased my dad. On our first visit, 	after getting married, we were broke and I spent my entire 15 days of leave with my family. My dad sized her up 	when he first saw her and nicknamed her "Shorty", you see she was only 5' 1" tall. He called her that until his 	death in 1961.
		“Furthermore, Aviation Cadet Training was 24 hours a day for seven days a week. You were restricted and 	the training was demanding. We had a Physical Fitness (PT) Training program that was really rough, but it got us 	into shape. It was as hard as my Infantry Training, but more diversified, there was never a dull moment and we 	were working towards the goal of becoming an Air Corps Pilot.
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		“I completed all the steps necessary for aviation cadet training and was told to wait. In about two weeks, I 	heard that I had been accepted. I was granted about two weeks leave to get my affairs in order. My first step 	was to get my 1937 Ford ready for the trip. I went by the rationing board and was granted a permit to buy two 	new tires. My three old tires were nothing but trouble; flat tires. I bought two new Royal tires and tubes. We 	checked out of our one room apartment and headed for my folks in Hamilton. The trip was uneventful. It took 	two days to drive home. The weather was good and we drank a little beer, ate well, and really enjoyed the trip 	home. I knew that I would be gone and separated from Lorine for months. Upon graduation from flying school, I 	might be sent to RTU and then directly overseas and into combat without seeing Lorine again. I knew she liked 	babies because she held her sister's baby from the time we arrived until the time we left. We discussed the pro's 	and con's and decided that this was not the time to start a family. This proved to have been a wise decision. In 	most cases the rooms and apartments were rented to adults without children. A child would have been excess 	baggage and a lot of trouble.
		“We visited our relatives in and around Hamilton, then left for her folks at Kingsbury. Lorine had many 	relatives, there were seven children in her family. We made all the dances at Seguin and Geronimo on Saturday 	and Sunday nights. These were mostly German people and the beer flowed freely. At the end of my short leave, I 	put my car in storage, hitch-hiked to Waco, then caught the train to Garden City. Since I was paying for this trip, 	I went economy or chair car. I didn't get much sleep sitting up. . .
		“[Alton was then stationed in Texas, where] I was appointed student Officer of the Day. I typed out the 	passes. I discovered it was fairly common to get an 8 hour pass. I wanted to see my wife, Lorine, who was living 	with her parents in Kingsbury, Texas, about 40 miles East on Highway 90. Eight hours was not long enough. As 	Officer of the Day, I was on for 24 hours, then off for 48 hours. I managed to get an eight hour pass for Friday. I 	forged an eight hour pass to get back in on Sunday. My buddies covered for me and I headed for Kingsbury.
		“I caught the bus to Randolph Air Base, then hitched a ride to Seguin. I stopped by my brother-in-law's 	house and found that Lorine was visiting her sister. Their house was small and Leona, her sister, had a new 	baby. I was lucky, we got a room in one of the local hotels in Seguin. We hardly left our room until Saturday 	Night. Lorine's favorite band Adolph Hoffner, was playing at Paloma Blanka for the Dance on Saturday. They sold 	beer there and you could carry your bottle in, so all the Germans liked to make this dance. It was the highlight

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	of the season. Herbert Zunker, my brother-in-law (Leona’s husband), had wheels, so we all piled in and went to 	the dance. During the dance, they did all sorts of German dances, The Pall Jones, Shottish, Put Your Little Foot, 	etc. I had trouble doing some of these dances, I like to Waltz. I met Herbert's little brother, Alton Zunker. He 	sat at our table. Lorine danced with everyone, however, I noticed that she was dancing more and more with 	Alton Zunker, and not coming back to our table. I also noticed how close he was holding her. . .
		“It was late that night when we got back to our hotel room. I could tell something was bothering Lorine. I 	had been gone for nine months and I just point blank asked her if she had been seeing someone else? She said, 	“Yes, and I am in love with Lum Zunker,” that was his nickname. Boy, what a blow that was to me. Little by 	little, the details came out and I did not like what I heard. I asked her would she promise not to see him again 	and she said, "No, she wouldn't, she loved him and not me." I think this was the biggest up-set of my life, you 	see, I really loved that girl. I went back to base broken-hearted. I know we loved each other when I went away, 	and we had a very close relationship.
		“I spent many sleepless nights thinking of ways to win her back. I finally decided that I would resign from 	Aviation Cadet training, revert back to a Staff Sergeant and see if I couldn't be stationed at Randolph Air base 	again. I wrote several letters to the Commanding Officers of Squadrons at Randolph. They all answered about 	the same; "We do not have an opening for someone with your rank and qualifications." I decided to concentrate 	on becoming a pilot, and let the chips fall where they may. I also sneaked over the fence early one morning and 	went for another visit. I had a forged pass to cover me in case I was caught. I came back late Sunday night, and 	I wasn't caught, but I bet I walked at least 20 miles. On that visit, things seemed a little better between Lorine 	and me.
		“One afternoon, I was told to report to the order room, your wife is here. I could not believe my ears; I 	wonder if she came with divorce papers for me to sign. As it turned out, Lorine was indeed there. I suspect her 	father and mother knew more about Lorine's activities with Lum Zunker than I did and they thought that a little 	visit would be beneficial. We parked near the Base Theater and talked in the car for awhile, then Lorine and I 	went for a little walk. . .
		“I was able to rent a room for Lorine in Stanford which was located six miles West of the Aldrige Flying 	Field. We got "Open Post" from noon Saturday until 1700 hours Sunday, if your wife was there and you did not 	have to walk tours. Boy was I happy to see her. The first Open Post, we only left our room at noon Sunday to 	eat. We did keep a few snacks in the room. We had a lot of catching up to do. I think it was even better than

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	our first honeymoon. We had been married for nearly three years now, however, we had not lived together due to 	all my transfers. We had lunch, a family home that cooked many good home meals, and we paid only 75 cents 	each for all you could eat on Sunday dinner. Our wives ate there for 50 cents during the week. Lorine got by on 	one meal at lunch and ate snacks in her room for breakfast and supper.
		“On Wednesday nights, the wives could come on base and eat with us. After supper an old man called 	Monk put on a little show. He was rather good and he put on a different show each Wednesday night. We had a 	piano, and there was always an accomplished piano player around. We sang songs and then kissed our wives 	good-bye at 2100 hours and they ran a special bus for them.
		“Our class of 44 J graduated after nine weeks of grueling training and we were off for Basic Flight Training 	at Perrin Field, about 60 miles Northeast of Dallas. Lorine caught the bus and went to my home in Hamilton. She 	also got to visit her home in Kingsbury.
		“My dad and brother-in-law, James Sparks, drove my 1937 Ford to Sherman, a little town about six miles 	from the airbase. They brought Lorine and other household goods along. She had not learned to drive yet. Her 	brother, Leslie Lorenz, let her drive their 1936 Dodge when she was about 14. She was doing fine, until he said, 	"Oh, look at that horse.” She looked and drove the family car right into the ditch. Leslie took the blame for that 	accident, but she did not want to drive again. I offered to teach her how to drive and she said, "No".
		“One of the other wives she met at Stanford found her a room, so we were back in business. I was allowed 	to park my car near our barracks, but I was not to drive it on base. When I got open post each week end, I could 	drive anywhere I wanted off base, however, due to gasoline rationing (4 gallons each week), I could not drive 	very far. We scrounged gasoline coupons anywhere we could get them. I used "T" stamps, that was gasoline 	issued for tractors.”
		“Our week-ends were rather quiet. We could buy beer, but no hard liquor. We took in a movie each week. 	On one occasion, there was a carnival in town so we saw the sights there.
		“Lorine went home when I left Perrin. Mrs. Prichard drove my Ford down for me, again, I was allowed to 	park in the cadet parking lot. After about three weeks, I found a small three room apartment, with our own bath 	and shower, for Lorine. After she moved in, we were in hog heaven. We took another shower each hour on the 	hour. We gave up on all methods of birth control in December of 1943. Here it was the fall of 1944 and she still 

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	had not become pregnant. We could cook in the apartment, so why go anyplace else. One week I did take Lorine 
	to West and El Mot to visit all of our old friends. We did have some pleasurable week-ends.
		“It was January of 1945, and I was assigned to Blackland Army Air Base at Waco, Texas. We shared the 	airfield with the Municipal airport. My wife wrote me a letter when I first got to Waco, and told me she would be 	visiting my sister who lived four miles west of Hamilton, on Bear Creek. I have swam and hunted this area many 	times. I wrote her every night. We did not need a stamp, we just wrote "FREE" where the stamp normally was 	stuck. Instead of dropping the letter in the mailbox, I tied a yellow ribbon around it, flew to my sister’s house, 	jazzed the throttles until my wife came out; then I would drop the letter. I think she managed to catch in mid-	air, all the letters that I mailed by air. I usually flew about 20 feet over her and a little bit past her, before I 	turned the letter loose. Those were the good old days, flying the mail, and making it a special delivery.
		“Lorine and I started going back to our old stomping ground in West just 12 miles north of Waco. We had a 	beautiful three room apartment. It had a kitchen, living room, and a bedroom with toilet and shower. We were in 	Hog Heaven.
		“When class 45-A graduated, they had rented a big dance hall in Waco. It was all decorated and quite an 	affair. They had a live orchestra, and furnished finger foods and punch. You were suppose to bring your own 	bottle. Waco had been voted dry except for beer, and we had to drive a few miles to get booze. Lorine was 	wearing an evening gown, she was 19 years old and beautiful. I bought her a corsage, and she had a purse and 	shoes to match. She was the belle of the ball.
		“In about March of 1945, we got the word that Blackland was closing down. Where do we go from here? 	Lorine and I had a nice apartment, and we were really enjoying our 1940 Chevrolet Convertible, and all the 	friends we had made at El Mott, and West. All good things always come to an end and we hated to leave. I 	sweated out being assigned as co-pilot on a B-17 or B-24 in England. The bombers were really catching hell on 	their missions. The losses were as high as 50% on a single mission. I wasn't ready to die. I lucked out and was 	assigned to a pilot pool at Brooks Field, right next to Kelly. As a matter of fact we lived on Brooks and flew from 	Kelly. We had roll call every morning at 0800, the flight schedule was posted, and if you were not flying, you 	could go back to the barracks and sac-in, or take off for town. We did play quite a bit of poker and there were 	some lively crap games at the Officers Club and in our barracks. I really had to watch my money, because I was 	
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	always running out. Lorine was staying with her relatives, we did not attempt to get an apartment, because we 	were subject to being shipped out on short notice. Most of the time, it was an overseas tour.
		“I was seeing Lorine about once a week. She was unhappy, and still in love with Lum Zunker. I was getting 	serious with Doris Klecka. I hoped Lum would make Lorine a good husband, because I was still in love with her; 	but I decided to give her her freedom. I gave her some money, told her to see a lawyer, and get a divorce. I 	then got honest with Doris, and told her that our relationship could not go beyond friendship, because I had 	been married when I was barely 19 years old. Furthermore, I was still married, but we were in the process of 	getting a divorce. She took this up with the Catholic Priest, and he told her in this case, she could marry a 	divorcee. We really started getting serious; Doris said that she could always get a job, because she was an RN.
		“After I told Doris good-bye, it was about 0200. I didn't have a place to stay and no hopes of getting a 	hotel room at that hour; so I proceeded to my father-in-law's home; Mr. Oscar Lorenz's farm. Sure enough, Lorine 	was there. I climbed in bed with her and she was warm and friendly. It was another wedding night for me. The 	next morning, she dropped a bombshell on me. She had not seen the lawyer, or filed for divorce; but she had 	been to see the Doctor, and she was two months pregnant. I think I immediately went into shock. Here she was 	pregnant in April of 1945 and we were getting a divorce. I definitely had a new problem. What do we do now? I 	decided to wait and see if Lum Zunker would marry her under these conditions. After breakfast that Sunday 	morning, I drove to Dallas. I spent Sunday night in Dallas because it is a good party town.”

	And that is the end of Alton Pendleton’s online copyrighted story, excerpts from his book: THREE O'CLOCK HIGH. The web site titles him Major, USAF Retired Fighter Pilot, and the Social Security Death Index tells us he died in Austin, Texas, on 12 August 2001. We do not know if Alton and Lorine divorced, nor if she then married Lum Zunker and he married Doris Klecka. But the Texas online birth index tells us that Lorine and Alton’s baby was born on 26 December 1945 in Caldwell County (located northeast of Guadalupe County) and named Eugenia Pendleton. Alton’s statement “My Dad called her ‘Shorty’ until his death in 1961” suggests that Alton and Lorine managed to resolve their differences and stay together.

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	Social Security death records show that Oscar J. Lorenz died in September 1964. Oscar is buried at Kingsbury Cemetery, where records show he was a U.S. military veteran, and he has a Veteran’s rectangular white marble grave marker.

OSCAR JULIA LORENZ 
TEXAS 
PVT HQ 360 INF 90 D? 
WORLD WAR I 
DEC. 13, 1892 - SEPT. 12, 1964 

	Oscar’s widow Olga died on 28 October 1993 at Kingsbury, Texas. Sadly, her oldest son Leslie Anton Lorenz had already died on 13 October 1992, while her younger son Leroy Walter Lorenz died on 19 October 1998; both were living at Kingsbury. Oscar and Olga Mary rest in the same plot at Kingsbury Cemetery, with their son Leslie Anton Lorenz (also a veteran), daughter Wanda Lea Lorenz, and Oscar’s parents Robert and Lizzie Lorenz.

LORENZ 
OLGA M.       OSCAR J. 
MAY 3, 1897        DEC. 12, 1892 
OCT. 28, 1993        SEPT. 12, 1964

	The 1930 census found Caroline and her husband John Steffens living in Jim Wells County (located in southern Texas just west of Corpus Christi), renting a farm for $15 monthly. The widow Pauline Steffens age 80 is still with them, and there are now four children at home: Cora age 16, Viola age 15, Richard age 13 and Ferdinand age 9. Social Security records show that Richard Steffens, born 14 June 1916, died in February 1985 at McQueeney, Texas, in Guadalupe County. The online Texas death index shows Ferdenand [sic] Steffens died in Guadalupe County on 1 September 1994.
	In 2004, the Nolen website was contacted by Cora’s granddaughter, Paulina Harper (was she perhaps named for her grandmother’s grandmother?), who told us that John Steffens died in 1942. The widowed Caroline married Floyd Caldwell, and they lived in a house on the same property with Cora and her family in Seguin, Texas. Social Security records show that Floyd died in September 1973, while Caroline passed away the following month in October 1973, both still in Seguin.

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	By 1930, Walter Lorenz age 33 and his wife Arva age 32 had moved to Williamson County, Texas (about twenty miles north of Austin), where they lived in Justice Precinct 2 on Bartlett Walburg Road. Walter rented their home for $8 monthly and worked as a Farm Laborer. Their son Wallace, age 12, was attending school. Social Security death records show that Walter died in October 1975 and his wife Arva in October 1986, both at Bartlett, Texas, in Bell County (which is located on the northeast border of Williamson County).
	Robert Lorenz died “age 75 years eleven months and three days” of gall bladder carcinoma on 1 May 1935 at Kingsbury, Texas, where he had lived for “49 years one month and sixteen days”. Born in Germany, he had lived in the U.S. for the same length of time, confirming that Texas was his original emigration destination. Informant O. J. Lorenz (his son Oscar Julius) stated that Robert’s parents were Phillip Lorenz and Hermina [sic] Scherer, both of Germany. Robert was a farmer who lived on Route 2 in Kingsbury. Robert’s widow Lizzie Benner Lorenz died age 87 of pneumonia and heart disease on 25 May 1957. They rest together at Kingsbury Cemetery in a plot owned by their son Oscar; their marker has a central panel of carved flowers and entwined leaves, with the words,

LORENZ 
MOTHER                FATHER 
LIZZIE                   ROBERT 
 MAY 18, 1870           MAY 28, 1859 
MAY 25, 1957          MAY 1, 1935

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JOSEF LORENZ AND REGINA KATHARINA RICHTER

	Now family memories overlap with documented research. Thanks to our cousin Franziska Lorenz LaFrance, we know that her great-grandfather (also our ancestor) Josef Lorenz was born on 15 April 1827 at Schönlind (now Krásná Lípa; remembered as Markt Schönlind by the family), then located in the Bohemian part of Austria-Hungary. Franziska also confirmed that Josef’s parents were named Franz Wenzel Lorenz and Theresia Schoedl, but she had not previously known about the family of Josef’s younger brother Philip.
	Franziska also tells us that Josef Lorenz married Regina Katharina Richter on 3 November 1857, also at Markt Schönlind within the parish of Frühbuß (now Prêbuz), and that Regina’s parents were named Adalbert Richter and Anna née Rudolph. PhDr. Bystricky found Regina’s birth record in the parish register of Frühbuß, dated 7 September 1829:

		“Ort: Schieferhütten Nr. 17; Namen: Regina Katharina; Vater: Richter, Adalbert, Flaschenmeister in 	Mühlhäussen, geb. von Schindelwald Nr. 52, ehel. Sohn des Franz Richter, Herrschaftl. Zinners in Schindelwald, u. 	der Katharina geb. Gröschl; Mutter: Rudolph, Anna geb. von Mühlhäussen Nr. 17, ehel. Tochter des + Wenzl 	Rudolph, Spitzenhändlers in Mühlhäussen, und der Susanna geb. Sattler”; Regina was born at Schieferhütten 	(now Bridlova), in house number 17; the record includes the names of her parents and her four grandparents.

	Regina’s father was Adalbert Richter, a master bottle maker who lived in Mühlhäussen (now called Mlynske Domky, this was the old glassmaking Glashütte area founded in 1555 which became the nucleus of the village of Vogeldorf), who was born in Schindelwald (now Sindelová), house number 52; he was the son of Franz Richter, employer or master of tinsmiths in Schindelwald, and of Katharina Gröschl. Regina’s mother was Anna Rudolph of Mühlhäusseln, daughter of the late Wenzl Rudolph, lace dealer of Mühlhäusseln, and of Susanna née Sattler. Recall that Franz Wenzel Lorenz’s mother was Anna Maria Franziska Rudolph, also of Mühlhäussen. It is probable that Wenzl Rudolph and Anna Maria Franziska Rudolph were cousins (possibly siblings), as both were from the same small village during the same generation. Unfortunately, we do not have access to the records that could document such a connection.
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	We have seen most of these villages with the Lorenz family records, but Schindelwald is new to our story. Sindelová is located three miles east of Krásná Lípa, at a higher elevation along the road that leads to Kraslice. The German Genealogy website for Sudetenland Orte describes Schindelwald’s local industry as bedeutende, important iron works, with a rolling mill, a foundry, and Mech. Werkstatte, a mechanical workplace. The town is part of the Schönlind parish. Internet pictures of a pension named Modrinka (located in modern Sindelová) show green meadows with evergreen trees; mist low in the valley reveals the next range of mountains, and a small river winds through the valley.
	Kraslice (formerly Graslitz) is a large town; with 8,000 inhabitants, it now ranks third in population within the Sokolov district. A POCKET GUIDE TO CZECHOSLOVAKIA; HQ XXII CORPS; Maj. Gen. Ernest N. Harmon, Commanding; Plzen, Czechoslovakia; dated 27 July 1945, states,

		“KRASLICE (German spelling Graslitz); Kraslice, with its population of 12,000 people, is the largest city of 	the Rudohori (Ore Mountains, Erzgebirge). The city was first settled in 1154 by people who came to mine the 	many metals found there. First gold and silver, then copper, lead, wolfram and tungsten were discovered. The 	city is principally noted for the production of music instruments, but is [also] a center of the lace industry. These 	industries were founded as the mining industry declined. The manufacture of musical instruments came first; it 	was not until the 1800’s that lace was manufactured. Both crafts are highly developed, and the knowledge and 	skills accumulated through the years pass from father to son. All types of musical instruments are made here, 	and the factories supplied firms such as King of New York with instruments before the war.”

	The German Genealogy website for Sudetenland Orte states that Graslitz was one of the largest cities in the Erzgebirge Mountains, with district authority offices and Fachschulen, technical training schools for Stickerei, embroidery and for music. There is a Catholic Church (dedicated to Heilige Fronleichnam Christi, Corpus Christi) and an Evangelische, Protestant Church (probably Lutheran), while they have several schools, including separate Volksschule, elementary schools and Bürgerschule, middle? schools for boys and for girls. The Oberschule, high school, has eight classes. In 1938, Graslitz and its neighboring hamlet Glasberg (Sklenna in Czech) had 12,526 inhabitants. Photographs show the town’s stone buildings nestled amongst green rolling hills.
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	By 1470, Kaiser Karl IV permitted Graslitz to make municipal laws for the Elbogen District. The mining industry was well established by 1601. The parish books include records for Graslitz-Glasberg (now Kraslice-Sklenna), Eibenberg (Tisova), Glashütte, Grünberg (Zelena Hora), Markhausen (Hranicna), Neudorf (Nova Ves), Pechbach (Smolna), Ruhstadt (Zátisî), Schönau (Snêzná), Schönwerth (Krasna), Schwaderbach (Bublava), Silberbach (Strîbrná) and Nancy (Tisina). Ort nicht mehr existent; Neudorf, Pechbach, and Nancy no longer exist. In 1930, the parish counted 19,338 Catholics and 1,989 ‘not Catholics’.
	Local industries included the manufacture of textiles and toys, but Graslitz, the Klingende Stadt, brass sounding town, is famous for its production of musical instruments (including Amati-Denak, Ltd., who made our President Clinton’s saxophone!). In one year alone it manufactured 100,000 Blechinstrumente, tin or sheet metal instruments, 14,000 woodwinds, 4,500 saxophones and 200,000 Ziehharmonikas, accordions or concertinas. They also repair older instruments.
	This musical tradition began centuries ago in 1631, when Melchior Lorenz became the first person in Kraslice who was legally registered as a violin maker or Geigenmacher. His trade prospered, and by 1669 a violin makers’ guild was established in Kraslice. By 1750, the popularity of orchestral music encouraged the local production of wind and string instruments. The close geography of the area suggests that Melchior Lorenz, Geigenmacher, violin maker, could be related to our Lorenz forebears, but this has not been documented. Lorenz is a patronymic surname which originated in the 1400’s with many different ‘sons of Lawrence’. The surname is found throughout German speaking countries, such as Germany, Austria, and old Bohemia. So we cannot assume that all Lorenzes, even in the same area, were originally related.

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DIE FAMILIE RICHTER

	Returning to the family of our Regina Richter, it is interesting to note the occupations of her father and grandfathers in Mühlhäussen. Her father Adalbert Richter was a Flaschenmeister, master bottle maker, a member of the glass making trade which has made this area famous (recall the crystal goblets which our Rosa Heidler Lorenz brought to America with her).

	The Prague Post OnLine for 10 February 1999 told ‘a brief history’,

		“Since the Middle Ages, Bohemia’s vast forests and abundant supply of raw materials have lured 	glassmakers from all over Europe, who settled along the border regions, in the Sumava, Krusné Hory and 	Krkonose. But by the 16th century forest land had given way to agriculture, and glassworkers concentrated in the 	mountains of the north. The glass they produced, known as ‘forest glass’, was not of high quality. It was tinted 	green from the minerals in the sand, and full of bubbles. Masterpieces of the Renaissance were still a long way 	away. . .
		“Artisans tried to imitate the transparency [of rock crystal] by improving the quality of glass. The Venetians 	were the most successful. . . using seaweed. . . Bohemian glassmakers were not far behind. Instead of using 	seaweed, they added beechwood ashes to create a clear, hard ‘crystal glass’, more difficult to work in its molten 	state, but more suited for ‘cold’ decoration, such as cutting or engraving. .
		“Habsburg Emperor Rudolph II took an interest in glass production and invited experts from all over Europe 	to Boehmia. By the 1650’s, Czech stajnsnajderi, stone cutters, were unrivalled on the continent. They retained 	their supremacy until the early 19th century, when . . . British and Irish workshops [began] producing lead crystal 	using techniques they had learned from Bohemian craftsmen. . . Today the mountainous border regions in the 	north of [Czech Republic] are still known as glassmaking country.”

	Bohemian glass and crystal are still major exports from the Czech Republic, easily recognizable by their distinctive colors (often red or cobalt blue) and the cut or engraved designs (often with deer or other hunting designs).
It is tempting to wonder just what Adalbert’s bottles held. Perhaps they held one of the many locally made beers, or 

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perhaps they were used to bottle water from one of the many spas and springs in the area. Karlovy Vary now operates a modern bottling plant for its ‘curative’ waters.
	Adalbert’s father Franz Richter was a tinsmith, a remnant of the medieval metal-working crafts that flourished with the minerals from the Erzgebirge, Krusné Hory, Ore Mountains. Deposits of tin were harvested from the Rohlau River (now called Rolova) by placer mining. Tinsmiths produced blech, tin or sheet metal, or weißblech, white tin. The hills of the Slavkovsky Les (a forest southwest of Karlovy Vary) also produced tin as early as the 1500’s.
	As mining declined in the Erzgebirge Mountains after the Thirty Years War, smaller Hausindustrie, cottage industries, kept the economy viable. Lace making became the dominant industry, one that women (and also men) could do at home. This was the lace that Regina’s grandfather Wenzel Rudolph ‘handled’ circa 1800. Bohemian lace was exported all over Europe, and continued as a major business in the area until the end of World War II. The internet website for the Bobbin Lace European Network (BLEN) tells the history of the ‘Lace Trade in Bohemia’:

		“The Krusné Hory Mountains are the oldest Mother Soil of the cultivated lace trade in Bohemia. . . with a 	long tradition and wide network. The beginning of the lace trade [is said to be] 1561, when Barbara Uttmanova 	settled in Annaberg [in the German portion of the Erzgebirge Mountains, north of Karlovy Vary]. From Flanders, 	she brought with her knowledge of the West-European lace trade. In Annaberg, famous for its production of 	bordering, the lace trade is recorded in the chronicle of 1561.
		“In the Krusné Hory Mountains, where a decline of metal mining was starting, and the Thirty Years War 	capped it, lace making quickly spread and from here, bound to the miners’ families, to Cheb and the South 	Bohemia region. It is recorded that in Saxonia [the part of Germany north of the Czech Republic] and in Bohemia 	in the beginning of the 1700’s, there were some 10,000 persons involved in lace making.
		“Baroque fashion brought fame to the Krusné Hory lace trade, which it has kept until the 20th century. 	Laces according to Dutch and English patterns were made, mostly from Dutch flax yarn. . . also lace from golden 	and silver thread and black silk lace according to the Spanish fashion. Circa 1750, thousands of people worked 
	for traders in Jachymov [then St Joachimsthal, this town was north of Karlovy Vary on the main road to 	Annaberg], Vejprty and Nejdek [district capital of the area where our Lorenz and Rudolph families lived]. The   

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	Theresian Cadaster [a tax register] listed two lace traders in Rudny [possibly Rudna, a town on the eastern edge 	of Prague] and one in Nove Hamry [then called Neuhammer, this was Rosa Heidler Lorenz’s birthplace, less than 	five miles from Mühlhäusseln where our Wenzl Rudolph lived]; 27 communities listed lace making as a major way 	of support.
		“Lace made in the Krusné Hory region was of great quality and in demand. . . Around 1800, there were 	16,743 lace makers there. The Krusné Hory region kept contact with world trends through business demand and 	imperial support. Empress Maria Theresa established a lace making school in Prague in 1767 to encourage quality 	production, while Emperor Franz I founded the State Lace making manufacture in Vienna (32 girls from the 	Karlovy Vary area were trained there). Three schools were started in Kraslice [then Graslitz], Jachymov [then St 	Joachimsthal], and Loket [between Karlovy Vary and Sokolov]. There were a dozen other schools in the Krusné 	Hory region where lace makers learned the craft of Brussels lace.
		“Needle lace was brought to Krusné Hory when Count Josef Auersperg invited a Belgian lacemaker who 	settled in Oloví [formerly Bleistadt; this is very close to Jindrichovice, the Heinrichsgrün which our Frank Lorenz 	wrote in his prayer book]. By 1854, 1,500 women were supported by this work. The centre of needle lace 	production was in nearby Krajková [then Gossengrün], which had a State lace school by 1881. Branching net lace 	production also continued.
		“Very fine laces called Vlackova had been made for over a century with knowledge of the point ground; they 	were made without drawings and descriptions. The designs were inherited from one generation to another. 	Thicker thread with glitter outlined or made motifs with a wide variety of patterns; their precision made them 	fine and bright. The patterns usually have a peaceful rhythm. These beautiful folk works made originally without 	patterns were gradually changed to repetitive mercenary goods without artistic feeling.
		“The market slumped when machine lace started to compete with hand-made lace; despite this, there were 	around 50,000 lace makers in the region in 1850. They made Valenciennes laces, needle and applied lace, and 	laces from horsehair and straw. Beads were used to accent the patterns. A German model workshop in 1867 	introduced new patterns for applied, needle, Valenciennes, chantilly and openwork duchesse a guipure lace. 	Kraslice [then Graslitz] became a lace center, as well as a center for tambour embroidery work. Viener 	Werkstatte had a subsidiary in Nejdek [then Neudek] and gave patterns to many workers who made bobbin and 	needle lace which the factory purchased.

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		“Traders from this area exported lace to Vienna and Budapest; the Cheb Chamber of Commerce helped to 	find these markets. Lace dealers in this area had always looked to western Europe for their markets. The main 	markets were Germany, England and the United States. Cheaper lace went to Italy.
		“Door to door salesmen were buying and selling laces too. Factors and lace traders didn’t buy laces directly 	from the lacemakers; salesmen did it for them. Traders went with goods to Slovakia, Hungary, Poland or 	Germany, from one town to another, from one market to another. Goods were in a wooden box 120 cm high and 	50 cm wide (approximately four feet by two feet) with straps used for carrying the box on their backs. After 	1850, the traders could go with the post-service, some even by railway. Others continued to go by foot. They 	divided their market areas up for each other. Some factors came home only for winter.
		“Yard lace was made according to home patterns, but lacemakers got orders and patterns from factors, who 	were employed by lace firms. Many motifs came from the Baroque and Rococo styles. Sales and export were 	guaranteed via traders from abroad who visited the Bohemian spa towns of Karlovy Vary [then Karlsbad], 	Marianske and Frantiskovy Lazneand.
		“After the creation of the Czechoslovak Republic, the School and Institute of Art Production in Prague 	organized lace courses in Krusné Hory; they sent material, patterns and salary for the work. Even girls aged six 	and seven attended courses. Money was sent only a few times a year; good lacemakers were paid 20 crowns per 	month. Bobbin lace was made from non-bleached thread and from white or black cotton thread; bobbins were 	made a bit sturdier with a cover. Students made tape lace called krojove (some tapes made for folk costumes 	were so wide they required sixty bobbins), mats and collars. They used whole and half stitches, chain stitch, 	picot and leadwork, simple kinds of virgin ground and rose ground.
		“Competition from machine made lace (still made in Kraslice) weakened the market for hand lace. The 	major decline of lace making in Krusné Hory is connected with the evacuation of German-speaking people from 
	that region after World War I (and World War II); the new people did not produce the same style and quality of 	lace work. This led to the downfall of the traditional lace trade.”
	
	So our Wenzl Rudolph, Spitzenhändlers, was part of the lace heritage of the Krusné Hory Mountains. We do not know if he was a local factor, a lace trader, or an agent for distant companies; or perhaps he was a salesman who walked with the goods box strapped on his back and only came home during the winter. We shall see with the family 

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of Wenzl’s great-grandson Karl Lorenz that lace making at home and the lace trade continued to be important for those who stayed in Czechoslovakia; it was a major source of their income even during World War II.

ANNA LORENZ AND 
SOPHIA 'SOPHIE' LORENZ SCHOENECKER

	Wenzl’s granddaughter Regina Richter settled in Schönlind with her husband Josef Lorenz and that is where their seven children were born. There were two daughters, named Anna Lorenz and Sophie Lorenz. Both daughters stayed in Bohemia, and little is know about them. It is probable that both married, but we do not know the name of Anna’s husband. We have a postcard mailed from Schönlind, showing a Nativity Manger Scene printed in colors with gilt edging and a border of evergreen boughs with pinecones; red roses bloom through the snow outside the wooden barn, and an angel places more roses inside the manger. “Gesegnete Weihnachten” (Blessed Christmas), to Wohlg. Herrn Franz Lorenz; 1338 Miami Chapel Road; Dayton Ohio; N. Amerika. City directories tell us that Frank and Rosa Lorenz lived here from 1909 - 1914; there is no date on the postcard because the postal stamp was removed, but we can see that the postmark said SCHöNLIND.

		“Lieber Onkel ü Tante, wir wünschen eüch recht fröhlich Weihnachtin und ein glücklich Neü Jahr. Warum 	schreibt Ihr nicht einmal? . . . S. Schönecker” 

	[Translated by our cousin Frances Lorenz; ‘Dear Uncle and Aunt, We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Why don’t you write to us? Greetings from your niece Anna, sister Sofia, and Brother in Law Josef Schönecker.’]

	This tells us the married name Schönecker of our Frank’s sister Sophie, her husband Joseph and daughter Anna.
Sophie was still living in Schönlind during the 1930’s, and is fondly remembered by her great-niece Franziska Lorenz. ‘Aunt Sophie’ had red hair so beautiful that even her American relatives spoke of it (it also helps to explain the red mustache of her nephew, our Frank Lorenz, and the red hair of her great-nephew Joseph in Hamilton, Ohio). Sophie lived in a large farmhouse on a hill that overlooked the town of Schönlind. The farmlands surrounded Schönlind, but all the farmers lived in town for security; they walked every morning to work in their fields. Meter describes such houses in Border People, The Böhmisch,

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		“Old world houses were huge by American standards, running as much as a hundred feet in length, and. . . 	three stories high. Set upon a foundation of field stone, they were constructed with stone walls covered with a 	rough plaster. Beams and rafters would be cut from local trees. These homes had once been made of wood but 	this was prohibited due to the risk of fire.
		“Traditionally, the farm animals had been kept on the first floor. This made it easier to listen for sounds of 	trouble in the herd, and their heat also helped take the chill off the residents above. But in later years, people 	began to build separate stalls and mangers. Nearly every family had a few cattle, a milk cow or two, a few hogs, 	chickens or horses.
		“Often three or four families, who might be related by marriage [as were our Josef and Aloisia’s parents], 	stayed in the same building. The male owner was so highly identified with the house that his village name was 	the same as the name of his house. The other families were tenants who often helped with the family farm or 	business. It was close quarters, but it was less isolating than the farm houses they would build in America.
		“For administrative matters such as postal delivery or official business, each house was numbered, rather 	than having a street address. By the late 1700’s, all civil and parish records took note of the house number of 	the person described. This helps . . . genealogical research, since it is often the only way to tell two families 	apart.
		“The fields were roughly two to thirty hectares (five to seventy acres) in size. Originally, these were long 	narrow fields that ran spokelike from the village, because turning an ox-drawn plow was difficult. But these 	shapes became awkward as farming techniques improved in the 19th century, and aspiring farmers pieced 	together several plots they could work more efficiently. Many families also had their own wooded acreage for 	harvest as building materials or stovewood. In times of scarcity these might be sacrificed, but then the village 	faced hard times waiting for its fuel to grow again. Many villages also had communally-held pasture or forest 	grounds.”

	The landowner Sophie was ‘well off’; the farm had probably belonged to her husband Josef Schönecker, for Franziska remembers that the Lorenz family were not landowners. By the time Franziska knew her, Sophie lived alone, presumably widowed. We do not know what happened to her daughter Anna. Franziska brought Sophie fresh bread rolls every day, and received a ‘nickel’ as her tip! Sophie had helped to raise her orphaned nephews, including Josef Lorenz, the father of Franziska.

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WENZEL LORENZ AND MARIA HOFFMAN

	Wenzl Lorenz was born in April of 1859 at Schönlind, Bohemia. He was the first of his family to emigrate to America; Wenzl was settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, by 1884, when he was twenty-five years of age. It is interesting to note that he came during the peak year of German immigration to America; over 215,000 Germans entered the country in 1883. The 1884 city directory showed ‘Wenzel Lorenz’ working as a porter and boarding at the Teutonia Hotel. There is no street address listed, but the hotel’s name suggests it was located in the German-speaking Over the Rhine area, where Wenzel would have had an easy transition to his new homeland. He needed all the help he could get; 1884 was a difficult year in Cincinnati. Perry’s Vas You Ever in Zinzinnati? tells the stories,

		“The Ohio River flooded, reached 71.1 feet (9 feet less than the flood of 1937, but still the second worst to 	clobber this town) and four thousand homes were under water. The Suspension Bridge [over the Ohio River] was 	closed (it wasn’t closed in 1937). Lights went out. Gas was shut off. Leaks from the gas mains presented a 	constant fire hazard. Every fire engine the city possessed was mounted on flatboats. For the first time, the Red 	Cross was active here. Clara Barton herself was on the scene.
		“That wasn’t the only shock Cincinnati had that year. The Courthouse Riots needed the United States Army 	to stop them. [In December of 1883, William Berner and Joseph Palmer] hammered a horse trader to death for 	his gambling poke. When Berner got off with a light sentence [found guilty of manslaughter instead of murder]. .  	. Cincinnati got angry fast.
		“A mob of 10,000 assembled at the courthouse. They carried sticks and stones; a few carried guns. Sheriff 	Hawkins. . . secretly took Berner to the state prison at Columbus. But the mob seethed. Bricks were tossed, the 	jail door was battered. . . and the frame building inside the courtyard burned. Five men were dead and nearly 	fifty were wounded. The next day federal troops arrived to face the mob which [was] behind a barricade of 	mattresses, tables, and anything not nailed down. The mob charged the troops several times. Finally a flag of 	truce was raised, the wounded were carted off, and. . . the battle resumed. By twilight the mob had piled 	furniture soaked with kerosene against the building. When night came, the fire was lighted. The mob 

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	noisily prevented firemen from putting the fire out. At dawn, the Hamilton County Courthouse was a smoldering 	ruin. Over three hundred men and boys had been wounded. An estimated fifty were dead.”

	Not a very auspicious beginning to young Wenzel’s American adventure! But it was a prosperous time for Cincinnati, with new businesses and products. The Andrew Jergens Company and the Palace Hotel had opened in 1882; Procter & Gamble’s locally made Ivory Soap was advertised as “99 and 44/100% pure; it floats!” B.H. Kroger opened his second grocery store in 1883, with the motto “Do what your competitor neglects to do.” He did simple things: he put price tags on merchandise, gave premiums for coffee and tea, and neatly arranged his shelves. The city was busy improving itself; in July of 1885, their first cable car opened for business. 

		“You would have ridden up Gilbert Avenue at a steady eight miles per hour. The 22-ton cable installed on 	July Fourth was working just fine. Of course, when you boarded the car downtown, it wouldn’t have been a cable 	car but a horsecar. In reality, it was a cable car pulled by horses. At Court Street, the horses were detached, the 	gripman pulled the gadget that hooked the charming little car to the continuously running cable in the slot, and 	zap!, the car went scorching up Gilbert Avenue (eight miles an hour, naturally) leaving in its wake buggies and 	drays, and outdistancing all but street urchins, who ran alongside. At Nassau Street at the top of the hill, horses 	were attached again, and the car proceeded with clippety-clops to Peebles Corner.”
	
	That summer, John L. Sullivan fought Dan McCaffrey at Cincinnati’s Chester Park; many insisted it was no fight since they used the ‘new-fangled’ Marquess of Queensberry rules (which required a fair stand-up match, rounds of three minutes, and the wearing of gloves!). The Koehler Brewery was bought by a man named Louis Hudepohl; this was ultimately the only brewery to survive the dry years of Prohibition in Cincinnati.
	On 6 August 1885, Wenzel Lorenz married Maria Hoffman; the record of application dated 3 August is filed with Ohio Probate Court records at Hamilton County (this county includes the city of Cincinnati). The ceremony was performed by H. W. Pohlmeyer, a Minister of the Gospel.

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	By 1886, Wenzel was employed as a safemaker at Hall’s Safe and Lock Company; in 1887, he was still an iron worker, but now lived at 47 Peete Street (near Jackson Park, north of Over the Rhine, between Clifton Avenue and Mulberry Street). Perhaps Wenzel had learned the craft of ironworking at home in Bohemia; iron production began circa 1500 in the Krusné Hory region (Erzgebirge, or Ore Mountains). Foundries and smelting works processed locally mined ores; mills, wire factories, foundries, crushing mills and blacksmith forges were built along the riverbanks. In 1836, a large modern sheet metal rolling mill was established in Nejdek (capital of the district where Wenzel lived).
	In 1888, Wenzel sponsored the immigration of his brother Anton, who settled briefly in Cincinnati and then moved on to Hamilton, Ohio. In 1889, Wenzel sponsored the immigration of another brother, our Frank, who also settled at first in Cincinnati with his wife Rosa. Census records tell us that in 1889, Wenzel also became a naturalized American citizen. On 21 February 1892, at Sacred Heart Church, Wenzel and his wife Maria were proud godparents at the baptism of his namesake nephew, Wenzel Lawrence Lorenz, the son of our Frank and Rosa.
	The 1900 Cincinnati Census finds Wenzl Lorenz and his wife Mary living at 2742 Enslin Street, near the corner of Tafel Street. Wenzl owned the house free of mortgage. Wenzl was born in April of 1850 (sic; should be 1859) in Austria of German born parents, and he came to the United States in 1882 (recall that he appears in the Cincinnati directory in 1884) and was a naturalized citizen. He was an ironworker at a safe works and worked every month of the preceding year. Both Wenzl and Mary could read and write, but they did not speak English. The census states they were married for 17 years and Mary (born in March of 1863) was the mother of one child. Mary’s daughter, age nineteen, was at home with Wenzl and Mary; her name was Mary and she was born in Germany of German born parents in October, 1880. She came to America with her mother in 1882 and could read, write and speak English. This suggests that Maria Hoffman was probably a widow when she married our Wenzl in Cincinnati. The census scribe appears to have been confused by this blended family; the original information has been covered over by an obvious attempt to reconcile the daughter Mary’s information with that of Wenzl. Her father was listed as born in Germany; a later hand wrote ‘Austria’ on top so that it would incorrectly match Wenzl’s birthplace. We do not know what happened to Wenzl’s stepdaughter in later life; this is the only record we have concerning her. She was not at home in the 1910 census.
	The Cincinnati City Directories from 1906 through 1926 list Wenzel Lorenz, safemaker, residence at 2742 Enslin. The 1910 census shows “Vencal Lorence”, which explains why census index searches do not find Wenzel Lorenz; this census record was found only by searching for his neighbors in 1900 and finding Frank Zimmer still on the same street 

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in 1910, with our Wenzel on the same page. He was age 50, had been married for 24 years, and was born in Austria - Germany of Austro-German parents; he came in 1884 and was a naturalized citizen. Wenzel worked for wages as a plate straightener at a safe factory, and owned his home free of mortgage. His wife Mary was born in Austria Germany of similar parents and came to America in 1884; she had one child who was still living.
	The 1920 census finds Wenzel and Mary Lorenz at their home on Enslin Street; both could read and write and speak English. Wenzel was age 60, born in ‘Baymin’ (presumably Bohemia) Austria of Baymin Austrian parents who both spoke German. Wenzel had come to America in 1884 and became a naturalized citizen in 1889; in 1920, he worked as an iron worker at a safe manufacturing company for wages. His wife Mary was age 55, born in ‘Bayer’ (presumably Bayern, or Bavaria) Germany of German born parents who spoke the German language. Mary came to America in 1883 at the age of twenty.
	Wenzel visited his brother Frank in Dayton during the final months of Frank’s illness in 1922. Rosa wrote Luella about the overnight visit:

		“Dayton, 21 August 1922
	
	“Liebe Lüella, Dear Luella, I am sorry that I have not written for so long, but last week I was too busy. 	Monday 	we were at the doctor’s, we were not home long when Uncle Wenzl came and remained until Tuesday. . . 	Wednesday again at the doctor, Thursday I washed, then I had to cook at midday.

	“Now I close with many greetings and kisses to you. . . Mother”

	Both Pauline Bertsch Minke and Eva Hafner Lorenz (the wife of Wenzel’s nephew Anthony) remembered visiting ‘Uncle Wenzel’ at his home in Cincinnati. They described a house on a hill, with big front steps near a park. A visit in 1990 found a modest, two story house with white siding and a front porch reached by eight wide steps; a large brick chimney is in the back of the house. Nearby houses showed the same narrow townhouse construction. The north edge of Fairview Park is one block away, at the southern end of Enslin Avenue.
	The death certificate for ‘Wendel’ Lorenz shows that he died at home on 2742 Enslin Street on 21 May 1927 at 5:30 pm. He suffered from Carcinoma of the Stomach (Pylorous), a diagnosis confirmed by X-Rays and certified by Dr. G. R. Fromm of 286 W. McMicken Street. It is interesting to note that this is the same cause of death listed on his brother Frank’s death certificate four years earlier. A machinist for Victor Safe Company, Wenzel had been born in Germany. His father was ‘James Lorenz’ [sic] and his mother’s maiden name was unknown by the informant Mary Lorenz, Wenzel’s widow.
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	Cemetery records show that Wenzel Lorenz was buried on 24 May 1927 at the Vine Street Hill Cemetery (located north of downtown Cincinnati at 3701 Vine Street, north of the Cincinnati Zoo near Interstate 75); this cemetery served the German Evangelical Protestant community of Cincinnati. This is surprising, because the family remembers that our Frank and Rosa Lorenz always attended Roman Catholic church services in Ohio and were devout Catholics. Perhaps Wenzel’s wife Maria was not of the Catholic faith.
	The 1930 census found widow Mary Lorenz still living at 2742 Enslin Street, age 67, born in Rheinfals Germany of German parents. This time the census says that she came to America in 1880; she was a naturalized citizen. Mary owned her home free of mortgage, valued at $4,000. She had no occupation listed, but had a boarder named Hugo Griffig who paid rent of $13 monthly. Hugo was a widower aged sixty born in Ohio of German parents; he worked as a laborer at the Pattern Works. The home had no radio set.
	Maria Hoffman Lorenz passed away on 6 June 1936 at the age of 74; she is buried with her husband Wenzel. They share a plain flat stone marker engraved with palm leaves. We do not know what happened to Mary’s daughter Mary. In fact, the current generation of our family at Dayton did not know that Wenzel had a stepdaughter; we only learned about her from the 1900 census record.

WENZEL † MARIA
LORENZ
1859-1927 1863-1936

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ANTON LORENZ, ELIZABETH LANG, AND ANNA AUPPERLE

	Anton Lorenz was the second son of Josef Lorenz and Regina Richter; he was born in 1863 in Markt Schönlind, then part of the Austrian Empire, now part of the Czech Republic. At the age of 25, in March of 1888, he boarded the S.S. America in Bremen, Germany, and emigrated to America with the sponsorship of his brother Wenzel in Cincinnati, Ohio. The ship was built in 1862 by Caird and Company at Greenock, Scotland, for the Norddeutscher Lloyd Steamship Line; she was a single screw iron steamer with one funnel and three masts whose sails were rigged as a Bark. Over 300 feet in length and 40 feet in breadth, she carried 76 passengers in first class, 107 in second class, and 480 in third class accommodations. Her customary route was from Bremen via Southampton, England, to New York or Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States. The ship was sold to an Italian line in 1894 and scrapped at Spezia in 1895.
	Anton Lorenz boarded the ship with no extra ‘pieces of baggage’; the ship’s manifest shows that he sailed in steerage compartment ‘C’, for single men, intending a ‘protracted sojourn’ in the ‘U. S. of A’. He was a citizen of ‘Germany’ with the occupation of ‘farmer’ (the same occupation was written for EVERY immigrant within this compartment; perhaps the clerk did not make an individual survey). The ship sailed under Captain H. Heineke with a total of 698 passengers: 546 adults, 110 children, and 42 infants (of whom four had been born at sea; one sadly died only four hours after birth). Anton docked at Baltimore on 10 March 1888 and presumably continued by train (as advertised in 1891) to meet Wenzel in Cincinnati:

Norddeutscher Lloyd

	Regular weekly Mail-Steamships between Baltimore and Bremen. This line offers tourists and immigrants a superior choice for the crossing. Cheap train travel from Baltimore to points west. Protection against frauds in Bremen, at sea, and in Baltimore. Immigrants can board trains directly from the steamship and avoid extra costs for the transfer of baggage. No need to change trains between Baltimore, Chicago, and St. Louis. Translators accompany the immigrant to points west.

The 1889 Cincinnati City Directory shows Anton Lorenz, bolt cutter, boarding at 18 Hamer Street. This is two blocks away from Peete Street (where Wenzel lived in 1887), south of McMicken Street. Once again, this is in the northern edges of the German-speaking Over the Rhine district. Notice that Anton is working as an iron worker, suggesting he 
had learned that craft working in the mills or foundries of the Krusné Hory region.

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	By 1890, Anton had married his first wife Elizabeth Lang; we know her maiden surname from the information on their son Bernard’s death certificate in 1916, which also states that she was born in ‘Germany’. We have not found their marriage record, nor have we seen Anton and Elizabeth in the 1900 census, but the 1880 census suggests that Elizabeth might have shared Anton’s Austrian roots. One Elizabeth Lang, age 18 born in Austria, was working as a servant with John Schneider of Bavaria, a baker and miller in Cincinnati. But perhaps Anton’s wife was another Elizabeth, who came to America after 1880.
	Their son Josef or Joseph Lorenz was born on 3 October 1889 in Cincinnati. Three more sons soon joined the family, all born in ‘Ohio’: Bernard ‘Ben’ Lorenz on 30 June 1891, Julius Lorenz in July 1893, and Frank Lorenz in January 1896. Josef’s birth date and place are known from a 1923 Ellis Island manifest, Bernard’s birth date is from his death certificate (his cemetery burial record tells us Ben was born in Cincinnati), military records tell us that Julius was born in Cincinnati and that Frank was born in Covington, Kentucky, although the census states ‘born in Ohio’. The brothers Anton and Frank kept in touch, and we can imagine frequent visits between the families. Rose Lorenz Bertsch told stories of visiting her cousins in Hamilton when she was still a child, and later as an adult.
	Our Rosa Heidler Lorenz’s photo albums contain a baptismal photograph for one of Anton’s sons (presumably the infant Ben with the toddler Joseph, for only two are pictured); both boys wear long white dresses edged with openwork lace. The photo was from Mrs. Chas. Waldach PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIOS, Corner, Liberty and Vine, Cincinnati. We also have Joseph’s first communion photo; he wears a double-breasted suit with knickers, while long dark socks reach from his high-top shoes to his knees. Joseph has a lapel pin, a handkerchief in his coat pocket, and a large white ribbon on his left arm. His right hand displays a small prayer book next to a long slender candle with religious motifs. This photo is from Hamilton.
	We have not found the 1900 census record for Anton and his family, despite a careful reading of the entire census for all townships of Butler County near the town of Hamilton. In addition, he is not listed in the 1900 soundex for Ohio census records; perhaps his name was badly misspelled.
	The 1900 Hamilton City Directory shows Anton Lorenz, locksmith, living at 206 Park Avenue. Hamilton, Ohio, is the capitol of Butler County, 25 miles north of Cincinnati and 35 miles south of Dayton. Fort Hamilton began as a frontier outpost on the Great Miami River in 1791. The area’s first settlers were land speculators and Revolutionary 

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War Veterans. The earliest industries in Hamilton, textiles and paper, relied on water power from the nearby river. The arrival of large numbers of German immigrants in the 1830’s and 1840’s greatly expanded local industries and ironworks. The Miami and Erie Canal passed through Hamilton on its way from the Ohio River at Cincinnati to Lake Erie at Toledo, via Middletown, Dayton and Troy. Its waterpower encouraged manufactories such as mills, machine shops, foundries, linseed oil refineries, and woolen and cotton factories. A remnant of the canal now offers hiking trails along the towpath in the Miami and Erie Rentschler Forest Preserve, four miles northeast of town.
	The Centennial Anniversary of the City of Hamilton, 1891, shows the diversity of local businesses when our Anton moved there; the list includes Advanced Manufacturing, Beckett Paper, Bess Machine, Cincinnati Brewing, Columbia Carriage, Corliss Engine Works, Deuscher Agricultural and Maltsters, Fisher Ice Tool, Gordon Steam Pump, Hamilton Buggy, Hamilton Foundry and Machine, Hamilton Tile Works, Hughes Manufacturing, MacNeale and Urban Safe and Lock, Mosler Safe and Lock, National Car Seal, Niles Tool Works, Phenix Caster, and Shuler and Benninghofen Woolen Mill.
	Hamilton, Ohio, is also noteworthy as the birthplace of author Robert McCloskey. Make Way for Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal have midwest roots! Robert McCloskey stayed in Hamilton through his high school years, and the children’s wing of the Lane Public Library was dedicated to him.
	Hamilton has expanded on both sides of the Great Miami River to a current population of about 60,000 people. The house at 206 Park Street has been well tended through the years, or recently renovated, and had modern cream siding and redwood shutters in 1995. It appeared to be a two-story duplex, with a set-back front door on one side; each half resembles the narrow townhouses popular in the 1800’s. A central gable window in the roof suggests an attic room.
	The 1906 Hamilton City Directory lists Anton Lorenz, machinist, living with his wife Elizabeth at the corner of Commerce and Edgewood Streets, near Main Street in the northwestern part of Hamilton. Their son Joseph Lorenz, machinist, is also listed at the same address. This is a large wooden two-story house very similar to that at 206 Park Avenue, but it has fewer windows and no shutters. A portion of the ground floor is now occupied by a store and tavern; the entrance door has been cut into the corner of the building. The 1908 city directory lists Anton Lorenz, machinist; Joseph Lorenz, machinist; and Ben Lorenz, machine hand. They are still living at Commerce and Edgewood Streets, but Elizabeth is no longer listed. Presumably she had passed away, for by 1910 Anton has a new wife named Anna. 

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Information from his son Bernard’s burial in 1916 suggests her maiden name was Anna Mary Aupperle; he was buried in the Aupperle lot owned by Anna Aupperle at St. Mary Cemetery on Ross Avenue in St. Bernard, Ohio.
	Aupperle is a fairly unique surname in Ohio; the 1880 census suggests Anna’s father was John G. Aupperle, born in 1835 at Württemberg Germany; he worked as a carriage driver and in 1880 lived at 442 East Front, Cincinnati, with his wife Carolina, age 42 of Baden. A genealogical index at www.familysearch.org tells us that Gottfried Aupperle and Carolina Fischer were married on 6 August 1856 at Hamilton, Ohio. Carolina is buried with Ben in the Aupperle lot at St. Mary Cemetery; she died on 22 March 1904. In 1880, Anna’s sister Emma, age fifteen, lived at home with their parents, but Anna, scholar age fourteen, was living with her cousin-in-law John Nicholson (carpenter age 44 of Ireland) and his wife Sarah (age 35, born in Ohio) at 311 Findlay Street in Cincinnati.
	The 1910 Hamilton City census found Anton Lorenz living in Ward 5 at 1710 South Twelfth Street, in the southeastern part of town near the Dixie Highway. He was age 47, born in Austria of Austrian born parents who spoke the German language. Anton came to the USA in 1890 and was a naturalized citizen (we know from a published index that his declaration of intent had been filed on 27 March 1891 at the Hamilton County Probate Court) who spoke English and could read and write. He worked as a vice-hand at the Safe works for wages, and owned his home with a mortgage. He had been married for two years to his second wife.
	His wife Anna was age 44; this was her first marriage and she had no children of her own. She was born in Ohio of German born parents who spoke German; Anna spoke English and could read and write. Four sons were listed at home with the family: Joseph Lorenz, age 20, machinist at safe works for wages; Bernard Lorenz, age 18, nickel plater at a foundry for wages; Julius Lorenz, age 17, machinist at a foundry for wages, and Frank Lorenz, age 14, with no occupation listed. All were single, born in Ohio of parents who were both Austrian born (this tells us that Anton’s first wife Elizabeth was born in Austria and spoke German). The boys all spoke English and could read and write.
	It is interesting that Anton is working for a safe company, as that was his brother Wenzel’s occupation in Cincinnati. Perhaps that was the specialty training they had learned back home in Schönlind (a center of iron-working), or perhaps Wenzel learned the safe making trade in Ohio and then taught his brother when Anton arrived from Austria. Wenzel worked for the Hall Safe Company in Cincinnati, which might have had ties to the Herring Hall Marvin Safe and Lock Company in Hamilton. Perhaps Anton worked for the Mosler Safe Company of Hamilton, as did his son Bernard in later years. Mosler closed its doors and ceased business on 3 August 2001, seeking federal bankruptcy liquidation. The Cincinnati Enquirer article talked about the company’s long history, “started in Cincinnati by Gustav Mosler, an Austrian 

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immigrant, in 1867. By 1891, the Mosler-Bahmann Safe Company had outgrown its factory and moved to Hamilton to have access to rail and barge service.” The timing of that move matches that of Anton’s to Hamilton; this may explain why he left Cincinnati.
	In the early 1900’s, “Mosler built the first fire resistant safe. It was also the first company to develop lighter but stronger manganese steel to replace heavy cast-iron safes and vaults. During World War I, Mosler built gun carriages in Hamilton for the U.S. military. . . They built Sherman tanks during World War II.” The company has a national reputation; during the 1950’s they built the vault that holds our nation’s treasured documents at the National Archives in Washington D.C.: the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution of the United States. Mosler Safe Company also built the vault that protects the nation’s gold at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Their international reputation is based on news they received from the president of a bank in Hiroshima, Japan, after the end of World War II. The bank vault built by Mosler Safe company had withstood the blast of the atomic bomb, and all its contents survived intact.
	Anton’s family kept in touch with their cousins in Dayton. Ben sent a postcard dated 26 September 1911 to his cousin Tony after a visit,

		“Dear Cousin Tony, Yours at hand. Glad you got home save [sic] but sorry to here [sic] you are sick. Hope 	you will get well soon. Your cousin, Ben.”

	The postcard’s front shows a photograph of “Herring Hall, Marvin Safe and Lock Company, & Mosler Safe and Lock Company, East Hamilton Boulevard, Hamilton Ohio”. In 1910, Hamilton could call itself the “Safe Capital of the World”, for its two Safe and Lock firms of Mosler and Herring Hall Marvin produced more than 80% of the safes used worldwide.
We have a studio photograph of Ben as a young man, dated 1912. He wore a plaid coat with wide lapels over dark pants; his white shirt has collar studs and a striped tie. His face is thin and he has thin straight hair; Ben looks like mature photographs of his uncle, our Frank Lorenz. We also have a postcard dated 19 June 1912; it was sent to ‘Anthony Lorenz, Co. B, 28th Infantry, Fort Snelling Minn’,

		“Dear cousin Tony; I am glad that you are well, and happy. We where [sic] up your house Sunday a week. I 	have not much to say. frome [sic] your Dear cousin, Ben.”

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	Anton’s family remained at 1712 South Twelfth Street in directory listings from 1910 until 1920. This is a smaller house than the one at Commerce and Edgewood; it has two stories and a wide front porch. The side yard is spacious; the modern lawn might well have been a vegetable garden or orchard for Anton’s family. The neighborhood is still residential.
	Anton continued to work as a machinist and locksmith, while Joseph was always a machinist and Ben became a locksetter. The 1912 directory lists Julius Lorenz for the first time; he worked as a helper, an inspector, a moulder and a machine hand through the years. In 1915, their youngest son Frank Lorenz was listed; he was a wire worker and a moulder.
	Research by Kathryn Lorenz tells us that Anton and Anna went to Germany in 1913; perhaps they were able to visit relatives still living in Bohemia. The ship manifest record dated 28 October 1913 at Ellis Island shows that they traveled on the SS Kranprinzessir Cecilie (named for Crown Princess Cecile) from Bremen, Germany. This ship was owned by the same Norddeutscher Lloyd Line on which Anton had emigrated twenty-five years previously; the Cecilie was launched in 1906 and accommodated 617 first class passengers, 326 in second class and 798 in third class. Barely six months after Anton’s voyage, Cecilie made her last voyage from Bremen before she was stranded in Boston due to the imminent outbreak of World War I. Anton was lucky that he returned to America when he did, or he might have been detained in Germany. Their children were not with them. Anton Lorenz was a married male aged 51 in 1913; he had been naturalized on 11 November 1893 at Probate Court in Cincinnati Ohio. Anna was age 45.
	On 18 December 1914, Anna sent Christmas Greetings to our Frank and Rosa, Lieber Schwager ünd Schwagerin, translated by Cousin Frances LaFrance,

		“Hamilton; Dec 18/ 14; Dear Brother-in-law and Sister-in-law! You probably are thinking that I have 	forgotten about you, since I had not answered your letter for such a long time. We have tried repeatedly to visit 	you but Anton did not feel too well and it was hard to fit it in with his work. Our Julius works. . .”

	Presumably, this postcard was tucked inside an envelope with another that continued the message, as the writing covers the entire back of the postcard and there is neither address nor stamp to show that it was mailed separately. The picture shows a large poinsettia blossom resting on a decorated parchment scroll with a dangling red seal; the words say, Best wishes for a Happy Christmas.

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We also have an undated postcard showing purple pansies and a pastoral scene, “To Greet You”, with the message written in English,

		“Luella; I wish you a Happy Easter. Your Aunt Anna.”
	
	On 12 March 1916, “Bernard Lorenz died at his home 1710 Lane Street at noon of pneumonia, aged 24 years 8 months and 12 days. He leaves to mourn his loss besides many other relatives and friends, the bereaved parents Mr. and Mrs. Anton Lorenz and three brothers, Joseph, Julius and Frank Lorenz. Bernard was a safe maker by occupation and was lately employed at the Mosler Safe Works. His untimely death has caused the deepest grief and sorrow. The funeral will take place from the house at 7 and from St. Veronica’s Church at 7:30 o’clock a.m. The interment will be in St. Mary’s Cemetery, St. Bernard.” The obituary was published in Republican News.
	St. Bernard, Ohio, is now a suburb of Cincinnati, located along modern I-75 north of that city (near Vine Street and the Cincinnati Zoo). St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery (described on its website as “a pretty cemetery with both old and new monuments”) was founded in 1893; many of the oldest stones are written in the German language. It is located at 701 East Ross Avenue, and Bernard was buried in lot number 291 of Section 13, on a grassy hillside between the cemetery’s St. Augustine and St. John Avenues (on the side closest to St. Mary Avenue). Cemetery records show that he died on 12 March 1916 in Hamilton, Ohio, age 24 years with place of birth “Cin O.” He was interred on March 15 in a lot owned by Anna Aupperle. Bernard Lorenz has no separate marker, but the lot contains a vertical stone holding a small stone cross. The marker is titled AUPPERLE and has the inscription for his stepmother Anna’s mother, born 1836 and died 1904,

CAROLINA AUPPERLE, GEBOREN 19 AUG. 1836, GESTORBEN 20 APRIL 1904

	The following December, Anna wrote again to Frank and Rosa,

		“Here is another New Year wish, And tho’ tis but a card, ‘Tis worth twice any other, For I wish it twice as 	hard.”

	The picture shows a snowy landscape with white birch trees and a distant farmhouse. Postmarked 29 December 1916 at Hamilton, Ohio, Anna wrote,

		“Dear brother-in-law and Sister-in-law, We received your postcard. We hope you are all well and in good 	health and spirits and wish you all a happy new year. Anna”

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	On 5 June 1917, the three brothers filled out their official World War Draft Registration Cards, with their residence at 1710 South 12th Street, Hamilton, Ohio. These draft cards confirm their birthdates and places: Joseph on 3 October 1889 at Cincinnati, Ohio; Julius on 23 July 1893 also at Cincinnati; and Frank on 13 February 1896 at Covington, Kentucky. All three brothers were single and claimed responsibility for the support of their Father and Mother. Joseph age 27 was working at the Herring Hall Marvin Company as a Machinist (recall that company was pictured on one of the postcards sent to their Dayton cousins); he had medium height and build, with gray eyes and red (!!) hair (recall his Great-Aunt Sophie Lorenz had red hair so beautiful that even her American relatives spoke of it). Julius age 23 was working as Moulder Helper at the American Foundry in Hamilton; of medium height, he had light blue eyes and dark hair. Frank age 21 was working as a moulder at the American Foundry; he had medium height and build, with light brown eyes and dark brown hair.
	In 1919, their cousin Rose Lorenz Bertsch sent a postcard from Dayton to her mother Rosa on the Polk Grove farm to say that she had been, “to Hamilton & they [Lorenz cousins] are all well. Love from, Rose & Baby [Pauline]”.
	The 1919 Hamilton city directory showed more changes for Anton’s family; the two brothers Julius and Frank were serving in the U.S. Army at this time. Records from Vol. 10 of the Official Roster of Ohio Soldiers, Sailors and Marines for the World War 1917-1918 show that Frank Lorenz enlisted in the National Army on 19 September 1917 “age 21 8/12 years” and Julius on 7 March 1918 “age 24 8/12 years”, both at Hamilton, Ohio. Service with the National Army tells us that they were probably drafted into service. Their home residence was given as “1710 South 12th Street, Hamilton, Ohio.”
	Frank Lorenz served with 330th U.S. Infantry Regiment, Company E to July 1918, then was transferred to the 30th Infantry, Company E, until his Honorable Discharge on 28 August 1919. Frank was promoted to Private First Class on 1 December 1917, then he was a private on 10 January 1918; on 10 April 1918 he was promoted again to Private First Class. Frank served overseas with the American Expeditionary Force under General Pershing from 12 June 1918 to 23 August 1919, seeing service at Aisne Marne, St. Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne, and the Defensive Sector. Regimental histories tell us that the 330th Infantry, assigned to the 83rd Division, was organized in August 1917 at Camp Sherman, located in Chillicothe, Ohio, so Frank was one of its earliest soldiers. Nicknamed the Ohio or the Thunderbolt Division, it comprised four regiments of infantry, three artillery, three machine gun units, and the 308th Engineers. The 83rd Division was under the command of Major General E. F. Glenn.

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	The National Defense Act in 1916 created seven new Infantry Regiments (the 31st through the 37th). The reorganization and increase of military units continued with America’s entry into World War One the following Spring of 1917; twenty-seven new regiments were immediately formed in cadre from the other thirty-seven, and others followed. The numbering system reflected three various ground elements: Regular Army regiments were numbered 1 to 100; National Guard Regiments were 101 through 300; the ‘Volunteer’ National Army (which included draftees) were numbers above 301. There was also a Reserve Corps.
	After training at Camp Sherman, Frank went overseas to France with the 330th Infantry in June 1918; the following month he was transferred to the 30th Infantry, which was part of the Third Division of the Regular Army, later called the ‘Rock of the Marne’ for its heroic defense “with one foot in the water” at the front lines near Château Thierry in mid-July. The Division’s web site states,

		“All along the 3rd Division’s lines, the Germans were being soundly defeated. Their assault slowed and 	then finally stopped. By nightfall, 800 Germans had been captured. Some units had lost over 40% of their men 	(either killed or wounded), but nowhere on the 3rd Division’s lines did the German forces break through. The 	Third Division stopped the Germans cold.”

	However, the horrendous losses they suffered while repulsing the Germans explains our Frank’s transfer, and that of many other replacements, to the 30th Infantry. His cousin Rose Lorenz’s husband William Bertsch also served with the 3rd Division; Frank’s service began with his transfer on 21 July, while William’s ended three days later when he was wounded at Jaulgonne on 24 July 1918.

		“After a brief rest and resupply [both men and materials], the 3rd Division crossed the Marne and advanced 	on Château Thierry with the 28th and 42nd [Rainbow] Infantry Divisions on their flanks.”
	
	Frank’s cousin, our Joseph Lorenz, served with the 42nd as a machine gunner until he was wounded in action at the Ourcq River in early August. We can only wonder if the two cousins knew they were serving in the same sector, and if they were able to communicate or perhaps even meet to say hello.

		“As the 3rd Division advanced, the Germans realized they were being attacked from three sides and began 	a hasty retreat out of Château Thierry. After quickly securing the town, the advancing Americans began to chase 	the fleeing Germans. The Germans fought back, often savagely. At each river and road junction they would turn 	and fight. These bloody delaying actions did not stop the 3rd Division, but they did allow the Germans to get 	some heavy equipment back to their own lines. Each time the Germans stopped, they were quickly overrun and

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 	defeated. The chase of the retreating Germans lasted over a week, with several battles occurring each day. After 	a vicious fight at the Ourcq River [where our Joseph was wounded], the 3rd Division was relieved by the fresh 	32nd Infantry Division.
		“The 3rd Division returned to their previous lines at the Marne for a much needed rest. Here they 	consolidated units and brought in more replacements. On 4 August 1918, the 3rd Division was transferred to the 	US Third Corps but remained on the Marne. A few weeks later, Third Corps was assigned to the First U.S. Army 	and ordered to prepare for the first American-led offensive of the war.
		“The Saint-Mihiel offensive called for 16 Divisions to advance and eliminate the German Salient [a salient 	is a bulge in the front lines, where one adversary has penetrated the defenses of another] in and around the city 	of Saint Mihiel [located northwest of Toul along the Meuse River]. On 12 September 1918, the Americans began 	their assault. Fortunately, the Germans had realized their vulnerability in Saint-Mihiel, and had begun 	withdrawing their troops two days earlier. When the first units entered the city, they met only token resistance. 	The 3rd Division was called forward to occupy the town while the remaining forces continued the advance. Bois 	de Ramieres and several small towns were quickly captured.
		“By 16 September, the Germans had been driven back to the Woerve plains, just a few miles from the 	French-German border. The 3rd Division was ordered forward to occupy the previously German-owned trenches. 	They cleared the trenches of booby traps and mines, and they conducted patrols to eliminate resistance in the 	area. During the Saint-Mihiel advance, some 15,000 Germans had been captured and 200 square miles of French 	soil was liberated. The 3rd Division got little rest, and they soon received orders for another large offensive.
		“On September 26, the Americans launched their final offensive of the war, the assault on the Argonne 	Forest near the Meuse River. 600,000 Infantrymen advanced on the forest after a 3 hour artillery bombardment. 	The Germans were caught completely by surprise, with only 4 divisions in the line. After clearing the first lines, 	the Americans hit three more German lines, each heavily fortified. General Pershing, the American commander, 	held his experienced Divisions in Reserve [including the 3rd] and sent fresh Divisions into the first attacks.
		“In the Argonne Forest, advancing was difficult. The terrain was very rough and most of the ground was 	deep mud. By the end of September, the advance had slowed and was finally stopped so the American troops 	could reorganize. On October 4, the 3rd Division, along with other veteran divisions, was called forward to take 	over the advance. All over the front, the advance was slow but steady. The Americans were destroying the 

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	German positions one by one. By October 10, the Argonne Forest was cleared. While most of the American army 	rested, the 3rd Division was ordered into the hills between the forest and the Meuse River to eliminate the 	pockets of German resistance still there.”

	Unfortunately, Frank was no longer with his comrades. His military record states that he was “Wounded in Action Severely about 9 October 1918”, which would have been while the 3rd Division was clearing the Argonne Forest. After serving (and surviving) for four months on the French battlefields, during horrific defensive and offensive engagements, his luck had run out. We do not know the details of his injury, but perhaps we can imagine that he had been evacuated from the front lines (in the same way that his cousin, our Joseph Lorenz, had been injured at the Ourcq River but convalesced at a Base Hospital in the Dordogne region of France, far from the battlefields) and was being cared for at the same base hospital where his brother Julius was serving far south of Paris.
	Military records tell us that Julius Lorenz served with ‘MD BH 52’ to 7 June 1918, and with ‘MD BH 67’ to discharge on 16 May 1919; this tells us that he was with the Army Medical Department at Base Hospitals numbered 52 and 67. Julius probably served as a medic or orderly. Base Hospital 52 was a surgical hospital located in Rimaucourt, on the road between Chaumont (site of General Pershing’s Headquarters, American Expeditionary Force) and Neufchateau in the Haute-Marne area of France near the battlefields. However, Julius’ dates of service indicate that he served with this hospital during its organization period stateside.
	Julius was promoted to the rank of Private First Class on 24 August 1918 and served overseas with the American Expeditionary Force from 8 July 1918 through 27 April 1919 (these dates match his time with Base Hospital #67). Base Hospital #67 was located at Mesves-sur-Loire, southeast of Sancerre and over fifty miles south of Paris, in the department of Nievre, in Bourgogne. Records from the Historical Division of the Office of the Surgeon General tell us that Base Hospital #67 was a Type A Unit with tents. Julius Lorenz was honorably discharged on 16 May 1919, six months after the war had ended and three months before his wounded brother Frank was discharged on 28 August. It is interesting to note that the Third Division had already returned home to the United States in March of 1919, where they demobilized to peacetime levels. Perhaps Frank’s injury and convalescence delayed his return to America.
	We have a studio portrait of Julius wearing his Army uniform; he sits in a chair holding a wide brimmed hat. Jodhpur type pants are tucked into high canvas puttees which are buttoned with a strap under his shoes. The army 

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jacket has no distinguishing insignia that would tell us his rank or branch of service (medic, infantry or cavalry); perhaps this was his recruitment photograph. His face is very different from that of his brother Ben; Julius had a wide forehead and full lips under a small mustache. His thick dark curly hair is parted at the side. Julius’ brother Joseph still worked as a machinist in 1919, and all three sons are at home with Anton and Anna M. Lorenz at 1710 South Twelfth Street.
	The 1920 census shows Julius and Frank still living in Hamilton. Julius Lorenz, age 25, single, born in Ohio of Austrian born parents who spoke German (he even specifically said Schönlind), was boarding at 1102 Bonacher Avenue (located at the end of Twelfth Street near Grand Avenue). Julius was working as a foundry laborer for wages. Frank Lorentz (sic), age 23, single, born ‘in Ohio’ of Ohio born parents, was boarding at 108 Grand Boulevard. Frank was working as a moulder at a foundry for wages. Both brothers continued to live in the same neighborhood; perhaps it was conveniently close to their jobs at the foundry.
	The 1921 Hamilton directory shows the brothers rooming together at the northwest corner of Grand Boulevard and Harmon Avenue, still in the same neighborhood southeast of Great Miami River. By 1925, the house had a number address, 1614 Grand Boulevard; Frank was a laborer and Julius a stove worker.
	At some point during the 1920’s, ‘one of Anton’s sons’ made a momentous visit to his cousins in Dayton. Anton and Anna were not happy in ‘Germany’ and wanted to return to Ohio, but they had no money for the passage. Their sons had no savings to send them, so they asked the Dayton relatives for help. Unfortunately, the widowed Rosa Lorenz was unable to help; recall her letter from 1922, when Rosa apologized for not sending a birthday gift to her daughter Luella because of mounting doctor bills:

		“Dayton 7 September 1922."

		“Dear Luella, I received your letter and dishes, they are very pretty and I thank you many times for them, 	it was your birthday Tuesday and I could not give you anything, you know what I have. We were again early 	today at the doctor, we have for only June and August already paid out $85, and that is still not all. . . with 	many greetings and kisses to you from your Mother.”

	Harsh words were said on both sides, and that is the last time that the Hamilton and Dayton cousins spoke to each other. A sad ending to the family bonds treasured by the three Lorenz brothers, Wenzel, Anton and our Frank, and by the cousins in the next generation. Even sadder is the knowledge that Julius and Frank Lorenz continued to live in Hamilton, and Julius was there for decades after the rift. The Dayton relatives said they ‘lost touch’, but library research in 1990 showed they had stayed in nearby Hamilton, just 35 miles away.

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	The 1930 census shows Julius Lorenz age 34, a single man rooming with the Lewis Zilervein family (Lewis was a ‘Pool Room Proprietor’ born in Germany) at 1614 Grand Boulevard, but Frank is not listed at this address, nor is he found in the census index. Julius was working as a laborer for the City Parks for wages.
	In a 1931 Hamilton City Directory, Frank and Julius are still listed together at 1614 Grand and both worked as laborers. That is the last record of Frank in Hamilton; we do not know if he died or had moved away. Julius remained at 1614 Grand in Hamilton until 1955; he worked as a laborer for the City of Hamilton Parks Department and ‘retired’ in 1955. Julius is not listed in the 1957 directory. Again, we do not know if he died or had moved away in his retirement years.
	The 1919 City Directory was the last we saw of Anton, Anna and Joseph in Hamilton. Their Dayton relatives remember that Anton and Anna Lorenz went ‘back to Germany’ because Anton’s wife was ‘homesick’; this story is difficult to reconcile with the 1910 census information that Anna was born in Ohio. We do not know precisely where they settled ‘in Germany’; perhaps it was Germany, perhaps Austria, or perhaps near Anton’s hometown in former Bohemia. The latter would be surprising; ethnic Germans were no longer welcome in the newly-created Czechoslovakia. We do not know if Joseph went with his parents, or if he simply moved elsewhere in the United States.
	Recent research by Kathryn Lorenz has given us some answers, but also many more questions! Kathryn has found that Anton and Anna did in fact return from Germany with their son Josef, arriving at Ellis Island Immigration Center on 17 August 1923. They had traveled from Bremen, Germany, on the SS Hanover. Once again, Anton sailed with the Norddeutscher Lloyd Line. The Hannover was built in 1899 with one funnel, two masts, twin screw and a speed of 13 knots. During World War One, she was laid up at Bremen and surrendered to Britain in 1919. After the war, she was converted to cabin and Third Class Passengers only, and resumed service from Bermen to New York until 1926.
	In 1923, Anton Lorenz was age 60; his naturalization papers were issued at the Probate Court, Court House of Cincinnati, Ohio, on 11 November 1893. His American address was “Harmond Avenue in Hamilton, Ohio”. Anna Mary Lorenz, his wife, was age 57, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on 10 February 1866. Josef Lorenz, son of Anna Mary and Anton, was a single man age 33, born on 3 October 1889, also in Cincinnati, Ohio. But Anton, Anna and Josef never appear again in the Hamilton City Directories, and apparently made no effort to contact our Rosa, the widow of Anton’s brother Frank. We do not know what happened to them.

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KARL LORENZ AND EMILIE KIELWERTH

	It is possible that Josef Lorenz and Regina Richter had a son named Josef, because that is the name of our Frank Lorenz’s third son. It is said that our Frank named his sons for his brothers, but there is no other family memory of a brother named Josef Lorenz. Perhaps young Joseph Frank was named for Frank’s father Josef and not for a brother. We also know of no family namesake for a later son named George Herman.
	The youngest son of Josef Lorenz and Regina Richter was named Karl Lorenz; he stayed in Bohemia. Karl’s granddaughter, our cousin Franziska Lorenz LaFrance, has told us the story of her family and their life in Czechoslovakia. Karl Lorenz was born on 11 December 1867 in Markt Schönlind, then Bohemia Austria and now the Czech Republic. On 14 April 1898 Karl married Emilie Keilwerth at Schönlind Pfarramt, the local parish. Emilie was also from Schönlind, born on 28 December 1876. Her father was Wenzl Keilwerth (of Josef Keilwerth and Susanna Richter at Schönlind); her mother was Katharina Hammerl (of Georg Hammerl and Maria Anna Kunzl at Lindenhammer by Bleistadt, now called Oloví).
	Karl and Emilie settled in Schönlind, where their children were born. Josef Lorenz was born on 17 May 1899, Anton Lorenz on 9 February 1902, and Franz Lorenz circa 1904. Sadly, young Emilie passed away shortly after Frank’s birth, either from heatstroke or from childbed fever. The widower Karl struggled to care for his sons with the help of his extended family. When Anton was born in 1902, Karl had been working as tischler gehilfe, a carpenter’s helper, but later he worked as forest warden for a private estate. His job was to guard the grounds against poachers, which involved nightly patrols. Once again, tragedy struck, and Karl was shot dead one night by a poacher circa 1908. He was buried next to his wife Emilie in Schönlind’s parish churchyard (St. Joseph’s Church).
	Karl’s orphaned sons were aged nine, seven and five; once again, the extended family (including Aunt Sophie Lorenz, married to Joseph Schoenecker) took care of the boys. The boys did not always live together. Our Frank and Rosa Lorenz received a Christmas greetings postcard circa 1910, recently found in the collection of Josephine Lorenz Lightner. It was mailed from SCHöNLIND >>> GRüN; we only see a partial postmark as the stamp was removed. It is addressed to Wohlg. Herrn Franz Lorenz; 1338 Miami Chapel Road; Dayton Ohio; N. Amerika; (City directories tell us 

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that Frank and Rosa Lorenz lived here from 1909 -1914.) The color printed Nativity Manger Scene is captioned “Gesegnete Weihnachten” [Blessed Christmas]; on the back is written:

		“Lieber Onkel ü Tante, wir wünschen eüch recht fröhlich. Wir wünsch ein glücklich Neü Jahr. Warum schreibt 	Ihr nicht einmal ? S. Schönecker”

	Thanks to cousin Frances Lorenz LaFrance, the translation is,

		“Dear Uncle and Aunt, We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Why don’t you write to us?? 	Greetings from your niece Anna, your sister Sofia, and your brother in law Josef Schönecker.”

	This postcard is how we learned that the Schoenecker relatives who cared for the boys (remembered by Frances) were Aunt Sophie’s family in Schönlind.
JOSEF LORENZ AND
ALOISIA ANNA LAUTERBACHER

	Young Josef Lorenz joined the German army in 1916, at the age of seventeen. He was trained to work harbor cranes that loaded and unloaded ships and was assigned to work in the shipyards on the Moldau and Danube Rivers. Rivers were major transportation corridors for European trade; the Moldau (now called Vltava) flows through the central Czech Republic, then turns north to flow through Prague and merge with the Labe River (called Elbe after it crosses the border into Germany; it has major canals that connect with the Oder river and the Baltic Sea). The Danube is the second longest river in Europe, rising in the Black Forest region of Baden-Württemberg and draining into the Black Sea 1,771 miles later. The Danube’s importance increased with the industrial revolution during the 1800’s; the Treaty of Paris in 1856 established free navigation under the supervision of a European commission. After World War I ended, the Treaty of Versailles once again internationalized the river, regulated by the Danube Convention of 1921. A new regulatory body of only riparian nations (those along the Rhine River) was established after the end of World War II.
	Josef returned to western Bohemia southwest of Karlovy Vary when he was released from the German army at the end of World War I. He found a job at a logging camp in Lauterbach Stadt (called Mesto Litrbachy in Czech, der Ort existiert nicht mehr, this village no longer exists), which was located about five miles southwest of Schönfeld (now Krásno) along the road that curves back northwards to Falkenau (now Sokolov). It was in the district of Elbogen (now called Loket). Josef worked as a teamster for the loggers; he cared for the horses and drove the timber from the logging camp to a sawmill, brettschneider, to be made into lumber.
	
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	The owners of the logging camp and sawmill were the Lauterbacher family, who were prosperous and ‘well off’. They had always owned their own land for farming. Two brothers owned a sawmill and a nail factory. Another brother, Anton Lauterbacher, owned a wagon factory and a farm. Anton’s daughter was Aloisia Anna, who had married a man named Steidl and had a son named Franz Johann Steidl. Anna’s husband died in a horse wagon accident. She was widowed shortly before Josef began work at the logging camp where she was living; that is how Josef and Anna met and ‘fell in love’. Anna’s family objected to this second marriage, for Josef Lorenz was an orphan with little prospects. His father was ‘only’ a carpenter and the Lorenz family did not own their own land back in Schönlind (although Aunt Sophie had married well). The ‘Lauterbachers of Lauterbach Stadt’ felt that Anna could do better.
	Despite her family’s objections, Josef and Aloisia Anna married on 25 June 1924 at Pfarramt, parish Lauterbach Stadt, Czechoslovakia. Anna’s father was Anton Lauterbacher (son of Wenzl Lauterbacher, müller, miller, and Aloisia Prantl at Lauterbach Stadt) and her mother was Anna Gareis (daughter of Anton Gareis and Josefa Raab at Lauterbach Stadt). Aloisia Anna was an accomplished seamstress who also made lace.
	Josef and Anna had eight children. The three oldest were born in Lauterbach Stadt: Josef Walter Lorenz in 1924; Franziska Gisella Elisabetha Maria ‘Frances’ Lorenz in 1930; and Anton Erhart Lorenz in 1933. The growing family lived in a house that had belonged to Anna’s parents. We have a photo of Josef and Anna standing next to the house; it had wooden siding on the outside and brick walls inside. Windows with small panes of glass can be seen. Josef wears a cap and a heavy work shirt; his hands are tucked in his pants pockets and he smiles for the camera. Anna wears a patterned short-sleeved dress and a dark scarf covers her hair; her face is obscured by shadows.
	Frances started her first year of school in Lauterbach Stadt. The language used in the school that Frances attended was German; another in the village taught in Czech. Her friends were German or Jewish children, but not many Czechs. The Jewish kids spoke Yiddish, which was close to German. Lorenz was not a common name where they lived; she remembers a lot of Schmidts and Millers. Then the depression came to their area, and there was little work to be had. The government ordered families to return to towns of the father’s birth.
	
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	So in 1935 Josef and Anna, and their three children Josef, Frances, and Anton, WALKED back to Schönlind (there was no other way to move that they could afford). This would have been a distance of perhaps thirty miles as the crow flies, but it was much longer following the winding road through hills and valleys. It took them several days, with one wagon (a small cart) that held all their possessions. Frances remembers passing through the towns of Zwodau (now Savatava), Lenz (now Lomnice; best of all the towns, because a kind woman gave them fresh bread rolls to eat when she saw them hungry), Bleistadt (now Oloví), Wies---- (Frances does not remember the full name), and Heinrichsgruen (now Jindrichovice). Notice that Oloví is west of the direct road from Lauterbach Stadt to Schönlind; perhaps the family detoured there to visit relatives (recall that Josef’s maternal grandmother Katharina Hammerl was from that area).
	Frances remembers the land as looking much like southern Colorado, with rolling green mountains, orchards with apples, cherries, fruit, purple plums and pears (and even blueberry bushes), and forests of fir, pine, and beechnut trees. Meter describes orchards in Border People, the Böhmisch,

		“Apple trees were planted along the roadways, creating a splash of pink and white flowers in May and great 	eating in the fall. Wild raspberries and plum trees flourished at the margins of the fields. These fruit patches 	were so beloved by the residents their locations were described in the town histories.”

	Frances described walking into Schönlind (‘a little bitty place’); they came into the village from the south, walking uphill on a steep street. A church (possibly named St. Joseph’s) was on the left, with the cemetery graveyard in front by the road (this is where Josef’s parents, Karl Lorenz and Emilie Keilwerth, were buried; Frances remembers visiting by candlelight on All Souls Day to pray for them). Further into the village was a school on the right for eight years of elementary education, with a doctor’s office nearby (Dr. Deutsch was Jewish). Stores and businesses in town were one of each: grocery, bakery, butcher, bank, blacksmith. Everyone lived in town and would walk out to the fields every day to work. Even wealthy landowners had their farmhouses in town.
	The animals and barns were kept in town with them, not by the cropfields; house and barn were connected by a covered passageway for easy wintertime access. The barn side had a door for animals, and a big gate for the hay wagons. Older towns looked like a circle, with the houses huddled together; the fields surrounded them. Schönlind had 

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steep narrow streets, curved and crooked. There was only one main street, and no street names. Each house in town just had a number: Schönlind #74 would be your address for the walking postman who delivered mail with a leather satchel. Meter describes similar villages in Border People, the Böhmisch,

		“The German-Bohemian way of life was strongly shaped by the design of the old villages. These 	settlements thrust people together into close community life often closer than people truly desired. The old 	villages sprawled along Bohemian roadways. Depending upon the terrain, houses could be close on each other or 	set apart by the length of a football field.
		“A village of fifty houses might run several kilometers in length. The Böhmisch tended to build their houses 	in rows along the roadway, their elongated narrow fields spreading out behind them. This pattern had been set 	in Medieval times when farmers struck their plows into the ground in long straight rows so they would not have 	to spend time turning their teams. It also allowed each family access to the roadway. Straßendörfer, German 	villages, surrounded narrow market plazas that stretched along the central streets; Runddörfer, Czech villages, 	encircled a compact central square.
		“By the 19th Century, most villages had a Gasthaus where local folks could gather to drink beer and eat 	out of the house. . . Many villages also had a variety of craftspeople. All worked out of their own homes and	 most also farmed. Typically, a village might have a blacksmith, a shoemaker, a harnessmaker, women who 	made lace, weavers, or a grain mill. But there was no commercial district. People largely assumed responsibility 	for raising and processing their own food and for making their own furnishings.
		“Residents would purchase each other’s produce, or trade. In some of the larger towns, it was possible to 	buy some items from a store, but this was certainly an unusual outing. A woman might find woolen yard goods 	for sewing clothing, or might buy spices and salt and other essentials that were hard to produce for oneself. 	Many towns had their own breweries.”
	
	Two children were born to Josef and Anna while they lived in Markt Schönlind; Siegfried Johann Lorenz in 1937 and Wenzl Lorenz in 1939.
	In 1938 Hitler invaded the Sudetenland, and everything changed. The name means ‘southeastern’, and reflects the belief that this area was the southeastern part of Germany. Hitler’s pretext for invasion was the large number of ethnic Germans who still lived in the area; they spoke the German language and had preserved their German culture, but their allegiance was not always to Germany. Most considered themselves Austrians or German-Bohemians, after centuries of living in that area of old Bohemia, and they did not welcome the arrival of the German army.

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	Frances’s father Josef Lorenz ‘took to the hills’; he was active in the Sudetenland resistance against the invasion. But he tried to be never far away from his family, and seemed to always know what was happening to them whenever he was able to visit. He always appeared with candy and presents for the children; they felt very close to him even during this separation.
	In the Fall of 1939 (September) all the church bells started ringing, and even the men were crying; war had started. By now the German militia had come, and put Josef and other captured resistance fighters into a prison concentration camp (Frances has his prison ID photo; he has a haunting expression). With the outbreak of European war, the Germans put their prisoners to work. Josef had a useful skill from his WW1 training, so he was sent to Wilhelmshaven (a large port city on the Jadebusen, or Jade Bay, near Bremerhaven on the North Sea; this was a major German naval base during WWII) to work the harbor cranes. His family was not told where he was; he just ‘disappeared’, and they were left destitute.
	Anna sewed gloves by hand to earn money; Frances remembers threading needles for her. They had no electricity, and worked by candles or kerosene light when they could afford to. Anna and Frances were both skilled needlewomen; they supported themselves by sewing, crocheting, and by making a lace called ‘Plauenspitze’ in addition to the gloves.
	Plauenspitze is a type of old German lace (named for the town of Plauen, a city in eastern Germany in the Erzgebirge Mountains where the lace is still made today; the city was once part of Austria-Hungary, and is shown on maps of old Bohemia). The lace had been worked by the Lauterbacher women for generations; Frances remembers watching her grandmother make the lace. A pattern is used to punch the outline holes on a piece of brown paper (backed by two layers of fabric for easy working). The lace is then worked on top: a thick lace thread is tacked to the paper by a finer thread, then the lace is sewn with a needle and thread (it almost looks like a single crochet at times, done similar to a blanket stitch), making the design from the outline. Different shadings on the pattern would tell them different stitches to use. When finished, the fine tacking stitches are removed, and the lace falls free from the paper.
	In the late 1940’s, Frances remembers it would take over four hours to make a piece of lace, for which they would earn four Marks. Frances still has two small blue pattern circles of cherubs, started by her mother at age 69 or 70, and another piece that Frances worked on back in the 1950’s. Her sister Marianne is also a talented needlewoman, designing her own sweater patterns to knit, and also working in needlepoint.

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	Eventually the family was allowed to move back to Lauterbach Stadt, near Anna’s relatives. Josef was even able to visit at times on furlough from the German Army, while Anna and Frances could visit him by train at his Military Barracks in Eger (now called Cheb, this is a town west of Sokolov along the road that leads from Karlovy Vary to Bayreuth, Germany; the town is in the Eger River Valley, now called the Ohre River, just south of the old spa town of Franzensbad, now Frantiskovy Lázne). Two more children were born in Lauterbach Stadt: Erich Lorenz in 1942 and Marianne Lorenz in 1945.
	Economically, the family was doing better, but it was still a time of long separations, and worry about the War. Frances’ older brother Josef had also been conscripted into the German Army, as part of the Alpine Troops. Later young Josef was stationed in Cyprus and Egypt, where he became sick with both malaria and TB. Their uncle Franz Lorenz was also in the Army, doing carpentry and construction work. Frances and her father Josef were able to visit Franz once while he was on furlough at Rothau (now called Rotava, this town is in the Krusné Hory region southwest of Sindelová, between Jindrichovice and Kraslice); Frances remembers Franz’s wife Lispeth and their daughter. But when the war ended Franz never came home, and to this day he is still ‘MIA’, missing in action. The family never learned what happened to him or to his family.
	Anna’s brothers Anton and Johann lived in Schönfeld (now Krásno), eight miles away, and the families often visited. They were conscripted into the German army. Both Anton and Johann Lauterbacher were lost in Russia during the war.
	Their life settled into daily routines at Lauterbach Stadt, and Frances enjoyed visiting the baths at Karlsbad. The closest dentist was also in Schönfeld; it was a two hour walk one way just to get there; there was no other way to travel. But often they could stay with the relatives overnight, and did not have to walk both ways in one day.
The children were able to attend school regularly. In 1940 Frances started high school, in Falkenau Sahonoo (now called Sokolov; both names mean ‘falcon’). This was quite an achievement for Frances; she had to write her own letter of application, while acceptance required two weeks of testing (one week was written, one week was oral exams). The frightening part was researching a pedigree book to prove she had no Jewish ancestors for at least three generations; Hitler’s regulations covered every part of German life. Ironically, the work that she did for this insidious requirement has given us much of the information used in this family story. Frances was accepted to begin high school at the very young age of ten; she credits her photographic memory, hard work and her determination to be a history and math teacher.
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	Frances took a daily school bus to Falkenau, leaving Lauterbach Stadt at 6:30 in the morning to be there by 8:30, with a similar long ride at the end of the day (including Saturday school, which was only half a day). During the winters, the roads were VERY bad. Snow would start in October, and by Christmas buses could not go from town to town. The students had to board in Falkenau; Frances stayed with a lady who owned a general store. She would take her on the train to the market at Karlsbad to do shopping for her store, and at the end of their work would buy Frances coffee and sweets at a Konditerei before the ride home.
	Courses at the Halbschule were German, History, Geography, Biology, Social Studies, Math, English, French, Music, Art, Physical Education & Gymnastics, and Home Economics. At home, Frances had to study her lessons and help with the family chores. She graduated from high school in 1944, at the age of fourteen, but needed another four years of schooling to be a teacher. Frances began the course, but could not finish, due to the Russian military occupation at the end of World War II.
	On 7 May 1945, the European war ended; Colonel General Alfred Jodl signed a statement of Germany’s unconditional surrender. The American Army occupied the western area of liberated Czechoslovakia until June, when the Russian Army replaced them. The situation rapidly deteriorated. Frances’ sister Marianne had just been born on 7 May 1945, the day the war ended, but her father Josef could not come home. Even though he had been active in the Sudetenland Resistance, he had been drafted to serve in the German Army. The Czechs put ALL Germans from the Army in jail, so Josef crossed the border to hide in Germany and avoid prison.
	Once again Josef’s family was left alone; Anna desperately tried to feed and care for their seven children. Civilians had to watch public punishments, while children and teenagers were taken from school and put to work. Frances had to work in the forests; her group had to search for and exhume bodies of concentration camp victims, as evidence of German atrocities. The work itself was an atrocity for the children. She remembered seeing the Camp people when they were marched through the main street of Lauterbach Stadt. The local kids had disobeyed the orders to stay inside, and later they took food bundles to the people huddled in their stadium, because they ‘looked hungry’; it was only later that they realized they would have been shot if seen by the German guards.
	But now the Russians were ‘boss’, and people had to do as they said. Frances and other youths were sent throughout Czechoslovakia during the winter of 1945-1946 for mandatory farm labor (she helped fertilize farm fields by spreading manure for six months). Suddenly, they were sent home early in late March, and one week later the Deportation Order came.
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	Czechoslovakia had been re-established as an independent state and one of the new government’s first official acts was to order the expulsion of Sudeten Germans from the Czech borderlands. This was done so that a German nation would never again have an excuse to invade Czech territory (less than 1% of the Czech population now claims German ancestry, compared to 25% before World War II). By 1947, almost 2.5 million Sudeteners had their Czech citizenship revoked and their lands confiscated. Under terms of the Potsdam Agreement, they were forcibly expelled to Germany (mostly to Bavaria across the northern border). Subsequent Czech governments offered neither restitution nor apologies until 1997, fifty years later, when Prime Minister Klaus and German Chancellor Kohl signed a declaration of mutual apology.
	TIME Magazine on 15 May 1995 described the enduring results,
	
		“Northern Bohemia is a place some Czechs describe as having no face, a reflection of the fact that most 	present inhabitants have no deep roots in the region, having settled there after the expulsion - officially known 	by Czechs as the transfer - of 3 million Germans after the war, in 1945 and 1946.”

	The orders were issued by military commandants, in both the Czech and German languages. One such order in Leipa (now Ceska Lipa; this is a large town about forty miles north of Prague) was issued on 14 June 1945:

		“In the city communities of Bohemian Leipa, Alt-Leipa and Niemes [now called Mimon], all inhabitants of 	German ethnicity and with no regard to age or sex are to leave their homes at 5:00 a.m. on June 15, 1945 and to 	march through the Kreuzgasse and Bräuhasse [Streets] to the gathering point by the brewery in Ceske Lipe. 	Every individual to whom this expulsion order applies may take: a) food for seven days, and b) the barest 	necessities for personal use, in a quantity which he or she can personally carry.
		“Valuables such as gold, silver and all objects made of these materials (rings, brooches etc.), gold and 	silver coins, bank books, insurance policies, cash with the exception of 100 RM per person, as well as cameras, 	are to be placed in a bag or wrapped in a paper parcel, accompanied by an exact written inventory listing of the 	contents. . . Every person will be closely body-searched. The contents of any luggage will also be closely 	examined. Any attempt to hide objects of the aforementioned nature on one’s person, whether in clothing or in 	shoes, or elsewhere such as in hand luggage, is futile and will be punished by death.
		“Pets shall remain where they are and a list of the animals is to be included with the identifying address 	and house keys that must be handed in at the gathering point. All property and assets, such as machinery, tools 	
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	and agricultural equipment, are to remain where they are. Any damage inflicted intentionally on such property or 	assets will be severely punished. Any transfer of items mentioned to other persons for purposes of safe keeping 	will be punished.”

	Similar orders were issued at Kraslice (formerly Graslitz),
	
	“Persons who are to be transported shall leave their homes in perfect order. Permitted: hand luggage of at most 	ten kilograms. All remaining items are to be left in their proper places in the home. Beds are to be left with 	freshly changed sheets. The luggage may not be bundled in carpets or slipcovers.”

	Frances remembers, “Be ready in twenty minutes, assemble in City Hall, all Germans will be deported. Bring NOTHING with you.” Anna and the children were assembled, searched thoroughly (NO money, jewelry, photos, documents, etc.), and put on trucks going out of town with nothing but the clothes on their back. Anna and her children were among the first to leave; they were on the list of women and children who had no husband or father to work (as her husband Josef was hiding in Germany, and her son Josef was in an American POW camp). Neither Josef knew what happened to the family, nor where they were taken.
	Anna’s family was forced to join millions of other people in Europe who were trying to find a home. A Stars and Stripes clipping dated 6 February 1946 explains; “All Reich DPs Seen on Way Home in Spring;
	
	“A State Department adviser estimates that the repatriation of displaced persons in Germany will be completed 	during the spring. . . 3,500,000 slave laborers had been used by the Nazis in Germany. . . Poles constitute the 	largest national group yet remaining to be repatriated, delayed by “the large movement of Russians eastward” 	and the lack of adequate living facilities in Poland. Practically all of the Western European displaced persons, 	along with Soviet and Italian nationals, have returned to their homeland, said George Warren, State Department 	adviser on refugees and displaced persons. “It is expected that between 6,500,000 and 8,000,000 Germans will 	return to Germany during the first six months of 1946,” he said.”

	Anna and the children (Frances was still only fifteen years old) spent six weeks at a camp in Alt Sattl on the railroad line (now called Staré Sedlo, this town is on the road between Loket and Sokolov); finally they were put on a westbound train to Dieburg, Germany (in central Germany, south of Frankfurt about ten miles east of Darmstadt). Their heads were shaved for sanitation and delousing. They crossed the border ‘officially’ at Nurenberg, and were given a 

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baloney sandwich (which only made them sick, as they had eaten nothing but watery soup for six weeks in the Deportee camp). Amazingly, at the refugee camp in Dieburg, they were reunited with their father Josef! The International Red Cross was attempting to register all the displaced persons in Europe, and they helped families to find each other at war’s end.
	From this camp, the families were assigned to various villages; there were so many displaced persons that the government had to spread them throughout Germany so that they could begin their new lives. Josef, Anna and their children were sent to Rodau, about ten miles south of Dieburg and southeast of Darmstadt. Rodau is a small farming village; they were given a room on a farm where they had to work for their lodging. Josef found a job in the forest logging with horse teams, while all the children worked for farmers nearby. Economic survival took priority over schooling; Frances was never able to finish her education and achieve her dreams.
	When Frances’ hair grew long enough from the forced shaving, she grabbed a sheet off a clothesline to make herself a dress, and went to town to find a job as a maid. It was hard to find work. Germany was in a shambles after the war, with many people competing for the few jobs. Frances was looking for security. Her job earned her thirty Marks a month, with room and board. In the evenings she baby-sat, and sewed for extra money; Anna was also earning income with her needle and lace making.
	Frances’ maternal grandparents had been ‘allotted’ to Bavaria; Anna found them through the Red Cross registry. They were able to move to Rodau to be near their family, as Bavaria was too cold for their health. In the Fall of 1946, Frances’ brother Josef also found them, after his release from the US POW camp. In 1947, their half-brother Franz Johann, who had been in a British POW camp, found them in Rodau. Both brothers traced them with the help of the International Red Cross Registry. And now the family welcomed another baby; Veronika was born in September 1947, but she sadly died the following year in November 1948.
	The winter of 1947-1948 was terrible in Germany: very cold, and very little food, with a destroyed economy and thousands of displaced persons. Rations were not sufficient for survival; extra money meant they could buy necessities on the black market. It was so cold that the insides of the walls were covered with ice by morning; the family slept with all their clothes on. Frances promised herself she would never be cold or hungry again. She taught herself typing and shorthand, and was able to get a better job as secretary at a factory. At nights she still baby-sat and sewed; every penny counted.
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	Josef Lorenz died from a heart attack on 2 January 1952, at the young age of 52; the stresses of the war years and deportation had taken their toll. Anna and her children gradually built a new life for themselves. Anna died in May of 1972, surrounded by her children and grandchildren, most of whom still live in the Darmstadt and Frankfurt area near Rodau. The verse that Frances chose for the marker at her husband’s grave expresses the spirit and faith that helped her and her family to cope through the years,

LAY ALL THINGS GENTLY INTO GOD'S LOVING HANDS 
THE JOY AND LOVE, THE HAPPINESS AND TEARS,
THE PAIN AND SORROW, THE BEGINNING AND THE END.

FRANZ LORENZ AND LISPETH

	Little is known about this brother. Franz was born in 1904 in Markt Schönlind, and his mother Emilie died shortly after his birth. When Franz was about six years old, his father Karl was shot by a poacher. Franz and his brothers were then raised by their maternal Schoenecker relatives and also by their Aunt Sophie Lorenz.
	Franz married Lispeth, and they had one daughter. He worked as a carpenter and was conscripted into the German army during World War II. He was assigned to construction work in the army. His brother Josef was able to visit Franz once while he was on furlough at Rothau (now called Rotava, this town is in the Krusné Hory region southwest of Sindelová, between Jindrichovice and Kraslice). But when the war ended Franz never came home, and to this day he is still ‘MIA’, missing in action. The family has never learned what happened to him or to his wife and daughter.

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ANTON LORENZ,
GERTRUDE CHISM AND PAULA HELLER

	Anton Lorenz was born on 9 February 1902 at Schoenlind, Bohemia (now Krsn Lip); he was the second son of Karl and Emilie.  Antons Tauf-Schein, baptismal certificate, was issued by Boehmen, Neudek, Auszug aus dem Taufbuche fr Schoenlind, extracted from the baptismal book for Schnlind, Vol.V, p.95.  His Geburtsort, birth place, was Schoenlind #74; Bikariat Graslitz (the town is now called Kraslice); Erz Diozese Prag, Archdiocese Prague.  The certificate was issued, gegeben vom, on 18 December 1919 and stamped with the seal of Scti. Josephi Pfarrkirche Schoenlinder, St. Josephs Parish Church at Schoenlind.  This is one of the documents that Anton brought with him when he came to Ohio in 1920.  
	Anton was Catholic, Katholische, ehelige Sohn; Vater, father: Lorenz, Karl, Tischler gehilfe, carpenter helper, und Tunnarfeur (?) in Schoenlind #74 geboren deshalbst, born in the same place #28.  Karl was ehelige Sohn des, son of Josef Lorenz, Schlossers, machinist, und Hauslars, houseowner in Schoenlind #28 und der Regina geboren, ne Richter aus, of Schnlind #28.
	Anton’s mother, Mutter, was Keilwerth, Emilie, wohnhaft, living in Schoenlind #74, geboren deshalbst, born in that place #51, ehelige tochter, daughter of Wenzl Keilwerth, Hauslars, houseowner in Schoenlind #51 und der Katharina geboren, ne Hammerl aus, of Lindenhammer #10 (part of Bleistadt, now called Olov).  Parish sexton Josef Ott served as proxy for Antons godfather Anton Hammerl, schuster in Dotterwies, shoemaker at Dotterwies (now Cernava, Czech Republic, this town is about three miles southwest of Nejdek, the county seat for that area).  Notice that Anton's maternal grandmother was named Hammerl; presumably this Anton was a cousin or uncle, and he was probably the baby Anton's namesake.  Hebamme, midwife, was Theresia Gorgner of Hochgarth (now called Obora, this town is a few miles southwest of Krasna Lipa).
	When Anton was around two years old, his mother died from complications following the birth of his brother Franz.  Relatives helped the widowed Karl to care for his three sons, but about five years later, tragedy struck again when Karl was shot dead by a poacher while serving as forest warden for a private estate.  The orphaned boys were raised by their maternal Schoenecker relatives and by their Aunt Sophie Lorenz; they did not always live together.
	World War I brought major changes to the area.  When fighting ended in 1918, the Allies recognized  

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Czechoslovakia as a new nation comprising the former states of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia.  The Czech and Slovak languages were now officially used in place of German.
	In December of 1920, Anton applied for Cestovn list, Reisepass, a passport, from Republika Ceskoslovensk.  The information is given in both the Czech and German languages.  Antons information included: Beschattigung Koalinarbeiter, occupation coal worker (possibly a miner); Statur mՊstel, Haare blond, Mund gewohul, Gesicht rund, augen graublau, Nase gewohul, blond hair, round face, blue-gray eyes; Wohnhatt Wintersgrn, residence at Wintersgrn (now called Vintirov, this is a small town just west of Chodov about fifteen miles southeast of Antons hometown of Sch՚nlind), within the political district of Elbogen (now called Loket, this town is further south near Sokolov).
	Dieser Reisepass gilt zur Reise nach Dayton Staat Ohio Amerika, this passport was good for travel to Dayton, Ohio, America, until 10 October 1921. Zweck der Reise, Auswanderweg, with the purpose of emigration; Anton was going to join his uncles in America.  The document has stamps from the Okresn Sprava Politicka V Lokti Elbogen, American Consulate in Prague (certifying Anton paid a $10 fee), the Deutsche Gemeindtschaft Passstelle, and Hansestadt Bremen Polizeidirektion.  Permission was granted on 12 December 1920 to travel to Amerika via Bremen.  Anton ausgereist, left Bremen on 21 Jan 1921.  The official photograph shows a young Anton looking solemnly at the camera; a dark suitcoat covers a light checked shirt with a tie.  His hair is worn high in a pompadour style.
	In November 1920, Anton sent a postcard to Dayton, Ohio, preserved in the collection of his cousin, Josephine Lorenz Lightner.  The pictures show four views of Wintersgruen; including Schule & Kaolinschlemme Margarethe .  It is a tinted postcard, with green on the ground (which appears to be a low grass cover with no bushes and few trees), blue in the sky and red on the roofs; the four images are set on a background which resembles a granite texture.  The Schule, school was a two-story building with a hip roof and tall windows; smaller homes cluster nearby.  The Kaolinschlemme, porcelain clay factory (schlemme is a geologic term for diluvial soil resulting from glacial action) was a large warehouse type building two stories high with a very tall smokestack; in the foreground is a pool of water.  The next picture shows a small two story building with signs or plaques and large windows on one side that might be a store or a town office.  The last picture shows a large two-story building and three large houses nearby; in front is a small chapel topped by a short tower.  Several men are walking along the roadway, while the sloping ground suggests a hilly terrain.  The postcard was addressed to:
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	Wohlg. Herrn Frank Lorenz, Fairview Avenue, Dayton Ohio, America.

	“Lieber Onkel!  Die besten Grussen as Wintersgrn sendet dein Sohn Anton.  In dieser fabrik bin ich beschftingt.  Ich bin Risse ferdig kinnt/ kommt nur alles schicken.  Auf Wiedersehen.”  [Translated by Anton s niece Frances LaFrance: Dear Uncle!  Your son Anton sends you best wishes from Wintersgrun.  I am employed in this factory (Xs are marked on the card by the Kaolinschlemme).  I am ready for the trip.  You can send me everything.  Until we meet again.]
 
	It is interesting that although Anton was a nephew of our Frank, he called himself Son  and continued to do so after he came to America.  Postcards mailed in the 1920s are sent to his Aunt Rosa as  Dear Mutter from  Your Son, Anton.  And a birthday card mailed to Rosa from Anton in 1933 has the verse, 

	 A Loving Tribute to My Other Mother; Dear Mother, Heart of purest gold, loving bonds of friendship true, Bind us closer year by year.  I owe so very much to you.

	We have a photo of Anton taken at about the same time, possibly taken in Czechoslovakia or shortly after his arrival in America.  He wore a light colored cap which shaded his face, a dark suit with a matching vest buttoned over a white shirt with a tall stiff collar.  His tie is brightly patterned, a watch chain hangs from the buttonhole of his vest, and two pens are clipped onto the front pocket of his suit coat. Tall, two-story wooden buildings can be seen in the background.
	Three other photographs preserved in Anton s photo albums appear to date from his years in Czechoslovakia.  One shows a young Anton (possibly age twelve to fifteen) sitting in a chair while a young woman stands next to the chair.  She was wearing a finely-patterned dress with elbow-length sleeves; lace trims the neck edges and the calf-length hem.  A shiny dark half apron covers the skirt, while her leather shoes have a high heel.  Her hair is worn pulled back away from her face, revealing a thin face with fine features that resemble none of our other Lorenz relatives.  Anton was wearing dark pants with a vest and jacket; his white shirt has a wide open collar.  Anton wears a small gold ring and there is a watch chain visible on his vest; the woman appears to be wearing a wristwatch!
	Another photo shows Anton a few years later, possibly age twenty, for he looks like the photo described above with the pompadour hairstyle.  He wears a white shirt, suit coat and tie and stands with eight people in front of a 
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building.  The other people appear to be a family group of two couples with two children and two teen-aged girls.  One of the other men standing in front resembles other Lorenz’s, but we do not know who these people are.  The women wear cotton dresses that come slightly below the knee.  The building has a wooden gate that covers a doorway, and small-paned windows with wooden shutters; the shutters have the classic European cut-out patterns for decoration.  
	The third photograph shows a large building which appears to have a barn in one half with a large wooden door, and a house in the other half with regular doors and windows that have transom openings at the top.  The gable roof has dormer windows and a chimney rises from the house portion of the building.  Farm implements and wheels can be seen propped against the fence.  Four people (two mature couples) stand in front; the women’s dresses are mid-calf length.  One of the men wears a coat, the other has a vest; both have white shirts.  We do not know who they are.
	The family remembers that our Frank Lorenz in Dayton sponsored Anton s emigration to America; he came directly to Dayton and lived with Frank and Rosa for over two years.  We have a photo dated 1921 which shows Frank and Rosa standing in front of their wooden house at 121 East Fairview with Anton.  Anton is hidden behind hollyhocks, but we can see a light colored shirt and dark pants; his dark pompadour hairstyle is clear visible.  Close ties were formed; in 1941, Rosa spoke of Anton as Anthony, my other boy. . . my nephew, virtually an adopted son  when she was interviewed for a newspaper story about the growing winds of war in Europe.  The 1938 Dayton City Directory still listed Anthony Lorenz, USN, residence 121 East Fairview.   In later years, Anton lived near his cousin Rose Lorenz Bertsch in California and they often visited each other.
	We do not know where Anton worked in Dayton, but the 1923 Dayton City Directory lists his occupation as clerk .  On 20 August 1923, he went to a recruiting office in Cincinnati, Ohio, and enlisted in the United States Navy as Apprentice Seaman.  His first assignment was at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station on Lake Michigan in North Chicago, Illinois; he was soon assigned to the Pacific Fleet, where he served for over twenty years.  We have a few photos from his early days in the navy; he wore a white uniform with a white hat and a dark scarf tied in a square knot.  One is a studio portrait where he stands proudly in front of an American flag. Another dated 1923 shows him on shore leave at an outdoor restaurant with several other sailors and one officer; a note penciled on the back in Anton’s handwriting says the leave cost me $60!
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	Official documents tell us the names of his ships, and that he received steady promotions in rank, from AS [Apprentice Seaman]; S2c [Seaman Second Class]; SC3c [Seaman Cook Third Class]; SC2c; SC1c; CCS (AA) [Chief Commissary Steward . . .]; CCS (PA); APC (T) [Acting Pay Clerk, Temporary]; CPC (T) [Commissary Pay Clerk, Temporary].  Unfortunately, we do not know his precise duties during his early years of service, nor do we know the exact dates of service on each ship.
	Circa 1924, Anton was assigned to USS Procyon (AG-11), named for a star in the constellation Canis Minor. One of the legendary  Hog Islander class vessels (made at Hog Island, a shipyard in the Delaware River south of Philadelphia), Procyon was built in 1919 as Shaume.  Renamed USS Procyon  when commissioned, she served as flagship of the Navy s Pacific Fleet Supply Train from 1923 to 1930 (which included Anton’s service).  Modern in design, the ship had a steam turbine and the latest in navigation equipment.  She served as part of the  fleet auxiliary.  During World War II, Procyon  was reassigned to the Maritime Commission and eventually renamed American Pilot; she served as a training ship for New York Maritime Academy and others.  Now called USS Empire State, the ship is berthed at the Training Ship Gallery in Fort Schuyler, New York (in the Bronx) as part of the Maritime Industry Museum at State University of New York s Maritime College.
	We have several postcards from 1924 which show Anton’s journey to California, all mailed to his Aunt Rosa on Fairview Avenue in Dayton.
	1924 Jul 2; Postmark New Orleans LA; View of Entrance to Audobon Place.

	“Liebe Mutter; Bin in New Orleans gut angekommen.  Haben 3 stunden gestoped here.  Love to all, Anthony.”  [I arrived safely in New Orleans and stayed 3 hours.]

	1924 Jul 5; Postmark Los Angeles CA; View of New Hotel Rosslyn & Annex;

	 July the 4th;  “Liebe Mother -- Heute bin ich rocidie [?] glcklich in Los Angeles angekommen.  Schlafe inher Nacht in Hotel.  Morgen nach mittag gehe ich auss Schiff zuruck.  With lots of love, Your Son, Anton.”  [Today I arrived in Los Angeles with good luck.  I slept last night in this hotel.  Tomorrow at noon I will return to the ship.]

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	Other postcards from Josephine’s collection of this vintage are black and white photographs which were never mailed; each has a shield with the monogram KC. They are pictures of: Sounding Shell at Camp Kearney California with Mischa Elman Playing for the Soldiers at the K. of C.;  Headquarters K. of C., and Library and Reading Room of K. of C., both at Balboa Naval Training Station, California.  In 1926, Anton appears to have visited Dayton, sending a postcard to Rosa Lorenz from St. Louis Missouri on 25 October, “Bin hier gut and glucklich angekommen.  Lots of Love, Anton.” [Arrived here safely and happily.]

	Anton next served on the USS Relief VI (AH-1), which saw service from 1920 to 1946.  This was the first ship of the U.S. Navy designed and built from the keel up as a hospital ship. Relief was one of the world s most modern and best equipped hospital ships at the time.  Commissioned in 1920, she had a bed capacity of 500 patients. In April 1923, she relieved Mercy as hospital ship for Pacific Fleet and participated in Fleet battle problems conducted northward to Alaska and westward to Hawaii.  On 1 July 1925 she sailed from Pearl Harbor to join the Battle Fleet and made a good will practice cruise via the Samoan Islands to Australia and New Zealand.  USS Relief returned to San Pedro, California, on 26 September 1925 and continued to serve the Pacific Fleet as National Emergency preparations swelled the ranks of sailors and marines.  This is probably when Anton served aboard the ship.  In 1941, the USS Relief was transferred to the Atlantic Fleet.  A photo taken in 1945 shows a large ship resembling an ocean liner, with two decks rising above the white sides of the ship.  The ship had one funnel with a huge red cross, while the ships sides had a wide red stripe with a red cross in the center.
	Anton s next ship was called SS-32  in his official discharge papers.  This appears to be one of the K-class of American diesel-powered submarines.  SS-32, called K-1 or USS Haddock, was delivered to the Navy in March of 1914.  She was 154 feet long and over 16 feet in beam with a draft of 13 feet.  Her surface speed was 14 knots; when submerged she traveled at 10.5 knots.  She had four 18-inch torpedo tubes and a crew of 28 men.  However, this ship was always stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, and she was decommissioned at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 7 March 1923 (six months BEFORE Anton enlisted).
	Michael Lorenz suggests an extra S was a typo in the official records.  USS S-32 is a much better match, both geographically and by date.  Built by Union Iron Works in San Francisco, California, S-32 was launched in January 1919  
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and commissioned on 15 June 1922, with Lt. Edward Hazlett in command.  She measured 219 feet in length and 21 feet in beam, with a submerged displacement of 1062 tons.  Her test depth was 200 feet; this is the maximum operating depth for a submarine, usually about half of the crush depth.  Her speed was 13 knots on the surface and 9 knots submerged.  Armament included one 4-inch 50 caliber gun mounted on the deck and four 21-inch diameter torpedo tubes forward (none aft).  S-32 had a complement of four officers and 34 enlisted men as her crew.
	Although home ported at San Pedro, California, S-32 was ordered to New London, Connecticut, in September for engineering alterations, and then served with Subdivision 11 in the Caribbean and Canal Zone for winter exercises.  S-32 then returned to San Pedro and rejoined Subdivision 16.  After serving in the Aleutians, southern California and Canal Zone, S-32 was transferred with her division to the Asiatic Fleet.  A web site compiled by SUBNET from Dictionary of American Fighting Ships, U.S. Navy, continues,
	On 15 April 1925, S-32 departed San Francisco for the Philippines.  She arrived at Cavite in mid-summer and through the winter of 1926 conducted local exercises in the Luzon area.  That spring, she deployed to the China coast, conducting exercises both en route to and from her summer base, the former German base at Tsingtao.  Overhaul followed her September return to the Philippines and completed an annual employment schedule maintained for the next six years. [Presumably, this covers the time of Anton s service with this submarine.]  In 1932, Subdivision 16 was ordered back to the Eastern Pacific.  Pearl Harbor [was her] homeport for the next five years.  In June 1937, S-32 sailed for the east coast and reported for inactivation at Philadelphia.  She was decommissioned and berthed at League Island.  S-32 was re-commissioned on 18 September 1940 [and saw extensive service in World War II].  At wars end, she was decommissioned. . . and her hulk was sold for scrapping in May 1946. 
	We have a Christmas card from 1928 (which pictures Asian trees with a Chinese junk and palm trees with a small hut surrounding a line drawing of a submarine) sent by Anton to Rosa Lorenz, captioned

SUBMARINE DIVISION SIXTEEN
CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR GREETINGS
FROM CHINA AND THE PHILIPPINES

	Further research by Michael Lorenz, from the book Down Under, vividly describes the hot and humid conditions Anton endured on the submarine,

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	The Old S boats, post World War I holdovers, were some of the initial boats to respond to the Japanese attacks in World War II.  They were overhauled and mustered at the Panama Canal and sent to the South Pacific to cover for the loss of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.  These old boats were paramount in defending Australia from the Japanese threat.  Unlike modern submarines, the S  class subs had NO air conditioning.  While patrolling the South Pacific and South China Sea areas, the outside air was hot and humid, while the water temperature was bath water warm; the temperature aboard the submarine would easily sit above 100 when the crew was working below with the engines running.
	There were two main problems caused by this humid heat.  Anything electrical was subject to malfunction from corrosion, bad switch contacts and electrical shorts due to the ambient moisture.  The heat and humidity also affected the crew; in a battle situation, where everyone was awake, alert and on watch, those who passed out due to heat exhaustion (and there were many) became something to step over when others were in a hurry. 
	Circa 1928, Anton served on the USS Beaver (AS-5), which had been launched in 1910 at Newport News, Virginia.  This ship was commissioned in 1918 after conversion to a submarine tender at Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo, California.  She was 380 feet long and 47 feet wide, with a draft of 20 feet.  Her speed was 16.5 knots; she had a complement of 291 men.  The ship returned to the Far East in 1925.  From 1925 to 1932 (while Anton was aboard), Beaver  served as tender for Submarine Division 16 at Cavite, Philippine Islands, and at Tsingtao, China (now spelled Qingdao).  Beaver  was decommissioned on 17 July 1946.  The duties of a submarine tender were to deliver supplies and repairs to submarines.  A photo of the Beaver   with her brood of subs shows seven submarines flanking the tender.
	Anton s next assignment was on board the USS Tutuila (Pr-4), which was assigned to the Yangtze River Patrol (YangPat), based at Shanghai and later at Hankow.  The Yangtze River is the longest (over 3,900 miles long) and most important river in China; it distributes half of Chinas ocean trade to inland China, reaching such port cities as Shanghai, Nan-ching, An-ch ing, I-chang, Ch ung-ching and Wu-han.  High mountains at the rivers source give it a very rapid flow for most of its length; great gorges in the upper parts above I-ch ang are both dangerous and beautiful.  Modern European tour boats cruise the Yangtze, but the sheer power of the river has to be seen to be believed; the eddies, the whirlpools and the speed with which it flows are awesome.   Simon Winchester explains the politics in The River at the Center of the World,
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	For nearly a hundred years a slew of treaties that had been imposed on war-weakened China had given a number of foreign countries (including Britain, America, France and Italy) certain rights on the river.  They were allowed to steam their gunboats, corvettes, destroyers and frigates along every navigable mile of the river (1,600 miles between the ocean s red buoy at Woosung and the rapids at Pingshan in Sichuan), and with all guns locked and loaded, for the purposes of protecting their own trade, their own interests and their own citizens.
	By today s standards, it was a bizarre arrangement, as outlandish and unimaginable as, say, letting Japanese warships patrol todays Mississippi River to protect a Honda plant in Hannibal, Missouri.  But in the late nineteenth century the Chinese were too debilitated and powerless to prevent such high-handedness.  It was an arrangement that went hand in hand with the similarly bizarre concept of extra-territoriality, by which foreign citizens in the concession areas of China s treaty ports could be judged only by their own courts and not be subject to Chinese law. . .  It led, among other things, to the creation of the Yangtze Patrol of the United States Navy and the Royal Navys Yangtze Flotilla.   
	The United States Navy’s Yangtze River Patrol operated with various names from 1854 to 1941.  The Yangtze River Patrol Memorial Web page tells the story, 
	 This squadron-sized unit of the Asiatic Fleet patrolled the waters of the Yangtze River as far inland as Chungking, more than 1,300 miles from the sea, and occasionally far beyond.  The patrol was necessary to protect U.S. citizens and their interests against pirates and warlords who would attack commercial ships on the river.  In the early 1900s China experienced turbulent times accompanied by many acts of violence against foreigners.  The Yangtze Patrol [defended] American lives, property and commerce along the river and supported American foreign policy in the Far East.
	 [The patrols began] as a result of several so-called unequal treaties  imposed on China by Great Britain after the Opium Wars.  China was opened to foreign trade at a number of locations known as treaty ports  where foreigners were permitted to live and to conduct business.  Also created by the treaties was the doctrine of extraterritoriality, a system whereby citizens of foreign countries living in China were subject to the laws of their home country, not those of China.  Most favored nation treatment under the treaties assured other countries of the privileges afforded Great Britain, and soon many nations, including the United States, operated merchant ships and navy gunboats on the waterways of China.
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	During the 1860s and 1870s American merchant ships were prominent on the lower Yangtze, operating up to the deepwater port of Hankow 300 miles inland.  The added mission of anti-piracy patrols required naval and marine landing parties be put ashore several times to protect American interests.  In 1874 the USS Achuelot reached as far inland as Ichang at the foot of the Yangtze gorges, 975 miles from the sea.  During this period most found a tour in the Yangtze to be uneventful. . . As the stability of China began to deteriorate after 1890, the U.S. Naval presence began to increase.
	 In 1901 American-flag merchant vessels returned to the Yangtze when Standard Oil company placed a steam tanker in service along the lower river.  Several small motor ships began hauling kerosene. . . The Navy acquired several ex-Spanish gunboats seized in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. . . core of the Yangtze River patrol. . . lacked power to go beyond  Ichang onto the more difficult stretches of the river.
	In 1913 American gunboats were built specifically for service on the Yangtze River. . . the USS Palos and the USS Monocacy were built at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California. . . and shipped to China . . . reassembled in Shanghai. . . demonstrated their ability to handle the rapids of the upper river when they reached Chungking more than 1,300 miles from the sea and went beyond to Kiating on the Min River. 
	In 1912, the Republic of China had been established with the end of the Ching Dynasty.  The Manchus had ruled China since 1644; the collapse of the dynasty left a political vacuum with the loss of monolithic control.  Sun Yat-sen was temporary president of the republic.  Rebellions and the death of crucial political figures led to the crumbling of the central government by 1916.  World Book Encyclopedia  tells us that real power in northern China lay in the hands of warlords, the local military leaders.  By 1922, the republic failed completely and civil war was widespread in China.  By 1923, Russia sent advisors to China to help Sun Yat-sen and his Nationalist Party; they persuaded Chinese Communists to join this party.  For a while both Nationalists and Communists under Chiang Kai-shek fought together against the northern warlords; by 1927, most Communist leaders fled to the hills when Nationalist forces turned against them.
	 Passenger and cargo service by American-flag ships began in 1920 with the Dollar Line and the American West China Company, followed in 1923 by the Yangtze River Steamship Company. . . To accommodate its increased responsibilities on the river, the U.S. Navy constructed six new gunboats in Shanghai between 1926 and 1927.  These  
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vessels were three sizes, all capable of reaching Chunking at high water.  Luzon and Mindanao were the largest; Oahu and Panay next in size, and Guam and Tutuila the smallest. . .  Operational requirements were growing rapidly.
	Anton s ship, the USS Tutuila  was 169 feet long and 27 feet wide, with a draw of six feet six inches.  Her speed was 14 knots and she had a complement of 61 men.  Her armament included two 3-inch and ten 30-caliber machine guns.
	 The USS Tutuila was re-designated a river gunboat on 16 June 1928; her shakedown cruise was up the Yangtze River from Shanghai to I Chang, where she joined her sister ship Guam (PR-3) in mid-July.   She convoyed river steamers through the upper reaches of the Yangtze on her first passage through the scenic gorges.  Tutuilas shallow draft enabled her to traverse the treacherous rapids of the gorges with ease; fluctuating water levels did not hinder her year-round access to the upper stretch of the Yangtze.  Duty with YangPat offered excitement and variety; sailors conducted roving armed patrols, convoyed merchant ships, provided armed guards for American-flag steamers, and  showed the flag to protect American lives and property in a land where civil strife and warfare had been a way of life for centuries. 
	 They often had to deal with sniping by bandits or warlord troops. . . with a mixture of diplomacy and force.   In 1929, Lt. Commander S. E. Truesdell was in command of the gunboat.  He called on the Chinese warlord from whose territory some rifle shots had come.  The warlord explained his men were country boys, who meant no harm ; Truesdell replied that he too had country boys  [who enjoyed] tinkering with the after 3-inch gun, pointing it at the generals conspicuous white headquarters, as they practiced their range finding.  The sniping ceased [immediately]. 
	Naval reaction to hostilities along the river peaked in the early 1920 s and 1930s.  The patrol found itself fighting the forces of deadly warlords and ruthless bandits.  In the late 1920 s, Chiang Kai-shek and the Northern Expedition created a volatile military situation.  [This was the period when Anton served on the Yangtze Patrol.]  During the early 1930s, communist armies took control of much of the north bank of the middle river and the patrol protected U.S. lives and property.  The climax of hostilities occurred in 1937 with the Rape of Nan-king  and the sinking of the USS Panay by the Japanese, often regarded as the beginning of World War Two in the Pacific.
	We have photographs of Anton taken while he was serving in China; several show him visiting  tourist spots on leave.  In one he stands in front of a wall decorated with small ceramic tiles of Buddha; another shows him in a rickshaw in front of a fortress-type stone 
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building with a pagoda-style roof and no windows.  In both photographs he wears a dark uniform with a white sailor hat.  Postcards from 1929 in his cousin Josephine s collection show Front View of Temple of Heaven, Pei Hai, Peking, and Drag Screen, Winter Palace, Peking; on the latter, Anton wrote Dragon Wall in the Winter Palace. Had my picture taken in front of that. 
	We also have a photo of the Tutuila;  it had two decks surrounded by open verandas with a small captains cabin in the stern on the third deck. The ship set low in the water and had two funnels and two masts.  The hills of the river gorge can be seen in the background.
	World War II found the USS Tutuila stranded at Chungking; officers and crew were ordered to leave without her.  The Naval Attaché with the American embassy delivered the ship to an authorized representative of the Republic of China on 16 February 1942.  Under terms of lend-lease, the gunboat was leased to China; her name became Mei Yuan, which means of American origin.   After the war ended, she served the Nationalist Navy until near the end of the Chinese civil war.  As Communist forces advanced upon Shanghai, the Nationalists abandoned and scuttled Mei Yuan  to prevent her capture.  Her subsequent fate is unknown.
	Anton had left the USS Tutuila  on 26 May 1930.  Documents issued at Hankow CHINA (the former Chinese capital city, now Wuhan) show Anton Lorenz, SC1c (Seaman Cook 1st Class), USN, was transferred for discharge to the Receiving Barracks, Navy Yard, Bremerton Washington: 
USS Tutuila; Yangtze Patrol Force; United States Asiatic Fleet
	Proceed via transportation furnished you to Shanghai, China, at which port you will embark in the SS Empress of Russia, via which vessel you will travel from Shanghai, China, to Seattle, Washington, at no expense to the United States Government.	You are granted thirty days leave and fifteen days traveling time commencing at Shanghai, China on 5 June 1930 and expiring. . . 29 July 1930.
	 Commercial transportation via a vessel flying a foreign flag from Kuikiang, China [now called Jiujiang], to Shanghai, China, is authorized, there being no transportation available via a vessel flying the American flag nor via government conveyance. The travel involved in the execution of these orders via commercial conveyance under foreign flag from Kuikiang, China, to Shanghai, China, is required in the public interests. Your necessary papers and records. . . are being transferred to the Receiving Barracks, Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington, Signed: S. D. Truesdell.

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[Handwritten note]:  Furnished transportation from Kuikiang, China to Shanghai, first class passage none other available.  Amount paid Yuen $55.
	Notice that Anton’s commanding officer was the Captain Truesdell who had dealt with the Chinese warlord in 1929; presumably this incident had occurred while Anton was aboard the ship!
	Anton had another document with Japanese characters and the * Seal of HIJMs CONSULATE GENERAL * HANKOW CHINA *.  This transit visa from the Japanese Embassy in China includes a photo of Anton in uniform, standing in front of a bamboo fence and a building with a thatched roof.  The visa certified that sailor Anthony Lorenz,  person on the right . . . going home from Shanghai, has permission to stop in two cities in Japan en-route.  The document named specific boats used for Anton s passage; it was dated 5th Year of Ruler of Japan, 5th month, 26th day, in China at Embassy, Name of Ambassador.  It is date stamped 8 June and 11 June at two Japanese ports en-route.  We have not fully translated this document.  A postcard mailed from Seattle on 2 August 1930 told the family in Dayton that Anton was at U.S.N., Rec. Barracks, Bremerton Washington. 
 	Anton visited the family in Dayton during this leave; we have a photo dated 1930 which shows him with his cousin Josephine Lorenz and a friend named Jake Amman.  They posed outside the house at 121 Fairview Avenue where Rosa Lorenz was living with Josephine.  
	Anton remained stateside for his next posting; in 1931 he was a cook at the Point Loma Naval Radio Station in San Diego, California.  And one evening his buddy, a Navy radioman, introduced Anton to his friend Gertrude Chism, who was living with her aunt in Imperial Beach, California.   On 1 July 1932, Anton Lorenz and Gertrude Chism were married in Ocean Beach, California.  Their daughter Geraldine was born in 1933; the baby announcement sent to the family at Dayton said, Doc Stork left me here today.  I like the folks so I m going to stay.  Geraldine Ann, 5 lb 11 oz.
	The family moved to Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii.  We have the Christmas card that  Gertie, Tony and Baby sent to Rosa Lorenz (whom he called  Mother), with  CHRISTMAS GREETINGS and ALOHA from the PARADISE of the PACIFIC.  Anton and Gertrude welcomed their son John Anthony in 1935. Another baby announcement was mailed to Dayton,   Just arrived, a baby boy, John Anthony, 6 lbs 11 oz.
	Anton was next assigned to the battleship USS New Mexico (BB-40).  She had been commissioned in 1918 and overhauled at Philadelphia by 1933; in October 1934 the ship returned to the Pacific to resume training exercises and tactical development operations.   
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As war threatened, she was based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, from 6 December 1940 until 20 May 1941.  New Mexico  was 624 feet long and 97 feet wide, with a draft of 30 feet.  Her complement was 1,084 men and her armament totaled twelve 14-inch, four 3-inch and two 21-inch guns.
	We are not sure just when Anton served with the New Mexico,  and which of the above operations he might have participated in.  We do know that his family stayed in Hawaii until 1937, after which they spent three months at Bremerton, Washington.  Anton sent a postcard to Rosa Lorenz from Longmire, Washington, on 14 June; the view shows Summit Climbing Party Above Clouds on Mt. Rainier .
	Hello Mom & Jo;  Just a card to let you know we are fine and hope you are the same.  We are 3000 feet up and lots of snow.  Love Gertie & Tony 
	In early 1938, Anton and the family lived at San Diego, California, where Anton attended Cooks and Bakers School, Class III, as part of the Commissary Service in the 11th Naval District.  He took classes for sixteen weeks at the U.S. Naval Training Station and graduated on 4 March 1938.  His graduation photo shows twenty sailors and four officers; Anton stands in the last row.  Unfortunately, we cannot see the rank insignia on his left arm, but he wears a service ribbon on his chest (possibly for his service with the Yangtze River Patrol).  All the sailors wear dark uniforms with white hats.
	In 1938, Rosa Lorenz came to visit Anton and Gertie; she stayed for at least six weeks from April 15 to June 4, and might have come earlier for Anton’s graduation ceremony.  Rosa sent home postcards showing  U.S. Navy Fleet of Destroyers Coming into Bay and  Skyline of San Diego from Grounds of U.S. Naval Training Station.
	On 16 February 1940, Anton assumed active duty as Chief Commissary Steward (PA), USN.  Presumably this means that he was no longer attached to an individual ship, but served at the base facilities on shore.  On 2 August 1940, Gertie sent a postcard to Rosa Lorenz, with a picture of Matson Line’s SS Lurline,
	
	“Here I am on the boat just the first day out.  We will stop tomorrow at Frisco.  How are you all feeling?  So far on our trip we are all fine.  I will write you a letter when I get settled in Honolulu.  I will say bye bye for now.  Love to all, Gertie.”
 
	From 1940 through 1943, Anton and the family lived at Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii.  Other documents suggest that although Anton had housing at Kaneohe Bay, he worked at the US Navy Yard in Pearl 
 
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Harbor, Hawaii. Kaneohe Bay is on the eastern coast of Oahu, while Pearl Harbor is on the southern coast.  The road from Pearl Harbor to Kaneohe Bay crosses a high ridge of the Koolau Mountain range; the modern interstate makes it a thirty minute drive, but in 1940 it would have been a much longer commute.
	We do know that Anton was at home with his family on the fateful morning of 7 December 1941; his daughter Geri recently shared her memories,
	You asked about memories of Sunday, December 7, 1941.  I was eight years old and my brother John was six.  We lived on the base [Naval Air Station, Kaneohe Bay] in military housing very near the Marine guard gate.  I remember awakening early and looking out the bedroom window to watch what looked like planes far off in the distance engaged in bombing practice.  I didn’t think much about it again until my father and all military personnel were ordered to their duty stations.  It then became apparent that the planes were not participating in bombing practice but were enemy aircraft.  	
	Japanese Zeros flew over the houses (you could clearly see the rising sun on the under side of the wings) headed toward the airplane hangers to destroy the Navy planes still on the ground.  I understand that they accomplished their mission.  
	 Most everyone, I guess, was in a state of shock.  I don’t remember being fearful or aware of any panic at first.  No homes were bombed or shot at; in fact, for a while we all stood outside to watch.  Eventually, the reality of what was happening set in and we were told to get inside and put mattresses over the backs of the sofa and get under them.  Later in the day, all families were told to leave the base and if possible stay with friends elsewhere on the island.  Mother, John and I stayed with [friends] Paula, Dave and Alfred [Persson] for several days until we were able to return to the base.  On that Sunday morning, Dave was in the hills hunting goats and when he heard the news, scooted on home and left the goats he had killed for mother and Paula to skin.  At least we didn’t go hungry while we were there.
	 I don’t remember how long it was before chaos returned to some sort of normalcy, but it must have been some time because mother tried to keep up our school work at home.  When we did return to school, instead of fire drills we had bombing attack drills.  We had to practice putting on gas masks, which we carried to school every day, and were marched outside into trenches which I guess were considered safer than being inside the building in case of an attack.  We became familiar with the sound of the air raid siren while at home, and on one occasion I remember spending the night in a concrete bomb shelter.  It was a false alarm; apparently someone thought a submarine was spotted near the island.  
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	 It is interesting looking back how we took all of this in stride.  I guess it helped being eight.  One of my favorite places to swim had been Kailua Beach.  There were beautiful coconut groves along the beach, but after Pearl Harbor barbed wire was strung out along the shore and anti-aircraft guns strategically placed; it looked like a war zone.  Blackouts were enforced and it was required that every house have black paper on all windows to keep light from showing outside.  That Christmas when John and I awoke very early to see the presents under the tree, we had to use a flashlight with a special blue light to scope out which ones were ours.  We returned to the mainland sometime in 1942, and I went to fourth grade in Riverside, California.
	The family remembers Anton saying that he spent most of that dreadful Sunday trying to report for duty at Pearl Harbor.  We can imagine the chaos after that attack; smoke from burning ships and planes obscured lines of sight and made travel very difficult.
	Pearl Harbor, The Way it Was, by Scott Stone, tells a similar story,
	 December 6, 1941, was a lovely calm day in the Hawaiian Islands.  The heart of the Pacific Fleet, eight magnificent battleships, lay in a line along the gentle reach of Ford Island in the center of Pearl Harbor.
	[Sunday morning], 7:55 a.m.  Dive-bombers swarmed across Ford Island, loosing bombs on the aircraft and hangars below.  Airplanes on the ground flashed apart and started to burn, the first smoke of an incendiary morning. .  The battleships were blazing and dense smoke spiraled up. . . The planes kept coming. . .  Oil in the water around the ships burned for hours.
	 Other bombers and fighters were screaming over Oahus airfields. . . At Schofield Barracks. . . Hickam Field. . . Wheeler Field. . . Kaneohe Bay. . . U.S. fighter planes were grouped neatly in front of their hangars.  The fighters on the ground wrenched apart with the impact of the bombs, sending fiery pieces of debris into the air.  Some airplanes simply vanished in the force of the explosions.  Men crossing the runways were caught and killed.  At Kaneohe, on the windward side of Oahu, the Naval Air Station [home to Anton and his family] was strafed twice, then bombed.  Of the 33 planes on the ground, 27 were smashed and burned, some bent beyond recognition.  Smoke from burning planes reached high over the sleepy windward side and disappeared in wisps, like black cirrus against the morning light.
	 At Wheeler Field, at Hickam, at Kaneohe and Ewa and Ford Island air strips, the crumpled forms of shattered airplanes were consumed in the flames that leaped from aircraft to aircraft. . .   

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Huge fires sucked oxygen out of the morning.  The plaintive wail of sirens came steadily across the water. Japanese strafing planes cut across the roads leading to Pearl Harbor and shot at both cars and pedestrians.  Damage in the city of Honolulu. . . noise and confusion. . . fiery combat with the spreading flames. . .
	By 10 a.m., the Japanese planes were headed back to their aircraft carriers far to the north.  Two waves of attacks had hit Oahu; Kaneohe Bay was hit during the first wave by Japanese fighter planes (dive bombers, horizontal bombers and torpedo bombers were used against the ships at Pearl Harbor).  Official Navy photos from A Pictorial History, Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial, show the damage at Kaneohe and other air fields, as well as civilian damage in downtown Honolulu.  Photos show wrecked engines of Army Air Corps P-40-Bs at Hickam Field and burned out tents, damaged hangars and shattered planes at Wheeler Field.  The photo of a ruined PBY plane has the caption,  There were 36 PBYs at Kaneohe at the time of the attack.  27 were destroyed, 6 were damaged and the remaining 3 were out on patrol.   As Geri said above, they accomplished their objective at Kaneohe.  Other photos from Kaneohe Naval Air Station show burned remains of private cars, a mass burial grave with one huge American flag draped over several coffins, and sailors placing wreaths over graves of fellow shipmates killed during the Pearl Harbor attack. 
	Rumors spread throughout the island; fear of a Japanese invasion helped by local saboteurs caused the immediate imposition of martial law, which lasted for three years.  The Honolulu Star-Bulletin issued an eight page Extra Edition, with the following headlines and stories,

	WAR!  OAHU BOMBED BY JAPANESE PLANES.

	Associated Press by Transpacific Telephone: SAN FRANCISCO, Dec.7. President Roosevelt announced this morning that Japanese planes had attacked Manila and Pearl Harbor.

	 Attack Made on Islands Defense Areas.  Oahu was attacked at 7:55 this morning by Japanese planes.  The Rising Sun, emblem of Japan, was seen on plane wing tips.  Wave after wave of bombers streamed through the clouded morning sky. . .  the city was in an uproar.  It is reliably reported that enemy objectives under attack were Wheeler field, Hickam field, Kaneohe bay and naval air station and Pearl Harbor.
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	 CIVILIANS ORDERED OFF STREETS.  The army has ordered that all civilians stay off the streets and highways and not use telephones. . . All navy personnel and civilian defense workers, with the exception of women, have been ordered to duty at Pearl Harbor.  The Pearl Harbor highway was immediately a mass of racing cars.  Thousands of telephone calls almost swamped the Mutual Telephone company. . . extra operators on duty.
	All schools on Oahu, both public and private, will remain closed. 
The second extra edition that Sunday described greater devastation, citing over 400 deaths.  The governor proclaimed a national emergency, military censorship was imposed on all messages and a complete blackout was ordered on Oahu.  By the third edition, martial law had been declared, the blackout was extended to all the Hawaiian Islands and the remnants of the U.S. Fleet were steaming to sea ready to attack the enemy. 
	On 10 December 1941, Gertie was finally able to send a telegram to Dayton, received 4 am; Postal Telegraph; Duplicate of telegram telephoned;

	c21 16 RADIO= F HONOLULU= LC Mrs Rose Lorenz =  121 East Fairview Ave DaytonOhio=  We are all OK= Mrs Gertrude Lorenz  

	Anton continued to work at Kaneohe Bay, while Gertrude and their children returned to California for the duration of the war.  On 16 September 1942, Anton Lorenz, Chief Commissary Steward, was appointed Acting Pay Clerk for temporary service.  He performed regular duties of an Officer in Charge of General Mess  and was proficient in both reading and writing the foreign language of German.
	On 7 January 1943, Acting Pay Clerk Anton Lorenz was detached from duty at Naval Air Station, Kaneohe Bay, T.H. . . transportation . . . to a port in the United States . . . proceed and report to the commandant of the nearest naval district for temporary duty with an officer of the supply corps pending further assignment.  You will immediately advise Bureau of Naval Personnel the naval district at which you report and the date of reporting.  The Secretary of the Navy has determined that this employment on shore duty is required by the public interests.   On 25 January 1943 Anton was advanced $200 by US NAS Kaneohe Bay TH for the above transport.
	Anton reported to the USS Cascade (AD-16), a destroyer tender based at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California; he was reimbursed $6 for the cost of subsistence on board USS Ranger for period 2/3/43 to 2/8/43 inclusive. . . Receipt furnished.   A report dated 1 March 1943 stated that Anton reported to USS Cascade during this vessel's
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conversion and has served onboard continuously from that date.  He has proven himself under all conditions to be a proficient and reliable officer.  His rank was Acting Pay Clerk (Temporary),  assigned to regular duties with the Supply Department, CFO USS Cascade, and on board when commissioned.  USS Cascade  had been recently launched on 6 June 1942 by Western Pipe and Steel Company of San Francisco; it was commissioned on 12 March 1943 with Captain S. B. Ogden in command.  Named for the Cascade mountain range in northwestern United States, she was 492 feet long and 70 feet wide with a complement of 826 men.  Her armament was one 5-inch and four 3-inch guns.
	In late March 1943, Anton assumed the rank of Chief Pay Clerk, assigned to regular duties with the Commissary (13 months) and JDO (13 months), with additional duties ASC (13 months).  The employment of ship USS Cascade during this period included a shakedown cruise, tending DDS and DES (destroyer class ships), and services with Service Squadron Four.  The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships describes her service, 
	 On 12 June 1943, USS Cascade cleared San Francisco en-route to Pearl Harbor, where she began her wartime duty of tending destroyers.  As the war moved westward, USS Cascade followed, to bring her support close to the action areas.  From November 1943, she was stationed successively at Kwajalein and Eniwetok [in the Marshall Islands], and at Ulithi [in the Caroline Islands], while the ships she served ranged the Pacific, escorting convoys, screening carrier task forces, supporting invasions and carrying out many other tasks with destroyer versatility.
	On 7 September 1943, Anton was recommended  for promotion to the rank of Chief Pay Clerk (Temporary) US Navy.  Current grade: A.P.C. (Acting Pay Clerk).  Care Fleet Post Office at San Francisco reported,  After careful consideration, the Supply Officer submits the following marks as indicating this officers qualifications for advancement in rank, his character and manner of performing duty:  Intelligence 3.8; Judgment 3.8; Initiative 3.8; Force 3.9; Leadership 3.8; Moral Courage 3.9; Cooperation 4.0; Loyalty 4.0; Perseverance 3.9; Reaction in Emergencies 3.8; Indurance [sic] 3.8; Industry 3.9; Military bearing and neatness in dress 4.0 
	On 15 November 1943, Anton was appointed Chief Pay Clerk.  Through August 1944, he continued to serve with USS Cascade, with regular duties with the Commissary (14.5 months, 3 months); JDO (14.5 months, 3 months); Additional duties ASC (14.5 months, 3 months). The employment of the ship during this period was services with Service Squadron TEN, Tending DDS and DES [destroyer class].  
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USS Cascade served with Representative, Commander Destroyers, Pacific Fleet, Forward Area [Kwajalein, Eniwetok and Ulithi]. 
	On 14 September 1944, Anton reported to duty at Station Navy Yard, Mare Island, Vallejo, California, with the rank of Chief Pay Clerk; his regular duties were Assistant to the Officer in Charge of the Commissary Store.   This assignment on shore was fortunate for Anton; less than nine months later the Cascade  was involved in even more dangerous duties:
	In June of 1945, USS Cascade sailed to Okinawa, where she endured the suicide raids and typhoon weather along with the combatants through September.  [On 2 September 1945, the war ended with Japan s surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay].  Cascade served in Wakayama Wan and at Tokyo, Japan, supporting the occupation until March 1946, when she sailed for the east coast.  USS Cascade was decommissioned and placed in service in reserve at Philadelphia on 12 February 1947.  USS Cascade received one battle star for World War II service.
	This was Anton’s last assignment with the Navy; he continued to work at Mare Island (which became Mare Island Naval Shipyard) until his retirement.  In September 1945, Anton and Gertie took a vacation for his rest and relaxation , traveling up Highway 101 to Oregon.  Postcards from Portland and Seaside Oregon (with pictures of Redwood Trees and High Tide at Seaside Promenade) sent to Rosa Lorenz in Dayton explain,

	“I am on a vacation.  Doctor’s orders, on my way to Portland, 300 miles to go.  Having a grand time so far. . .  We left the kids home.  Love to all, Tony and Gertie; Dear Folks;  We are at the beach for a few days and having a swell time.  We will start back to Vallejo next week.  Tony is having a good rest for himself.  He looks fine.  I hope the store wont get him down again when we get back. Love, Gert & Tony.”
 
	He was well liked by his Commanding Officer, who requested specifically that Anton be kept at his post, Well satisfied with his duty . . . does not desire to make any change. . . Mr. Lorenz is due for a normal period of shore duty in view of the fact that he has just come from the South Pacific and in my opinion he will become an excellent assistant.  He handles the store personnel very well, works very hard and is very conscientious and honest. 
	Comments in Anton’s personnel file show continued satisfaction, 1/ Well qualified for Commissary Officer (General Mess) as well as for commissary store work; 2/ Has trouble with his feet when on them for too long a 
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time. Ratings for Initiative and Responsibility, Understanding and Skill, Leadership, Conduct, and Work Habits: all within top 20%, half among top 10%.
 	On 31 March 1946, Anton retired with the rank of Chief Pay Clerk, equivalent to a Warrant Officer,  Anthony Lorenz, Chief Commissary Steward, US Navy, was transferred from active duty to the FLEET RESERVE of the United States Navy, after twenty years of service [actually, Anton served over 22 years].  This certificate is awarded as a Testimonial of Faithful and Honorable Service.
	Later that year, Anton was divorced from Gertrude after fourteen years of marriage; she and the children continued to live in California, near her family.  Anton continued to visit his Aunt and cousins in Dayton; postcards dated January 1947 and January 1950 were mailed from New Mexico and Arizona as he drove back to Los Angeles.
	Anton went to work at a nursery in the Los Angeles area which was owned by his friends, Dave and Paula Persson (with whom Gertrude and the children had stayed in Oahu after evacuation from the Naval Air Station on Pearl Harbor Day).  Within a few years, the Persson’s divorced and Anton married Paula Marie Heller Persson in July 1953 in California.  Anton and Paula went to Zion National Park in Utah for their honeymoon; they sent a postcard on 28 July to Rosa Lorenz in Dayton, with a picture of Angels Landing in Zion Park,  Having a wonderful time at a wonderful place.  Will write later.  Love to all, Mr. & Mrs. A. Lorenz .
	In 1953, Anton and Paula settled in Stockton, California, where they owned and operated Tony’s Liquor Store.  They lived at 2624 Waterloo Road, northeast of the downtown district and near the intersection of US Highway 99 and State Highway 88.  Anton’s cousin, Rose Lorenz Bertsch, and her husband William Bertsch also moved to Stockton about the same time (Roses daughter Pauline and her husband Karl Minke had moved to Stockton the year before).  The families often visited, and Pauline s daughter Patty remembers that Anton always brought some soda pop from his store when he came to their house.
	In December 1954, Anton and Paula were touring Florida and Havana, Cuba; they sent Rosa Lorenz a postcard showing Havana’s National Casino Fountain.

	 “We had wonderful weather all the way from California. Right now were on a sight seeing tour with Gray Line.  Tomorrow we’ll fly back to Key West Florida and get some more sunshine.  Don’t know when we will go back to California.  Love to all, Paula & Tony.”

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	In 1955, Anton and Paula moved back to the Los Angeles area.  They first lived in Sherman Oaks, then moved to a house that they had built in Woodland Hills.  By 1966, they had built another house in Vista, California.  During these years, Anton and Paula kept in touch with William and Rose; frequent visits brought the Bertsch’s to visit the Lorenz’s in southern California, while Anton and William once took a trip together to visit Fort Ross in northern California.
	Attracted by the warm climate and affordable cost of living, Anton and Paula lived for a while in Madrid, Spain, then finally settled in St. Petersburg, Florida, circa 1980.  Anton’s cousin, Luella Lorenz Cochran Davis, also lived in St. Petersburg with her husband Win Davis, and the two couples enjoyed visiting each other; they also helped each other during the years of declining health.  
	In 1986, when Anton was age 84, Anton’s niece Franziska (the daughter of his brother Josef) was reunited with Anton.  Franziska brought Anton news of the relatives still living in Germany, and she also brought him news of long ago.  For this is when Anton learned the real circumstances of his fathers death.  It was not the suicide that Anton had believed it to be; his father had been shot to death by a poacher.
	On 16 April 1991, Anthony Lorenz passed away at Humana Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida; he was 89 years old and suffered from acute cardio-pulmonary failure.  The National Cremation Society scattered his ashes at sea,  placed to rest in the Gulf of Mexico at longitude 82 52 west and latitude 27 43 north.   Paula returned to California to live near her son.  Paula Marie Heller Persson Lorenz passed away aged 89 in Orange County, California, on 7 December 1994.

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TIME LINE OF BOHEMIAN HISTORY 

300 B.C.: Celtic tribe named the Boii gave their name to the region. 

500 B.C.: Slavic peoples settled in the region; They called the area Cechy. 

800 AD: Greater Moravia briefly controlled Bohemia. Bohemia allied with Bavaria against Magyars and against Saxon Germans. Saints Cyril and Methodius brought Christianity to Bohemia from Moravia. 

921-929: Wenceslaus I (Bohemia’s patron saint) allies with German Saxons. 

1000 AD: Premyslid Princes become Kings of Bohemia; Dynasty lasts until 1306. Minor incursions against Germany, Poland and Moravia briefly changed borders. Imperial policies, military campaigns and foreign trade reduced Czech isolation. 

1158 AD: Duke Otakar I given title of ‘King’ by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I. Bohemia controlled Austria and fought with Hungary; Expanded to Adriatic Sea. 

1212: Emperor Frederick II Barbarossa issued charter called the Golden Bull of Sicily, which regulated Bohemian status within the Holy Roman Empire. 

1200’s: Major population increase due to immigration of German-speaking newcomers who came from over-populated areas in Germany. Some were farmers. The King urged other Germans to found urban areas or to develop silver mines. These Germans became an urban middle class with valuable privileges, such as the protection of German law. Most Germans retained their separate ethnic identity, despite some mixing. 

1278: Otakar II lost major battle against an Austrian coalition; Czech expansion into Austria and Hungary was halted. 

1306: Premyslid Dynasty ended with the assassination of Wenceslas III. Luxembourg Dynasty took control after brief instability. 

BOHEMIA - 1

1346, 1355: Charles IV ruled as King of Bohemia (including Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia) and as Holy Roman Emperor. Bohemia reached its political and cultural peak. Charles encouraged development of Bohemian silver, glass and paper industries to obtain cash. 

1348: University of Prague founded in Bohemian capital. It became a center of theology, medicine, law and liberal arts for four nations: Bohemia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Polish Silesia. 

1409: Political reform gave Bohemians ‘3’ votes each versus one for other three national groups. Germans rejected this decree and moved to Leipzig. Political and Papal intrigues. 

1419: Hussite Civil Wars sparked by execution of religious reformer Jan Hus. 

1436: Compromise between Hussites and Roman Catholics ended the civil conflict. Hussite reforms continued by Ultraquist movement. Luxembourg Dynasty ended. Most Bohemians became Protestants; Catholic power reduced. 
Most Germans remained Catholic; Deep seated ethnic antagonism intensified. 

1471-1526: George of Podebrady died. Polish Jagiellon dynasty ruled Bohemia. Nobility reduced the power of monarchy and towns. Many peasants became serfs. Aristocratic rivalries continued, while power of the boroughs declined. 

1526: Jagiellon King Louis defeated by Turks in Hungary and he drowned in retreat. Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria took control of Bohemia; 400 years of Catholic domination followed. Confrontation replaced moderation. Loss of religious and political freedoms for Protestant Ultraquists and Lutheran Bohemians. 

1571: Czech Neo-Ultraquists and German Lutherans united in Bohemian confession. 

1583: Capital returned to Prague from Vienna; Wars against Turks continued. 

1618-1620: Brief period of Protestant control, followed by gradual Catholic conversion as Habsburgs regained power. Bohemia lost status as ‘Kingdom’. 

1618-1638: Bohemian Revolt began the Thirty Years’ War across Europe and started a conflict for the Bohemian Crown. Bohemia elected Count Palatine Frederick V as Head of Bohemia, while Ferdinand II was elected Emperor of Germany at Frankfurt. Fifty percent of the Bohemian population died in the war; Many nobles lost their lands. Catholic Bavaria and Lutheran Saxony were allies of the Habsburgs. Culture, industry, farming and towns were devastated throughout the area of conflict. 
BOHEMIA - 2

1628: Bohemia became a hereditary Kingdom. Counter-Reformation edicts were enforced. King Ferdinand II authorized the use of German language and required Roman Catholicism. Many Protestants emigrated to Saxony. Others converted to Catholicism. 

1657-1705: Financial burden of long and costly wars against the Turks and French. 

1699: Depopulated Hungary settled with German veterans after Turkish Wars ended. 

1700’s: Bohemia thoroughly absorbed by Austro-Hungarian Empire. 

1711-1740: Towns and common people taxed to fund aristocratic courts and buildings. 

1740-1780: Empress Maria Theresa ruled Habsburg Empire and Bohemia. Costly wars with Bavaria and Prussia prompted administrative reforms to strengthen the monarchy. 

MID 1700’s: Czech leaders worked for rebirth of Bohemian patriotism and culture. German became the official language of education. Peasants used the Czech language. 

LATE 1700’s: Gradual transition from manorial serf system to full ownership of land by the peasants. New and more profitable methods of agriculture were introduced. 

1767, 1775: Hungarian law regulated rights and duties of serfs and Lords; Peasant rights improved and their work obligations were reduced. Dues owed became rents. 

1770’s: Foreign workers and artisans with skills in manufacture were recruited from the Low Countries, Italy, and Germany to settle throughout the Austrian monarchy. Foreign farmers came to settle remote areas of depopulated Hungary. 

1770: Rural population were mostly cotters, gardeners and lodgers with minimal feudal duties. Ignorant and ill-disciplined, they became proto-industrial workers. 

1774: Compulsory education was established in Austria-Hungary to instill a work ethic and a sense of morality. 500 schools opened by 1780 despite a shortage of funds and aristocratic and peasant resistance. 

BOHEMIA - 3

1780’s: Administrative, judicial and fiscal reforms strengthened the monarchy. Reforms began as attempts to aid recovery from Seven Years’ War between Prussia and Austria. 

1781: Religious toleration granted. Personal freedoms of peasants increased. 

1800’s: Industrial Revolution came to Bohemia. Manorial system ended. 

1800: Provincial loyalties slowly grew stronger than ethnic differences. 

1818: National Museum established as bilingual German and Czech organization, with support from both propertied Germans and some Czechs reviving their Slavic heritage. 

BY 1830: German speaking population had distinct advantage over the Czechs. Germans dominated rural areas from the high mountain ranges deep into the lowlands. Bohemian upper classes were mostly German. Limited opportunities for Czech peasants and Czech middle classes through education or special skills. 

1830’s: Czech language and Czech cultural renascence with social and intellectual elite. Czech intellectuals allied with progressive Germans to reduce absolutist monarchy. Politicians debated German unification with Habsburgs versus Bohemian autonomy. 

1848: Unsuccessful Bohemian Revolution suppressed by Habsburgs. Serfdom abolished. Growing middle class assumed economic power. Industrial Revolution thrives in Bohemia. 

1859: War with Sardinia revealed Monarchy’s weakness; Constitution adopted. 

1866: Brief war with Prussia and Italy prompted more reforms for economic recovery. 

1867: Dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary created. Magyars dominated Hungary and Slovaks. Germans dominated Austria versus Czechs, Poles and other Bohemians. 

1871: Political compromise failed to give Bohemia autonomy within Austria. Sudeten Germans supported a unified Austria to preserve their political power. 
BOHEMIA - 4

1879: Alliance between Austria-Hungary and German Hohenzollerns increased German ethnic identity. Czech population increased within Austria, but Germans still dominated Civil Service and Army appointments. 

1891: Young Czechs dominated Parliamentary election. They emphasized progress in education, religious freedoms and economic viability versus Bohemian autonomy. No further political attempt was made to solve co-existence problems between ethnic Czechs and ethnic Germans. These tensions helped create the seeds of WW1 and WW2. 

1890’s: Agrarian political movement supported by peasants in Bohemia. 

1906: Universal suffrage for all men strengthened the power of the peasants. 

1914-1918: Dangerous involvement of Dual Monarchy in international affairs led to catastrophe. Habsburg Empire of Austria-Hungary fought on losing side of WW1. 

1918: Bohemia became a province of newly independent Czechoslovakian Republic. 

1939: Hitler used German-speaking people in Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland region as pretext for annexation of former Bohemian areas. Many Germans in old Bohemia (such as our Josef Lorenz) joined the Resistance Movement to fight against Hitler’s German troops. 

1939-1945: World War 2. Allies defeated Germany. Ethnic Germans expelled from restored Republic of Czechoslovakia to prevent future German expansion. 

1949: Political provinces abolished by government of Czechoslovakia. Bohemia became a geographic region in Czechoslovakia’s western area. 

1993: Czechoslovakia peacefully split into Czech Republic and Slovakia. Former Bohemian region remains a major part of the Czech Republic. 

Thanks to World Book and Britannica Encyclopedia. 
BOHEMIA - 5

SUGGESTED READING

Baker, Judy Lightner, Private 1st Class Joseph Francis Lorenz, United States Army; 1999.

Bell, Susan Groag, Between Worlds, in Czechoslovakia, England and America, 
	a Memoir; William Abrahams Book; Dutton; New York, 1991.

Brentlinger, Dora Class, Beside the Stillwater, A History of Early Settlements in 
	Northern Montgomery County and the Miami Valley; Polk Grove Church and 
	Butler Township; 1973.

Carr, William, The Origins of the Wars of German Unification; Longman; London and New York, 1991.

Cooke, James, Rainbow Division in the Great War, 1917-1919; Praeger; Westport, Connecticut, 1994.

Davis, Charles, Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis (American Newspaperman, 
	1890-1933); Beekman; 1974.

Ellis, Allan B, Brief History of Appleton’s ‘Old Company G’; Co. A., 150th Machine Gun 
	Battalion with the Rainbow Division in the Great War; Compiled from Letters 
	written to his Mother by Lieutenant Allan B. Ellis; Meyer Press, Appleton, 
	Wisconsin; c.1919.

Great War Society, Doughboy Center, Story of the American Expeditionary
	Forces; < http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/ >

Giglierano, Geoffrey, The Bicentennial Guide to Greater Cincinnati; Cincinnati 
	Historical Society, Cincinnati Ohio; 1988.

Hoobler, Dorothy and Thomas, German American Family Album; Oxford University 
	Press, New York and Oxford; 1995.

READING - 1

Insiders’ Guide to Cincinnati,Ohio; < http://www.insiders.com/cincinnati >

Japrisot, Sébastien, A Very Long Engagement; Penguin Group, New York; 1994.

Keegan, John, The First World War; Vintage, Random House, New York; 1998.

King, John and Scott McNeely, Czech and Slovak Republics; Lonely Planet, 
	Hawthorn, Australia; 1998.

Koenig, Angela, Cincinnati, Ohio: Celebrating the Queen City; German Life 
	Magazine, Zeitgeist Publishing, June1998. < www.germanlife.com >

Kolata, Gina, The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for 
	the Virus That Caused It; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York; 1999.

Lasby, Clarence G., Eisenhower’s Heart Attack; How Ike Beat Heart Disease and Held 
	on to the Presidency; University Press of Kansas; 1997.

Lasby, Clarence G., Project Paperclip; German Scientists and the Cold War; 
	Atheneum, New York; 1975.

Libby, Frederick, Horses Don’t Fly, a Memoir of World War I; Arcade Publishing, New York; 2000.

Lorenz, Kathryn, Here We Go Gathering; Lorenz and Gilliam Family History; Kathy 
	Lorenz, Longview Texas; 1998.

May, Ernest R, LIFE History of the United States; War, Boom and Bust; Volume 10; 
	Time Life Books, New York; 1964.

MacDonald, Charles B., World War I: The U.S. Army Overseas; reprinted from American 
	Military History; Army Historical Series, Office of the Chief of Military History; 
	United States Army; no date. < http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/amh/AMH-18.htm >

READING - 2

Meter, Ken and Robert Paulson, Border People, The Böhmisch (German-Bohemians) in 
	America; in Rocenka, Yearbook of the Czechoslovak Genealogical Society 
	International, Vol. 1, No. 1; Winter 1992.

Michelin Illustrated Guides to the Battlefields (1914-1918), Americans in the Great War, 
	Volume I, The Second Battle of the Marne (Chateau-Thierry, Soissons, Fismes; 
	Volume II, The Battle of Saint Mihiel (St. Mihiel, Pont-à-Mousson, Metz); 
	Volume III, Meuse-Argonne Battle (Montfaucon, Romagne, St. Menehould); 
	Michelin & Cie, Clermont-Ferrand France, 1920.

Monahan, Evelyn M. and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee, And If I Perish, Frontline U.S. 
	Army Nurses in World War II; Alfred A. Knopf; New York, 2003.

Nolan, J. Bennett, Our Boys in the Great War, the Reading Militia in the Great War; 
	Historical Society of Berks County; Reading PA, no date.

Perry, Dick, Vas You Ever in Zinzinnati?, A Personal Portrait of Cincinnati; Doubleday 
	& Company; Garden City, New York, 1966.

Prager, Karsten, Memoirs; Flight to Freedom; TIME Magazine, 15 May 1995.

Remarque, Erich Maria, All Quiet on the Western Front; translated from the German 
	by A.W. Wheen; Ballantine Books, New York, 1996.

Ronald, Bruce W. and Virginia Ronald, Dayton, The Gem City; Continental Heritage 
	Press, Inc.; Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1981.

Silberstein, Iola, Cincinnati, Then and Now; Voters Service Education Fund of the 
	League of Women Voters of the Cincinnati Area, 1982.

Stallings, Laurence, The Doughboys, The Story of the AEF, 1917-1918; 
	Harper and Row Publishers; New York, 1963.
READING - 3

Thisted, Moses N., With the Wisconsin National Guard on the Mexican Border in 1916-1917; 
	Cover title: Wisconsin Troops in Federalized National Guard, Mexican Border 
	Service, June 22, 1916 - Jan. 19, 1917; No Publication Data; Text suggests 
	after 1972.

Wimberg, Robert J., Cincinnati: Over the Rhine; Ohio Book Store; Cincinnati, Ohio, 1987.

Winchester, Simon, The River at the Centre of the World [the Yangtze]; Henry Holt and Co; New York, 1996.

WPA Guide to Cincinnati, reprint, Cincinnati, A Guide to the Queen City and its Neighbors; 
	Cincinnati Historical Society, Cincinnati, Ohio; 1987.

Young, Brigadier Peter, ed, The Cassell Atlas of the Second World War; Cassell; London, 1973.

Zumwald, Teresa, For the Love of Dayton, Life in the Miami Valley, 1796-1996; 
	Dayton Daily News; Dayton, Ohio, 1996.

READING - 4

APPENDIX 

ADDED TO JOSEPH LORENZ 

[recall that postcards found in josephine's collection were mailed from appleton wisconsin by anton and elizabeth grunes, suggesting a reason our joseph had gone to appleton] The 1900 census shows Anton and Elizabeth ‘Groenes’ living in a rented home at 643 Story Street, in Appleton, Wisconsin; both were born in ‘Bohemia’ of Bohemian parents; they came to the United States in 1899. Anton was age 30 years and Elizabeth was 26. They were married for six years and had no children. Both could read and write, but neither spoke English. Anton was a laborer at a paper mill and had been unemployed for four months the previous year. This information about their ages and immigration date enabled the author to find Anton’s probable record when he arrived at Ellis Isle on 9 August 1898 on board the ship Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, King William the Great, which had sailed from Bremen. Although the record is indexed as ‘Grimes’, the actual ship’s manifest clearly reads ‘Anton Grünes’, although the umlaut looks like a short line. Anton was a miner, five feet tall, age 29 years and married. Born in Austrian Bohemia of German ancestry, he was a subject of Austria and a member of the Roman Catholic faith. His final destination after New York City was his brother in Richmond, Minnesota, and Anton was from ‘Wintergrun’. Which suggests our Frank and Rosa had known the Grünes’ back in Bohemia, as Wintersgrün was one of the villages in their area (now called Vintirov, this is a small town just west of Chodov about fifteen miles southeast of our Frank’s hometown of Schönlind). In 1910, the census found Anton ‘Greunns’ age 40 living on Franklin Street in Appleton, Wisconsin with his wife Elizabeth age 35 and their adopted son James, age 10. Anton and Elizabeth were born in Germany of German parents and spoke the German language; they had come to America in ‘1900’ and Anton had filed papers of intent to become a naturalized citizen. Anton and Elizabeth had been married for fifteen years, so they had married in 1895 before they came to America. This suggests that Elizabeth was from the same area of Bohemia as Anton, although her immigration record has not been found. Elizabeth had no children. Anton was working as a fireman at the ‘Aulphile’ [?] Mill. The census for January 1920 shows Anton ‘Greines’ still living at Appleton City on Franklin Street; Anton owned his home with a mortgage and worked as a fireman at a paper mill for wages. Age 52, Anton was born in Austria of Austrian parents, came to the USA in 1899, and became a naturalized citizen in 1906. His wife Elizabeth was age 45, born in Austria of Austrian parents; she also came to the USA in 1899. Their daughter Loretta, age 12, was born in Wisconsin of Austrian parents who spoke German. Loretta was attending school. Notice that Loretta had not been at home in 1910; perhaps she was another adopted child. Records at St. Joseph’s Catholic Cemetery (located close to the central, older part of Appleton), show ‘Elizabeth Gruenes’, born 16 September 1874 and died 23 August 1928, and also ‘Elizabeth L Gruenes’ (presumably Loretta), born 23 December 1907 and died 8 May 1926. There is no record for Anton Gruenes. 

APPENDIX - 1

ADDED TO ANTON LORENZ 

Anton Lorenz, “laborer age 19, able to read and write the German language”, arrived at the port of Boston, Massachusetts, on 22 January 1921 aboard the SS Susquehanna which had sailed from Bemen, Germany. Built in 1899 by Blohm & Voss at Hamburg, Germany, this ship had been originally christened Rhein when she sailed for Norddeutscher LLoyd (North German LLoyd Company). She was a steamship with over 10,000 tons, one funnel, four masts, twin screw propulsion and quadruple expansion engines. Her service speed was thirteen knots. With a crew of 174, she accommodated 139 first class, 125 second class, and 2,500 third class passengers; we can presume our Anton was in third class. Websites explain the history of this ship as it changed from German to American hands, “At the outbreak of W.W. I in 1914, a number of German ocean liners were in American ports and were detained. When the United States entered the war they were then seized and converted to troop transports. The SS Rheim was seized at Norfolk and renamed the SS Susquehanna (a number of these ships were given Native American names; the Friederich der Grosse became the Huron and the Prinzess Irene the Pocahantas among others). “The Susquehanna was placed in commission September 5, 1917. She had a displacement of 16,950 tons and an original maximum troop carrying capacity of 3300. She made eight round trips to carry over 18,000 troops to Europe. She was also used to return troops after the war ended November 11, 1918. “The United States Mail Steamship Company was formed in 1920 by the US Shipping Board with a fleet of seized ex-German passenger liners. The company made colossal operational losses and receivers were appointed to examine their accounts. As a result of their findings, the District Court ordered on 27th Aug. 1921 that all United States Mail ships be returned to the US Shipping Board. Outsiders were appointed to manage the line under the title of United States Lines. “The Susquehanna made six voyages under the United States Mail Steamship Company, and in 1922 was transferred to the reorganized United States Lines. In 1925, the ship was sold to a Philadelphia company, which eventually sold it in1928 for scrapping in Japan.” Anton’s record on the “LIST OR MANIFEST OF ALIEN PASENGERS FOR THE UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION OFFICER AT PORT OF ARRIVAL” show that he was born in Schoenlinde and he was five feet four inches tall. He paid his ‘entry head tax’ (the manifest suggests children were exempt from the payment), which the 1917 Immigration Act had increased to $8 per immigrant. Anton’s previous residence was “Wintersgruen, Bohemia” and his relative there was “Uncle Anton Hamerl, at Wintersgruen, Unter-Chodau, Bohemia”. Recall that Anton’s mother was Emilie Hamerl, so this Anton was presumably her brother, and one of the ‘maternal relatives’ who had cared for the orphaned boys. Anton was headed for Dayton, Ohio, where his “Uncle Frank Lorenz” lived at 121 East Fairview Avenue. The family remembers that our Frank Lorenz in Dayton sponsored Anton’s emigration to America; Anton came directly to Dayton and lived with Frank and Rosa for over two years. 

APPENDIX - 2

ADDED TO FRANK AND ROSA just after the 1910 census info; 

We have a few photographs that date from this period, which appear to show children of their friends. Fortunately, they have names written on their backs in Josephine’s meticulous handwriting. One shows a little girl with a round face, dark eyes and dark curled hair, holding a doll with a china head and real hair; both the doll and the little girl are wearing white cotton dresses. The name on the back is ‘Rosa Ruckrigl’ and the family has been found via the 1920 census index living in Montgomery County at Jackson, Ohio. Jackson Township is located southwest of the City of Dayton, bounded by the old Dayton and Eaton Pike on its northern edge. This is an area where our Lorenz family never lived, so we cannot imagine how the families might have met each other. In 1920, Rosa Ruckrigl was fifteen years old, born in New York state, with a brother Christof J. age nine born in Ohio state, which tells us the family was living in Ohio by 1911 (and helps to date the photo between 1910 and 1915, judging by the apparent age of the little girl pictured). Their father John Ruckrigl owned and operated his own farm with a mortgage. John was age 39, born in ‘Slovakland’ speaking the German language of similar parents; his wife Susanna N was age 39 also born in ‘Slovakland’ speaking the German language. ‘Slovakland’ was the newly created Czechoslovakia, carved out of the former area of Bohemia after World War One. John immigrated to the United States in 1902 and had filed Papers of Intent to become a citizen; Susana came in 1903. Ellis Island records show that ‘Johan Ruckrigl’ arrived on 3 June 1902 on the SS Friesland which had sailed from Antwerp, Belgium. Johan was a shoemaker age twenty-two, unmarried; his destination was Mr. Kreditz at 405 East 61st Avenue, New York City. Johan had paid his own passage and had $14 in his possession. His last residence was ‘Grénau’; he could read and write the German language and was a Hungarian national. Google suggests Grénau might have been ‘Grünau’, which means green meadow in the German language. It also offers two possibilities for this town. One is a suburb of modern Berlin, another is Grünau im Almtal in Upper Austria near Salzburg; neither is precisely ‘Hungary’. We have not found a clear match for Susan Hamer’s immigration record; the most likely would be ‘Susa Hammer’ who arrived 17 August 1901 on the SS Phönicia which had sailed from Hamburg. Susa was single, age twenty-one, with ‘none’ for occupation; she was going to her step sister Emma [Abitskw?] who was possibly in New Jersey. Susa’s last residence appears to be ‘Pyskopa’, for which even Google has nothing to offer. The International Genealogical Index offers a marriage record for John and Susana on 25 October 1903 at Manhattan, New York City. John Ruckrigl, son of Christofer and Rosie née Schaj of Germany, married Susan Hamer, daughter of Steph and Helen née Pastrich of Hungary. So it appears that John and Susanna were friends of our Frank and Rosa, and not relatives, although ‘Slovakland’ suggests they were fellow Boehmians. The other photos we have show three children of the Schmidt family, little Theresa, Mary and an unnamed little boy. The photos are the same vintage as that of Rosa Ruckrigl, and also come from the “PALACE STUDIO, 118 S. LUDLOW ST., DAYTON OHIO.” The census index offers no clear match, with over a dozen Schmidt families living in Montgomery County in 1910 (‘Schmidt’ is akin to the English name ‘Smith’, and just as common), and several named Theresa in 1920. 

APPENDIX - 3