as related by their daughter Lydia (Rohweder) Johnson to Judy Johnson
Our thanks goes to Judy Johnson for getting this information from Lydia and typing down all this information.
MAX HENRY ROHWEDER
Max Henry Rohweder was born June 16, 1886 in Itzehoe, Germany. He was one of nine children born to Claus Hinrick Rohweder and Johanna Katharina Anna Ripcke. I don't know anything of his very early years of life.
At the age of ten he would tend the cows out in the fields and what money he earned was always given to his father. He never realized any of the money.
When he turned thirteen he was apprenticed out as a painter apprentice which meant he no longer lived at home. He worked for a man who trained him and he lived with him and his family. When this man no longer had work for him as an apprentice he would be found another job with a new boss and he would then live as a member of this family. This is how my dad met Rudy's dad. They both were apprentices in the same town but for different fani1ies. (years later Rudy came to America through dad's sponsorship). Even during these apprentice years, although dad was given room and board and a little spending money, any extra money earned was given to his parents. The parents always got the money the children earned; that's just the way it was. So, until he was through with his apprenticeship that's the way he lived, in other people's homes from the age of thirteen on.
Dad wanted to come to America but he could not leave Germany until he had completed his tour of duty in the service. Unfortunately, he wasn't taken into the service as early as most men because he was physically too small in weight and stature so he was put off until he matured. Then when he became a little older he was drafted into the Infantry Regiments of the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, Sixth Company. A particular item for discussion, not only in the service but during his life was his shoe size. In a German regulation book for servicemen his boot size was listed as, length 28 cm, width 4. Here in the United States that would be size 8EEEE. He had a wide foot. Dad spent most of his time after basic training as a personal valet to an officer and it was his duty to tend to the needs of this man as far as his clothing was concerned; that is, making sure his uniforms, shoes and shirts were always ready. There wasn't any war going on then.
Upon completion of his required military training he came to America with the stipulation that he was to come back in case of war. Upon his return, however, he would be transferred to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea for war duty. If he neglected to return to Germany he would suffer the strictest of punishment.
Dad was the first of his family to come to America, his two brothers, Claus and Hans, came later. He chose Deshler, Nebraska as his new place of residence because he had a cousin, Mrs. Amanda Umbehaun, living there (my second name, Amanda, was for her). I don't know how she and my dad are related. He resided in a boarding house run by Rose Bartel (I'm named after her - that's the Rose of my name).
When dad came to Deshler he couldn't speak English so he went to school and sat in the classroom with the fifth grade students to learn the language. I always thought it was very admirable. He took sort of a ribbing about it but he did speak the English language well.
ALICE MARIE SOUBINE HARDER
Alice Marie Soubine Harder was born March 18, 1893 in Adne, Lyon County, Iowa. She was one of eight children born to Herman Christian Harder and Betty Forthmann. All I know of her early life is that when she was four years old her parents decided to pack everything up and move back home to Husum, Germany. (Memo: Alice Harder's birth certificate is in Germany, although she was born in Iowa. The birth certificate lists her place of birth as "Adne", although it is really probably the town of "Edna")
Mom finished her formal education at the age of fourteen, as was the custom in Germany for all children. So at the age of fourteen she went to work with a bookkeeper in one of the large more exclusive department stores in Husum. At the age of eighteen she was the head bookkeeper of a huge store. It always amazed me that in four short years she could do this. She always excelled in mathematics.
Mom had brown eyes and dark brown hair, darker than mine and as she grew older it was a beautiful silver gray with a salt and pepper effect. She and I were about the same height and weight - five foot, four inches tall wearing about a size sixteen. Her shoe size was a thing of discussion as was my dads. She wore size 10AAAA. They both had trouble getting shoes to fit properly.
At the age of eighteen mom decided that since she was born in America and was an American citizen she wanted to go back to America; after all, it was her homeland. Since she had decided that she definitely was going to move to America, her sister Annie and her brother Alfred also wanted to go. So mom's parents decided that if the children wanted to go to America they might just as well all move back together and so it was, through my mother's desire to see America, that they simply packed their belongings and brought the whole family. They settled in Iowa once again.
Mom and dad met aboard the ship coming to America. My father saw mom and thought she was pretty neat. They both were from the same county in Germany yet had never met.
So cleverly he became acquainted with her brother and sister, Herman and Betty, and because they were little toddlers through them he became acquainted with mom's parents. Then, of course, after meeting them he was introduced to my mother and began immediately to court her.
Upon reaching America they were separated as mom settled in Iowa with her family and dad went on to Nebraska. They wrote to each other and I guess she felt the same way he did because she acquired a job at Rose Bartel's boarding house where he resided thereby continuing their courtship. She helped Rose make the beds, do housework and help in the kitchen. It was a job for my mother and she and dad could be together.
THE MARRIAGE OF MAX ROHWEDER AND ALICE HARDER
Mom and dad were married, where mom's family lived, in Rock Rapids, Iowa on June 17, 1913. She was twenty years old and he was twenty-seven. They returned to Deshler, Nebraska to live.
The first home they ever owned was a two-room house with a bedroom and a kitchen. It was a wooden structure with a front door opening to a walkway (no porch) and a rectangular window on each side of this door. It was surrounded by about a three foot tall wire fence. Inside it had a fireplace and wooden floors. I guess my father didn't care much for wooden floors because he painted carpets on them; he was an accomplished painter and artist. Their first child, Bettina (Betty) Anna Johanna Rohweder was born in this house on June 13, 1914.
As a contractor dad borrowed money and built a huge two story brick building. In front he had a wallpaper paint store, three apartments on the top floor, which he rented out, our apartment in the back and on the left side towards the rear of the building he had a carriage shop. He painted decorative lines on the carriages and wagons and decorated the spokes all by hand. He really was an excellent painter.
He later remodeled this shop to make a room for my sister Christine and myself. He also later changed the paint store into an apartment, so most of my lifetime it was an apartment. He let the building go back to the finance company when we came to California in 1936. It was just lost.
Their second daughter, Christine Agnes Rohweder was born April 28, 1917 and I, Lydia Rose Amanda Rohweder was born April 1, 1919. Chris was the largest of the babies and as we grew up we were about the same size although Betty was always a little bit smaller. In years later I guess I was the biggest child of the three.
At one point between Chris and I, in that two year span, the family moved to Ringling, Montana because there had been a bumper wheat crop that year. This was right after the war and I guess wheat crops were very important then. Montana had had a long summer and a fantastic wheat crop; mom's brother, Alfred, was farming there and her parents ran a hotel there so dad and his brother Claus decided to buy acreage in Montana and we all moved. Dad acquired a job with the Great Northern Railroad Company and between his work schedule he planted the wheat. Well, unfortunately Montana had a short summer that year and the wheat didn't mature and didn't ripen.
My father continued to work for the railroad for a short time thereafter. I don't know what he did. I do know that they lived in a boxcar that was parked on the side of the railroad tracks and it was converted into two rooms. Chris got away once and was sitting in the middle of the tracks when a train was coming and mom was in the house with Betty. Luckily someone saw her and picked her up in time, but it really could have been a tragedy.
They didn't stay in Montana long because I was born in Deshler in 1919 and there are only two years between Chris and I. So dad might have even had that brick building with the paint store and apartments built before 1919 because I was born in that building. Mom had all of her children born at home.
An interesting event which caused a lot of discussion was that my mother went to church on Sunday and I was born the following Wednesday and nobody knew she was pregnant. I weighed less than four pounds and the doctor didn't give my dad much hope. The midwife said, "Oh, she has all her fingernails, she has hair and eyelashes; she's a full-term baby and there is no reason she won't live, she is just small." So the midwife fixed me up in a shoebox and kept me warm overnight and the doctor was surprised I was still living the next day,
When I was five years old a doctor in Hebron, Nebraska who was previously from a big city (he had to leave his city practice because he had been a dope addict so he came to this small town of Hebron and started a small hospital) recommended she have a hysterectomy. In those days that was unheard of to make a woman sterile; it simply was frowned upon. Well, she had this very serious operation and she came through it just fine. I think she had cancer and they didn't know it - doctor's didn't diagnose cancer until many years later, especially of the uterus. Mother never complained about this nor about any illness or aches and pains. She was always a happy person and she made friends easily; she had lots of good friends. She liked people and enjoyed life.
This brick building where we lived, which also housed dad's paint and wallpaper store, was located on the outskirts of Deshler. In 1924 I guess dad figured he would do a better business in town so he replaced the paint store with another apartment and purchased a variety store in town. Being a painter by trade he never wanted to dispense with his paints so he included them in his variety store. My mother always worked with dad doing the bookkeeping and clerking in any business they had. They sold this variety store in 1927.
In 1927 we took a trip to Montana to visit Grandma and Grandpa Harder. Our whole family and uncle Herman and Aunt Emma (they weren't married yet) went in our Model-T Ford.
We camped and visited all the points of interest along the way and then stayed in Grandma and Grandpa Harder's hotel in Ringling, Montana. We were gone for six weeks. We came back home from the trip in August and later that year dad bought into the H. J. Struve Company which was a general mercantile store in Deshler. In one-half of the store were all the groceries and yardage and in the other half were all the shoes and ready to wear clothing. In the back of this section dad had his wallpaper and paints - he never really gave that up.
Dad stayed with this store until 1936 when we came to California. I guess the real reason dad left was that Mr. Struve, with whom dad was partners, died and his sons took over. They didn't want dad as a partner in the store, therefore, they made things as unpleasant as possible.
Dad was one of those people who helped when someone needed help. There was a broom factory in town which was the only place of employment other than being a farmer or working in the few stores in town and there weren't very many. Sometimes people would come to dad because they hadn't been paid and he would give them food on credit. Then, of course, because people are only human, when they would get paid they would go to dad's good friend and competitor, Henry Kriemeyer, who owned the grocery store across the street and spend their money because they had already eaten the food they had charged from dad, so now they could purchase food and pay for it. They were embarrassed to come to dad and pay for the food without paying for what they owed. Well, this created problems and dad lost everything he invested into the store. But mom would say and dad would agree with her, "We raised our children and they were always well clothed and well fed so even if we took nothing away we always had that."
Dad borrowed money from his life insurance and we came to California. We made it and were never sorry because we all wanted to come. Previous to our move dad came to California with Herman Micheales who was a painter friend in Deshler. They took a bus from Nebraska up the northern way, stopped at Washington and Oregon and then they came to California.
They visited a George Logston who lived in San Francisco and who had painted for my dad when he was contracting. George had left Nebraska and came to San Francisco and began his own contracting business. While Herman and dad were visiting him he took them for a tour of the area which included the Burlingame and San Mateo vicinity. After they saw what they wanted to see they went and looked over the area of Los Angeles because many people from Nebraska and the middle west had moved there. But dad had already made up his mind that his new place of residence would be San Mateo because it had such fantastic weather for flowers. He just loved flowers. In Nebraska dad used to buy fuchsias in a pot, even during the depression, at Fairbury and Superior Nursery. He would pay $1.50 and during the depression that was a lot. It would be like spending $15.00 now. But in Nebraska a fuchsia is a house plant and dad would loose them because of the weather. He couldn't leave them outside and they didn't do too well inside either. It was always a struggle for mom and dad to have flowers so that's why the excitement about San Mateo, California. So, dad and Herman returned home, we packed our belongings and hit California on February l4, 1936. I enrolled San Mateo High School on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1936. Mom and dad bought a two bedroom, one-bath, single-car garage house at 90 South Grant Street, San Mateo for $4,000.00. Mom and dad planted over one hundred varieties of fuchsias; in fact, our house was on the Fuchsia Society's tour. Mom also won a blue ribbon at the San Mateo County Fair for a fuchsia corsage.
We kids all got married in California. Kent HOPKIRK from Ruskin, Nebraska, which was the next railroad stop from Deshler, followed Betty. We came to California in February, Kent came out in March and they were married June 7, 1936. Chris didn't know Glen Wagers in Nebraska although he had lived in a town just a few miles away from us. They met in San Francisco and they were married November 19, 1939. I met Melvin Oscar Johnson at San Mateo High School and we were married November l, 1941.
My father went back to painting and was an employee of Ames Paint Contractor. He and mom never went into private business in California. In dad's last years, before his retirement, he worked at managing Ames Paint Store. In his retirement, after mother died, he came and lived with Mel and I at 482 Ninth Avenue, Menlo Park, California, and he painted for people doing small jobs until he was eighty-six years old.
In October, 1954 we moved to 157 Westgate, Redwood City, California and dad moved in with us and continued to live with us from March 31, 1954 to January 1978 at which time he was admitted into the hospital by Dr. Burrill with a cerbral hemorrhage. He died at the age of ninety-two on January 30, 1979.
My mother died of coronary thrombosis, July 7, 1953. She was sick and she couldn't keep anything on her stomach. I had spent all Friday with her because we thought she had the flu. Mel came for dinner, dad came home from the store and after dinner Mel and I went home because my sister Chris and her husband were coming that night. The next day she had a doctor's appointment so she took a hot bath and the warmth from the bath could have helped cause the clot to move. She came back down from her bath and felt so faint that she sat on the bed and told Chris her undies were in a certain drawer in the dresser. While she was telling Chris mom just stopped in the middle of a word and by the time Chris turned around mom had fallen back onto the bed and died. It was quick and easy but the shock to her family was tremendous; however, in the long run it was probably better than going through the worry of which we did with dad.
If mom ever had something that was a real passion, it was ice cream. She also loved to play cards and she was good. Her favorite game was whist. She enjoyed going to whist parties and she always won. After awhile she would forfeit the prize, even though she had won because even if she tried not to win she still would. It was just that way for her. She always knew which cards had been played and which cards were still being held.
Mom and dad were very modern thinking people. Everyone used to think mom wore the pants in the family and that always was so funny because all she ever wanted out of life was for my dad to be happy. Dad really always got his way but nobody ever realized it. Even we as kids didn't realize until we were older. I can't explain why it seemed that way, but I guess because she wanted everything to be the way he wanted and we just weren't aware.
Max and Alice had the following children:
Betty Anna Johanna ROHWEDER, born 13 June 1914 in Deschler, Thayer County, Nebraska
Christine Agnes ROHWEDER, born 28 April 1917 in Deschler, Thayer County, Nebraska
Lydia Rose Amanda ROHWEDER, born 1 April 1919 in Deschler, Thayer County, Nebraska
This page was last updated on 10 February 2010