I was born in New York City, in a hospital that is now a high rise condo building, and was baptized in church that has since been razed, and parts of it placed in a chapel that is a few blocks away from the original site. Although the apartment building we lived in is still standing, it has now been condoized (is that a word?) It’s not my parents New York City!
My first visit to New York took place over my 25th birthday. Gary and I were there to attend the Eastern Dairy Deli Association conference and show. My mother asked us to walk by our old apartment at 649 2nd Avenue, so that she could see what it looked now, 25 years later. She said upon seeing this image that the building looked the same. Although I am sure I did not!
649 2nd Avenue, NYC. October 1987
It would be another 25 years before I would have the opportunity to visit the “site” of my baptism. By this time the church, the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, which had been built in the Greek Revival style in 1915 at 307 East 33rd Street, had been razed. It had been closed in January 2007, merging with the Church of Our Lady of the Scapular-St. Stephen, and was razed in 2008.
A small chapel dedicated to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary was opened in May 2009. It is located at 325 East 33rd Street. According to the church website, the statues of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Sacred Heart of Mary as well as those of St. Jude and St. Anthony are from the old church, as is the “baptismal font and the copper cross above it are from the church. Within the worship space on the north wall is the restored painting of the Sacred Heart. There are six restored and backlit leaded glass windows on the east and west walls that were originally in the church. The altar was created by using central panels from the side altars of the church along with some new marble pieces. The cross with corpus that hangs on the reredos as well as the electronic organ were also taken from the church.”
Chapel of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, NYC
In 2012 as Hurricane Sandy was gathering strength, we headed south from our daughter’s apartment on East 93rd Street, to walk past the apartment (completely hidden by construction on 2nd Avenue) towards the chapel. We were lucky in that the chapel was open, but we didn’t have much time to look around as they were ready to lock up for the day. I snapped a few pictures, but was unable at that time to ask about the origins, or even photograph the baptismal font. We were able to get some nice shots of the chapel courtyard.
Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary
The day we visited the chapel was Saturday, October 27, 2012. As I mentioned earlier, we had no idea how strong, and exactly IF Hurricane Sandy would hit New York. At this point in time, we assumed that we would still be able to enjoy my birthday, celebrating on my actual day of the week, and date of birth, and be able to get on the plane home early Monday morning.
Well we soon learned that we would have to make other plans. As this was our first trip together to New York to visit Kate, we had turned in hotel points for the weekend visit. Kate was living in a very small
Chapel of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, NYC, 27 Oct 2012
studio apartment. Space was limited, and we had assumed that we wouldn’t be able to comfortably sleep three in the apartment. Gary and I got up early Monday expecting to be able to get to the airport, but no flights were going out of LaGuardia. So we hightailed it up to our daughter’s apartment, knowing that if we waited too long we might not get a cab. We spent the next five nights living together, sleeping Tetris style, between her twin bed, a twin air mattress, and the floor.
It was an adventure. It was actually kind of fun. Well, fun for us as we were not in the flood zone, we did not lose power – although we watched transformers blow to the north of us, and we watched on TV as lower Manhattan flooded – and we had enough food and wine. We learned on this trip that
Tetris style sleeping arrangements
we could easily spend a visit staying all together, in a small apartment in Manhattan.
As part of my Genealogy Bucket List, I did want pictures of the baptismal font. Kate was kind enough to head down to the chapel and snap a couple of pictures for me. Thanks Kate!
Next on the Bucket List is to see if the original St. Francis font is still in the church in the Hollandtown church. This font would have been used to baptize my father-in-law and all of his siblings, and also would have been used for Gary and his brothers.
Baptismal Font, Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, NYC
Baptismal Font, Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, NYC
Family lore states that when the Cooks left Stockbridge, Calumet, Wisconsin in the late 1870s they took clippings of the peonies that were growing on the property. We know that they liked peonies, as they can be seen in later Cook photos taken in Unity, Marathon, Wisconsin.
As far back as my memory goes, my paternal grandmother lived in one side of a duplex that she owned in Neenah, Winnebago, Wisconsin. As with most homes where the driveway marches close to the house leading to a detached garage, there was a strip garden next to the house. Included in this small garden was an enormous red peony plant. Again, family lore tells the tale that this was an actual clipping of the peony that grew on the Cook property in Stockbridge. While I cannot speak to that, as we would have to analyze what variety of peony grew in Wisconsin during that time period, and was this that variety of peony, I can state that when my mother and I left the duplex for the last time that May day in 1986 following my grandmother’s death, we made the decision to dig up the peony, the Cook Peony.
Cook Peony Blossom
I may never know if this peony can be dated back to the 1800s, but I can attest to the fact that this peony, which was included in every garden during my grandparent’s years in Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin during the 1930s, moved with them to Nicolet Blvd. in Menasha, Winnebago, Wisconsin, and then on to my grandmother’s 1960s duplex, and has now lived in a garden at my parents home in Appleton, Outagamie, Wisconsin since 1986. In addition, a transplant has been happily multiplying here in my own garden since the late 1990s. That is still an old peony.
Appleton, Wisconsin
An update: In late 2018, I dug the plants out of my garden in anticipation of a move, as we had put our house in Appleton on the market. I potted them into large transplant pots and hoped for the best.
In March 2019, the peony moved to Rumford, Providence, Rhode Island. While Wisconsin was blustery when we left, Rhode Island Marches are mild, and to be honest, the ground never really freezes here. Looking around the yard, we noticed that there were many holes along the south side of the house. Plants had been removed. I chose a spot below the dining room window and planted in the peonies.
We moved Mom with us, and in late June 2019, I dug the last bit of Cook peony out of Wisconsin soil.
Rumford, Rhode Island
Returning to Rhode Island, I created what I am calling an Heirloom garden along the side of the garage. Here, I have planted not only the peonies but the Marie-Frank rhubarb that we also brought with us. My thought is that it will be very easy to explain to any future buyer that this garden is going with us.
While the peony is not as large as it was in 2014, it is thriving and growing and producing beautiful flowers for me to cut and place in my home. And we have added another 10 years to the history of this plant.
This past weekend I became distracted. Headed off onto another path, and away from my intended goal. But that’s o.k. On Saturday I gave a talk about land records at the Menasha Public Library. It went well, and we ended with a great give and take conversation, with everyone sharing their own experiences in the archives and with the records. I had included in one of my slides the Campbell homestead, and in the course of the talk mentioned that not everyone was able to identify a home as still standing, and still being lived in by the descendants of the builder – in this case his great-grandson. At the end of the talk I was asked to go back to that slide, and a woman asked me whose house it was. When I told her she said “that’s MY family!” I had found a cousin of my husband’s. She is only just starting her search on this side of the family, and does not have any photos. Thus my distraction. Since Saturday I have been hunting and gathering and preparing photos and information to share with her. So much fun to have seen her face when I showed her a picture I had in the Dawson file, and she clasped her hands and said “that’s my dad!”
Hubert and Henry are the youngest sons of Peter and Elizabeth (Nettekoven) Fassbender, and it would be their youngest sons who would embrace the cheese industry, making it their life work. The boys were just 12 and seven in 1887, the year that Peter began making cheese, and so you could say that they “grew up in the business.” [NOTE: It is now known he built his first factory in 1872].
As I have mulled over the “how” of telling their story, I have decided that I will try to run their experiences in a parallel manner, year to year. The reason is that because their stories intertwine, even in the early years before they were successful business men operating factories just 7 miles apart. Hubert owning and operating the South Kaukauna Dairy Co., and Henry, owning and operating White Clover Dairy. The problem? Their preference for using their initials instead of their full names. Granted, most often Henry would include his middle initial “J” going by H. J. Fassbender, while Hubert would use H. Fassbender, there was still confusion.
Early in my research I was lucky enough to have gotten to know Hubert and Henry’s nephew, Arthur Ellenbecker. Arthur passed away shortly after his 100th birthday in 2003, having shared many stories with me, but leaving me wanting to know more. Arthur is the son of Elizabeth (Fassbender) Ellenbecker Tatro. Elizabeth was the middle sister of Hubert and Henry having been born in 1877, and the three were close as siblings and friends. Arthur admired his uncles “Hoobert” and “Henery,” and he also worked for Hubert in the 1930s. His life story is a part of this story that I will attempt to tell.
This will not be a definitive work, as I have not yet gone to Madison and gone through the incorporation documents, and other items that may be filed with the company records. It is on my list of To Dos, but I do not think that the story will be any less for not knowing these details. As for details, the life of Henry will appear to be more rich with information, but that is because the Hollandtown community section, or what I like to call the “gossip” column, which frequently reported on his comings and goings. Whereas Hubert lived a much more quiet life in the larger community of Appleton. But I have plenty of information for my tale.
I was wrong. I thought that because I had been researching this topic since 1998, that it would be a SNAP to write the story up to oh, say 1918. I was wrong, because even during these early years there is this strange entwining of names, and the question of which man is this story referring to? But to continue the tale.
Peter Joseph Hubert Fassbender was born and raised in Oedekoven, Rhine Province, Germany. In 1856 at the age of 18, he emigrated to Wisconsin, settling with his mother and step-father in Granville, Milwaukee Co., Wisconsin. In 1862 he married the “girl next door” Elizabeth Nettekoven, the Nettekoven’s having settled on the land adjacent to Peter’s family. During their first year of marriage, Peter and Elizabeth lived on a rented farm in the Milwaukee area before packing their ox-cart and making their way north to Outagamie County. When I first read about their five day journey, I had what I thought was an insane image of them walking up Highway 41, but looking at this David Rumsey map of Wisconsin dated 1855, I see I was not too far off.
Foote, C. M. 1849-1899. (Charles M.); Brown, Walter S. / Plat book of Outagamie County, Wisconsin (1889)
They made the decision to settle in the town of Ellington, Outagamie County, and on November 12, 1863, Peter purchased a sixty acre plat for $950.00 in Section 25. [1] Peter worked hard cultivating the land so that it would be in good condition for his crops. In 1868 he added an adjoining 40 acres of Section 26 to the original 60, and in 1883 purchased an additional 40 acres in Section 24, creating a total of 140 acres of good rich farm land. [2]
Peter and Elizabeth were blessed with nine children. Anna born in 1865, John Mathias 1866, Joseph Peter 1868, Conrad Henry 1869, Mary Francis 1871, Hubert 1875, Elizabeth Mary 1877, Henry John 1880, and Maggie, who was born in 1882. Six lived to adulthood as they lost Conrad in 1869, Mary Francis in 1871, and their youngest daughter, Maggie, the summer of 1900.
As Peter decided to add cheese manufacturing to his mix of business, he enlisted all four of his surviving sons to work with him in the factory, and this allowed him to expand until he was running three factories as part of his family business. His eldest son, John, began working at age 16 as a laborer for other cheese factories in the area. He returned home in 1887 to work for his father, remaining with him till 1890 when he “embarked on the business himself, conducting a factory for five years.” In 1895 John married and soon moved to Appleton “where the next five years were spent in various occupations” until 1902 when he returned to farming, purchasing land in Black Creek, Outagamie Co., Wisconsin. [3] While John lived in Appleton for those five years, I believe he must have retained ownership of the factory, as I find him listed as “John Fastbinder” in the Biennial Report of the Dairy and Food Commissioner of Wisconsin, as owning and operating an unnamed cheese factory in Greenville, Outagamie Co., Wisconsin in 1899. [4]
Peter’s second son, Joseph’s first love was for the land, and although he spent time working in the factories, he soon returned to farming. He “always remained on the home place, of which he took charge at the age of thirty years, and three years later he bought the land.” [5] He married in 1902, and remained on the family farm for the remainder of his life.
Peter’s youngest sons were Hubert and Henry John. Funny, I have yet to find a middle name for Hubert, although I have found reference to the letter “F” being used. Hubert and Henry literally grew up with their father making cheese in addition to farming, and the cheese industry became their chosen profession, both men owning and operating successful factories in the Fox River Valley. This is their story.
SOURCES;
“Wisconsin, Outagamie County Records, 1825-1980,” images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-22093-43526-77?cc=1463639 : accessed 01 Apr 2014), Land and Property > Deed record, 1863-1864, vol. 16 > image 416 of 609; citing Outagamie County Courthouse, Appleton.
Thomas H. Ryan, History of Outagamie County Wisconsin (Chicago: Goodspeed Historical Association, 1911), 767.
Thomas H. Ryan, History of Outagamie County Wisconsin. (Chicago: Goodspeed Historical Association, 1911), 764-765.
Wisconsin. Dairy and Food Commission, Biennial Report of the Dairy and Food Commissioner of Wisconsin. (Michigan: University of Michigan, 1899) www.books.google.com : accessed 26 Mar. 2014.
Cheesemaking at the end of the 19th Century was very different from what we know today. Wisconsin cheese factories did not operate year round; they closed in December and didn’t open again until April. It wasn’t until farmers were introduced to silage, and began housing their herds in barns during the winter months, that they started to milk year round.
As the number of cheese plants and creameries grew within the state, the need for regulation became apparent. To serve this need, the Wisconsin Dairymen’s Association was formed in 1872 to aid in the improvement of dairy products, and to promote safe lines of the dairy industry. [1] By 1876 the Wisconsin Dairymen’s Association listed five dairies in Outagamie County, and by 1891 there were six creameries and 63 cheese factories listed in Outagamie County alone. [2] As the number of factories in the state grew, it became apparent that if the owners wanted any control over the manufacture and marketing of a “prime product” they would be required to form an association apart from the Dairymen’s Association, and so they formed the Wisconsin Cheese Maker’s Association, which was formally incorporated in 1899. Although many of the cheesemakers were members of the Wisconsin Dairymen’s Association, they felt that “the special problems cheese makers faced required a separate association.” [3] This new organization was formed to educate the farmers in the “improved techniques of milk handling and, more generally, in the ways of business society.” [4] They encouraged members of the Wisconsin Dairymen’s Association to meet the following criteria to join: “Any person who is a practical cheese maker, and such other persons as are directly or indirectly interested in the manufacture and sale ofunadulterated cheese may become members of the corporation by paying one dollar annually in advance of signing the roll of membership.” [5]
The Association ensured a quality cheese product, but much work was now needed to educate the farmer in how to deliver clean milk, as “farmers were reluctant to adopt procedures ‘dictated’ by factory men.” Farmers were paid for their milk by weight, the richer the milk, the more it would weigh. In order to increase weight, some farmers were adding water to their milk, or mixing the milk of the more productive Holstein cows with the richer milk of the Jersey or Guernsey cow to create a heavier load. This created such inconsistencies in the quality of the milk brought to the factories that in some counties “the cheese makers were obliged to set up ‘protective associations’ in order to compel the adoption of the Babcock test as the official basis for milk payments. [6]
The Babcock Test, developed in 1890 by a professor at the University of Wisconsin named Stephen M. Babcock, allowed cheese makers to easily and inexpensively determine the amount of butterfat in their milk. His invention, which he never patented, ensured that farmers were paid fairly for the milk they were selling, and that dairies were able to manufacture and market the “prime product” they desired.
The need for a protective union was soon seen in Outagamie County, and so on December 27, 1894, a protective association which they called the Cheese Makers’ Protective Union was organized with G. Lightheart, president; J. L. Murphy, secretary, and P. Fassbender, treasurer. The object of the union was to “protect cheese makers against cutting of prices; to prevent the violation of contracts, and to fight filled cheese.” The association was to “remedy the abuses in the way of contract breaking, unfair competition and dishonest cheese-making which have begun to be felt in the trade here.” [7][8] Filled cheese was cheese that was made from skim milk, and then had lard or stale butter added to make up for the lack of butterfat. Filled cheese when fresh was hard to distinguish from whole-milk cheese, but aged poorly, losing its flavor with time.
During the years 1894-1895 the Cheese Makers’ and Dairymen’s associations were “absorbed” in the lobbying for the anti-filled cheese bills at both the state and federal level. In 1895 the “Wisconsin legislature outlawed the manufacture and sale of cheese from skimmed milk.” The following year in 1896, a federal statute was adopted taxing and branding all filled cheese. [9] One of the men who proposed this bill to fight filled cheese was Samuel Andrew (S.A.) Cook a U.S. Representative from Neenah, Winnebago County, Wisconsin, and the bill that he introduced “became a law by his efforts against great opposition.” [10]
With the regulations provided by the protective associations insuring a quality product, and farmers now milking year round, the cheese industry in Wisconsin was growing. Production reached 60 million pounds in 1900 and by 1915 the state was producing nearly 235 pounds annually. How did this compare to the rest of the country? in 1899, Wisconsin produced 26.6% of the nation’s cheese, in 1909 it was 46.6%, and by 1919 the state was producing 63.1%. Wisconsin cheese production was so high that it overtook New York as the leading cheese producing state in 1910. [11]
Over the next 60 years technology would dramatically change the way that cheese was produced. In 1913 pasteurization of milk began on a commercial basis, by 1916 all Wisconsin cheesemakers were required to have a cheesemaker’s license, and in 1921 Wisconsin became the first state to institute mandatory grading for all major cheese varieties. Rural America was rapidly changing as trucks and cars replaced horses, tractors began pulling plows, and most importantly, electricity became available to provide light, power equipment, and to run refrigeration. All of this new technology made life easier, yet it was to change the way cheese was manufactured to such a degree that it was to affect the life and the business practices of both the cheesemaker and the farmer.
Gordon A. Bubolz, Managing Editor, Land of the Fox: Saga of Outagamie County, (Appleton, Wisconsin: Outagamie County State Centennial Committee, Inc., 1949), 132-134.
Jerry Apps, Cheese: The Making of a Wisconsin Tradition, (Amherst, Wisconsin: Amherst Press, 1998), 31.
Eric E. Lampard, The Rise of the Diary Industry in Wisconsin: A Study in Agricultural Change, 1820-1920, (Madison, Wisconsin, The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1963), 253.
Apps, Cheese, 96.
Lampard, The Rise of the Dairy Industry in Wisconsin, 253.
Appleton Weekly Post, Appleton, Wisconsin, “Cheese Makers Organize,” 2 December 1894, p. 1.
Ryan, History of Outagamie County, 458.
Lampard, The Rise of the Dairy Industry in Wisconsin, 253.
Richard J. Harney, History of Winnebago County, Wisconsin, and Early History of the Northwest, (Oshkosh, Wisconsin: Allen & Hicks, 1880), 914.
