The Family

Jacob Luehm was born about the middle of the nineteenth century in the little village of Aurau, Switzerland. He was a young man when he left his family and sweetheart, Elizabeth Louisa, and set out for America. After he had settled in Rochester, New York, he sent for Elizabeth. They were married and thus THE FAMILY started. Since I was only two when Grandpa Luehm died, these stories about the family and the members of the family are only memories of what I was told -- sometimes, of what I remember.

Jacob and Elizabeth supposedly had 13 children. I was told that there were twins along that line that were born dead and another baby also still born. Sam was the first living child, followed fairly closely by: Loisa, Lydia, Charles, Bert, Ben, Gertrude, Rose, and Joseph. I also learned of a Carl, but know no more about him. With these nine live borns, twin still borns, and two other pregnancies, it is no wonder that Grandma Luehm died of an enlarged heart, sometime between 1914 and 1920. Joseph was the youngest of their children and I was his youngest child.

1. Sam and his wife Berta never had any children. The only things I remember about Sam was that he was the caretaker of the reservoir at Highland Park and that he weighed so much they had to get a special bed for him when he was admitted to the hospital for surgery of some sort.

2. Louisa and her husband, Jack Rothmell never had any children. Since they lived just five houses to the west of our house, Aunt Lou was the Grandmother I never knew. More about Lulu later.

3. Lydia was supposedly the beauty of the family. I really can't vouch for that. The only way I remember her was her snow white hair that always looked as though she had just combed it. She married a widower when she was fifty and so they never had any children that I knew.

4. Charles must have taken after his father. Charles and Bertha had four children -- Ruth, Earl, Irma, and Thelma.

5. Bert must have died before I was born, but he had married someone named Birdie and they had two children, Harold and Carl. I know that Harold married a very nice lady -- but I don't remember her name. They did have at least one child, but that's all I know. The only think I rememver about Carl is that Lulu and Dad used to laugh about Carl. Whenever he got mad at someone he'd tell them that they couldn't ride in his "ahoooga" -- his word for car.

6. Ben married -- but since he, too, died, before I was born, I never knew him or his wife. To the best of my knowledge, they never had any children. I always had the impression that the family put her in the same category as Ruth's husband. Apparently, they lost all track of her after Ben died.

7. Gertrude married Harry Baumer. They never had any children. I remember Aunt Gert and used to like to go to her house and spend the night. She had an organ -- the kind that had to be pumped by pedal to play. Apparently Harry was no angel because I hardly ever saw him. After Aunt Gert died I remember hearing a few snide remarks about Harry.

8. Rose married Louis Zimmer and they had two sons, Louis Jr., and Fred. Louis was another fat man -- not as big as Sam, but he was big -- and his older son Louis took right after him. I never did know Louis well, but I used to go to Aunt Rose's once in a while before her husband died. After that, Aunt Rose lived with Fred. One of the things I remember about Aunt Rose was her love of Boston Terriers. When she died, Fred asked permission to give "Gypsy" to me. Fred did finally get married to Peggy. They had one daughter.

9. That finally brings us to Grandpa. Our immediate family consisted of Joseph Kenneth and Jane Elizabeth Kyle. Jane was always called Jenny or Jen. Joe and Jen had three children, Virginia Dorothy, who was dubbed "Deda" by her younger brother, Robert Kyle, in his first attempts to talk. Deda was replaced by Ginny and that stuck for the rest of her life. However, when Elizabeth Louise came along quite a few years later, Deda came into use again when she frist started to talk. Since Elizabeth weighed less than five pounds at birth, the nurses laughingly said that the name was bigger than she and they dubbed her Betty. That stuck.

Jenny and Joe were married on June 28, 1910 in the Lutheran Church of the Reformation on Gibbs Street in Rochester, N.Y. They lived to celebrate their Golden Anniversary at a surprise Anniversary party at Canandaigua Inn in Canandaigua, New York. The day the were married, Sophie and Charles Carpenter were also married. Joe and Charlie were acquaintances and by chance they took the same honeymoon trip -- a boat trip to the Thousand Islands where they stayed at a resort run by the Wilder Family. (Imagine my surprise when my seventh grade homeroom teacher, one "Miss Wilder" said she knew my parents!) When they got back to Rochester, imagine their surprise when they realized that they had each rented an apartment in the same duplex, where Jen and Joe spent the first fifteen month of their marriage.

To the best of my knowledge, Joe never bought anything he couldn't pay cash for -- with the exception of his house, of course. He designed and built the house himself. I say built it himself, but actually he was the building contractor. Dad was an architect and there are (or were) several beautiful houses in Rochester that are a credit to his artistry. He served his apprenticeship in the firm of Gordon and Kaelber -- well-thought-of architects in up-state New York. Dad finished his apprenticeship with that firm and gained his license -- only to be fired one day when one of the owners returned to the office to find Dad jumping from drawing board to drawing board acting, in general, like a monkey.

To get back to my original thought, Dad always paid cash. shortly after his younger sister was born, Bob was invited to a birthday party for one of his friends. While there, one of the mothers asked Bob about his younger sister and wanted to know how old she was. After considerable thought, Bob replied,

"I don't know how old she is now, but she was new when we got her."

So much for family pride.

Dad built their home while they were first married. The family lived in that home for over 50 years. When it was first built, the house was the only house on Melville Street with electric lights. There were gas lamps all around the house -- built in -- but I never remember having to use them. Grandpa Luehm had purchased the house three doors east of our house, and Aunt Lou and uncle Jack owned the house five doors to the west. Aunt Lou was more like a grandmother to me. She took the place of the Grandmother I never knew. Since she was married when Dad was a mere lad of four, she fit the part very well. mom and dad used to take me with them if they did go to friends homes for the evening, and since baby carriers were not an every-day commodity, my bed was a wicker laundry basket with a pillow in the bottom for a mattress and it served as my mobile bed for quite a while.

My fondest memories of our house on Melville Street are of Christmas. Since we were so close to other members of the family, most holidays included some of those members. Aunt Lou and Uncle Jack never had any children so they spent a lot of their love on us. We always had Thanksgiving Dinner at Lula's and Christmas Eve we three children were hustled out of our house and sent to Aunt Lou's -- a very conveneient arrangement for Mom and Dad. However, we always looked forward to Christmas Eve at Lula's. One of our holiday traditions was making egg bread called sipff. Don't challenge me on the spelling -- that's the way it sounds. Sipff was made only a few times a year. It was made in the same manner as the bread that Dad used to mix up about once a month on Friday night.

We had a bread maker -- a large metal container with a bread hook that attached to the top. On the side was a stamped notice that it had won the blue ribbon at the World's Fair in 1904. I still have that bread maker and it makes good bread. Anyhow, the yeast was put in the bread maker and dissolved in warm water together with a touch of sugar and the rest of the warm liquid and the shortening. The flour was added (5 pounds) and the cover put on and the handle that turned the dough hook was used to stir the mixture for three minutes. It was always exciting for me to feel the dough becoming thicker and the handle harder to turn. After three minutes the pan was covered with a turkish towel and put near a radiator. Twelve hours later Mom would stir down the dough, knead it for about three minutes and divide the dough into five parts. Each one-fifth was then shaped in bread pans and the dough was allowed to double in bulk and then baked. I still know of no other smell that is as good as baking bread -- unless it's a baby's bottom!

Well, Sipff is similar to regular white bread but instead of water and milk for the liquid, milk and eggs are used; instead of lard for the shortening, butter is used. After the dough has risen and is kneaded, it is divided into five parts. The five parts are each divided into three parts and rolled into a cylinder about 12" long. The three cylinders are then braided and placed on a baking sheet and allowed to rise. just before they are put into the oven the loaves are brushed with some beaten eggs to make them brown and shiny. That was pure heaven!

Since Aunt Lou and Uncle Jack hosted Thanksgiving dinner, Dad and Mom made the sipff and Dad make the punch we always had. At Christmas Aunt Lou made the Sipff and Uncle Jack made the punch.

I have told your all about the sipff -- now about the punch. You must remember that prohibition was in force then. However, that didn't stop the making of beer and wine by our family and friends. Dad and Uncle Jack always made wine from Concord Grapes -- a variety common to that area. (The area around the southern end of Canandaigua Lake, near Naples, is usually referred to as "Little Switzerland.") For special occasions, punch was made from this sweet, red wine. The punch was very much like Spanish Sangria. We children were always allowed to have a glass fo punch with our holiday dinner. (I even had a tiny glass with grapes etched on the side for my "punch glass".) We also were allowed to have a glass of punch after dinner on Christmas Eve at Lula's. I, for one, know that I slept like a log even though I was excited about Santa Claus coming. I don't even remember wanting to stay up to watch for him. Of course, since we were at Aunt Lou's we knew that Santa would be visiting our house, but that he would be just dropping off at Lula's long enough to put some books under our pillows. The books were enough to keep us occupied until Aunt Lou had cleaned up the breakfast dishes and stalled around long enough to Mom and Dad to have the Christmas Dinner under control, and of course, the Christmas Tree had been taken care of after we left on Christmas Eve.

Our Christmas Tree was always in the Northeast corner of the living room and, unlike most trees of that day and age, all the lights were white. The lights were white to resemble the candles that they had replaced. Between each light and the socket was a reflector that resembled a large, silver snowflake. They made the lights seem twice as big as they really were. We always had a star at the top of the tree -- even though the acknowledged tree-top ornament was usually an angel. I can still remember people walking past our house during the evening when the tree was lit and stopping and blatantly looking in our fron windows at the tree in the corner of the room. I was always irritated at people stopping and "gawking". I always thought they had a lot of nerve.

Christmas traditions were started by Mom and Dad the first year they were married. No Christmas tree was ever allowed to be set up before Christmas Eve. The first year, however, Dad had purchased a small tree to be set up on a table and had also purchased several boxes of ornaments, lights and garland. When Christmas Eve rolled around, the tree was set out on the table and decorated -- but heavens above, there were too many ornaments for that little tree. Nothing woudl do, but went out and purchased another larger tree that had to be set up on the floor. The larger tree could have used a few more ornaments, but it must have been a huge success because Virginia was born just nine months later!

Addresses:
3499 Lakeview Ln, Canandaigua, NY 144224
Rochester, NY
Teaneck, NJ
New Castle, PA
Hawthorne, NJ
51 Main St., Lincoln Park, NJ
94 Knolls Rd., Bloomingdale, NJ 07403
Green Valley, AZ
4570 W Tumacacori Dr, Amado, AZ 85645
Tucson, AZ
626 Geneva Ln SE, Olympia, WA
410 118th Ave SE, Bellevue, WA 98005
Panama City, Republic of Panama
David, Chiriqui, Republic of Panama
Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas