M. Schields Godfrey, Milliner

Mary Schields was born in Sandusky in September, 1862, to Edmund and Salome Schields, both natives of Germany. She married George Godfrey about 1893. Mr. Godfrey was born in England and was a musician with the Great Western Band. From about 1896 through 1915, Mrs. Mary Schields Godfrey operated a hat shop at 222 Columbus Avenue. During some years, she also sold hats at the C. L. Engels Co. store on Market Street.

Mary and George would often travel to Europe to purchase hats. An article in the March 25, 1905 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal was entitled “The Sun Smiled for the Millinery Openings.” Mrs. Godfrey advertised genuine Paris and London hats, as well as New York Pattern hats for the spring season of 1905.

 

Mrs. Godfrey published a small catalog of Parisian hats in 1899, which featured models wearing stylish hats, along with a description of the hats.

Helen Hansen and Virginia Steinemann wrote about hat shops in Sandusky in Article 53 of From the Widow's Walk, describing how hats were a very important fashion necessity for women in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Fourteen separate businesses in Sandusky were listed under millinery in the 1912-1913 Sandusky City Directory. Miss Yvonne Fievet was an apprentice to Mary Schields Godfrey in the millinery business. Mrs. Hansen and Mrs. Steinemann spoke with Miss Fievet, and learned that as an apprentice Yvonne worked three months in the spring and three months in the fall learning the millinery trade; she received no wages, but was given a free hat for her six months labor. Miss Fievet went on to have her own hat shop, from 1929 to 1965. (She had a niece, also named Yvonne Fievet, who was a longtime librarian at the Sandusky Library.)

 

Two separate volumes of From the Widow's Walk feature photographs and historical articles about the residents and businesses of Sandusky and Erie County. You may check out either volume from the Sandusky Library.

Giving Thanks

 

This is the menu that Sgt. Wilford T. Schleicher was served at Camp Sherman, Chillicothe, Ohio, on Thanksgiving day, November 29, 1917. 

He was to leave for Europe in June 1918 as part of the American Expeditionary Forces. 

In February 1919, he and his family were able to be thankful for his safe return to the United States and a long life, happily married, and a successful career at the American Crayon Company.

There is always something to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving.

Sanborn Maps, An Invaluable Historical Resource

 

The Sanborn Map Company published maps between 1867 and 1970 to help fire insurance companies determine potential risks for buildings in American cities. While their value for insurance policies has long ended, these maps serve a new purpose for historians and family history researchers. Precise locations of buildings and streets are included on the maps, as well as the types of construction materials used, water sources available, and how buildings were heated, among other information. While individual property owners are not usually given, researchers can find out the location of the homes and places of employment of their ancestors. 

At the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center, Sanborn Maps can be accessed in a variety of formats. There are physical copies of the 1886 and 1905 atlases stored in the Archives, another atlas, with revisions into the 1950s, is also available for viewing. Microfilm roll 6885 contains copies of the 1886, 1893, and 1905 Sanborn Maps for Sandusky. And a digital collection of 40,000 Sanborn Maps of Ohio cities is accessible to Ohio library users through OPLIN Databases. This digital collection can be accessed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to holders of Ohio library cards. Some examples from this collection are below.

The J. Kuebeler and Company Brewery was located on the west side of Sandusky in 1886, on Tiffin Avenue.

This 1886 Sanborn Map shows locations of the Kuebeler brewery’s malt storage, fermenting unit and ice houses, along with many other details about the facility.

The Sandusky Library appeared on page 25 of the 1905 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map.

In the original library building, the reading room in the east wing of the Carnegie building had a skylight, and a music hall was in the west wing, complete with an area for storing scenery. Notes indicate that the library was heated with steam heat.

The street names and house numbers found on the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps seem to come alive when one can locate photographs taken of a specific location. Below is a section of the 1893 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map which shows the corner of Monroe and Hancock Streets.

William Brehm had a dry goods store at 631 Hancock Street in 1893. The front window of Mr. Brehm’s store is visible in the picture below which also shows car number 9 of the Sandusky, Milan and Norwalk Electric Railway in 1893.

Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center to learn more about the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for Sandusky.

C.F. Denzer Office Supply Business

 

C.F. Denzer sold office supplies at his store at 210 Columbus Avenue, near East Market Street, for many years. By 1940, the business had relocated to East Market Street, and later onto Water Street. Above is the cover of a promotional item from Barker’s Greeting Cards, given away at Denzer’s. It is a clever item used to store four different types of stamps. Here is the inside:

(This item is probably from between July 1932 and December 1951, when first class postage was three cents and postcards were a penny.)

 Besides office supplies, Denzer’s also sold greeting cards and wrapping paper for gifts.

This advertising card indicates that C.F. Denzer sold “a penholder for every taste.”

Eventually C.F. Denzer changed its name to Denzer’s, Inc. The company’s final location in Sandusky was at 2111 Cleveland Road, ending around the mid-1980s.

The Bully Roarer Songster

In 1848, the publisher D. Campbell & Sons of Sandusky, Ohio produced a comic songbook, the third in a series of publications. David Campbell established the Sandusky Clarion in 1822, which was a predecessor of the Sandusky Register.

On pages 76 through 78 is a song called Umbrella Courtship, about a man named Simon who steals kisses from the belle he is courting, but only when it is raining. They got married on a rainy day, and had eight children, all who were marked with umbrellas.

A version of the Umbrella Courtship is also found at the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music from the Johns Hopkins University’s Sheridan Library. 

The comical song found on pages 82 and 83 of the Bully Roarer was about two Irish men who were fighting over the same young lady.

This publication is in the collections of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.

Confederate P.O.W.’s: Soldiers & Sailors Who Died in Federal Prisons and Military Hospitals in the North

In 1984 Frances Ingmire and Carolyn Ericson compiled into a book the names, rank, regiment, death dates, and burial location of Confederate soldiers and sailors who died in federal prisons and military hospitals in the North, during the Civil War. The records were compiled from the Office of the Commissioner for Marker Graves of Confederate Dead. The main text is compiled by the names of each prison, but an index of servicemen is found in the back of this volume, listing the former Confederate sailors and soldiers alphabetically by surname.

Soldiers and sailors who died at Camp Chase, near Columbus, Ohio are listed on pages 50 through 93. The names of four soldiers who died while prisoners of war in Gallipolis, Ohio are found on page 175. Of particular interest is the section of the book with the names of several soldiers and Confederate officers who died during the Civil War at Johnson’s Island. Their names are provided on pages 178 through 182. You can view this book at the Sandusky Library, where it is shelved with the genealogical and local history books in the library’s lower level.

Many items relating to the Civil War can be found at the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center and the Follett House Museum. The original wooden tombstone of D.L. Scott, 2nd Lieutenant, Co. I, of the Third Missouri Cavalry, is on display at the Follett House. In the late 1880s, a group of Georgia businessmen raised funds to provide marble tombstones for those soldiers and officers interred at Johnson’s Island.

Over one thousand people witnessed the unveiling of the Confederate Cemetery Monument at Johnson’s Island on June 8, 1910, an event sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Rev. George H. Peeke

George Hewson Peeke was born on March 18, 1833 in Rotterdam, New York. He graduated from Rutgers College in 1857, and from the Reformed Dutch Theologial Seminary in 1860. Rev. Peeke’s active years of ministry spanned fifty-five years. He served as the minister of churches in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio. From 1883 until 1890, he was the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Sandusky, Ohio. Rev. Peeke was the first clergyman in Sandusky to advocate prohibition of liquor. 

In 1884, Rev. Peeke was selected to be the speaker at Sandusky’s Memorial Day ceremony at Oakland Cemetery. The Sandusky Library Archives Research Center has a small collection of documents from Rev. Peeke's life's work, including life memberships in the American Bible Society, American Tract Society, and the American Home Missionary Society. When Rev. Peeke left the Sandusky Congregational Church, he went on to serve as the minister of the Congregational Church in Brooklyn, Ohio. He often came back to Sandusky to officiate at funerals, and speak at local churches.

Rev. Peeke and his wife Margaret Bloodgood Peeke had six children; their eldest son, Hewson L. Peeke, was a well known attorney and local historian in Sandusky.  

On December 28, 1915, Rev. George H. Peeke died after suffering a stroke.  Funeral services were held at the home of his son, attorney Hewson L. Peeke. The three pastors who officiated at the funeral services were: Rev. Keller of the Presbyterian Church, Rev. Ross Sanderson of the First Congregational Church, and Rev. Hilberry of Trinity Methodist Church. Burial was in Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery. A lengthy obituary appeared in the December 29, 1915 issue of the Sandusky Register.

The Three Sons of Mr. and Mrs. John Rieger

Pictured above are the three sons of John L. and Mary (Biehl) Rieger, in a photograph taken by C.W. Platt. Standing is Edward F. Rieger, born in 1882. Seated on the left is Walter Rieger, born in 1883. Youngest son Pierre Rieger, who was born in 1886, is seated in the chair. John Rieger was a pioneer resident of Sandusky. He had a shoe business on Hancock Street in the 1870s and he founded the Hotel Rieger in 1912. 

Another picture of the boys was taken at a later date. 

You can see that same portrait of the young Rieger boys in the family’s parlor in the picture below.

Edward F. Rieger died in an accidental fall from the fourth floor of the Hotel Rieger in 1921, when he was only 39 years old. Pierre Rieger died after a brief illness on January 30, 1951. Both Edward and Pierre Rieger were involved in the management of the Hotel Rieger. Dr. Walter H. Rieger graduated from the University of Michigan as a medical doctor in 1906. Dr. Rieger was the house surgeon at the Manhattan Eye and Ear Infirmary in New York, and he was the visiting otolaryngologist at Fairview Park Hospital and St. Vincent’s Charity Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio; he was the last surviving member of his family at the time of his death on June 27, 1951. Mr. and Mrs. John Rieger and all their sons are buried in Block 94 of Oakland Cemetery. The Hotel Rieger, which played an important role in the lives of so many members of the Rieger family, is pictured below in 1927.

Victor S. Malinovsky, Coach and Educator

Victor S. Malinovsky was born in 1917 to Mr. and Mrs. Simon Malinovsky, who were both natives of Czechoslovakia. He grew up in Lorain County, Ohio. Victor, known often as “Vic,” was a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, where he played on the football team. He earned his Master’s Degree from Western Reserve University. During World War II, he earned the Purple Heart as a result of his service with the U.S. Marines in the Solomon Islands. 

During the academic year of 1945-1946, Vic Malinovsky was the head basketball coach of Sandusky High School. In his first year of coaching the basketball team, their record was 17 wins and 5 losses. Below is a picture of Coach Malinovsky and the varsity basketball team from the 1945-46 school year.

An article in the Toledo Blade of April 14, 1947 reported that Victor Malinovsky became the head coach of both Sandusky High School’s football and basketball teams, but in March of 1948, he resigned as head football coach to devote his time to coaching the basketball team. He coached basketball through the 1951-1952 school year. In 1952, Mr. Malinovsky taught Social Studies and was Sandusky High’s Athletic Director. By his last year with Sandusky, he was Assistant Principal and Athletic Director. 

At the age of 42, Vic Malinovsky died on July 1, 1959, following a lengthy battle with cancer. Sandusky High School’s Victor Malinovsky Award is presented annually to a senior boy who has demonstrated academic excellence, athletic prowess, citizenship sensitivity, leadership, and character. The 1960 Sandusky High School, the Fram, was dedicated to the memory of Victor S. Malinovsky.

Women’s Gym Class in the 1930s

 

In the 1930s, Gladys A. Hoffman taught a Women’s Gym Class at the Sandusky High School gymnasium (now Adams Junior High School.) Sponsored by the Sandusky Business Women’s Club, the classes included instruction in exercises, folk dances, games elementary clogging, apparatus work and rhythm.