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.

Advertisement for Miss K. Fox Company

 

This stylish ad for Miss K. Fox Co. appeared in the Official Illustrated Guide and Souvenir of the Islands and Sandusky (Register Press, 1901). Katherine Fox was the daughter of John M. Fox and his wife, the former Pauline Rheinegger. From about 1898 until 1906, Katherine ran a shop that sold millinery, dry goods, linens and fancy goods. The store was located at 730 Hancock Street in Sandusky. This advertisement suggested that when ladies read this ad, the staff at Miss K. Fox Co. was busy at work trimming hats for them. Another advertisement which appeared in the September 13, 1900 issue of the Sandusky Register stated that Miss Fox sold dry goods and millinery at the “lowest prices ever heard of” at her shop. 

On August 1, 1901, Katherine Fox married George C. Thomas at the residence of Father Joseph Widmann. The occupation of the groom was machinist, and the occupation of the bride was listed as “proprietress of the Hancock Street millinery parlors.” Sadly, Mrs. Katherine Fox Thomas died at the age of thirty on August 4, 1906. After Katherine’s death, her mother and sisters ran the business on Hancock Street for several years.

Bamberger’s Hat Shop

Jacob Bamberger opened his hat shop, The Avenue Store, in Sandusky in 1914 at 162 Columbus Avenue.  The Avenue Store had a big hat sale to celebrate its fifth anniversary in 1919.

You can see a portion of Bamberger's  Avenue Store in the picture below, taken in 1925. Eventually the name of the store became simply, Bamberger’s.

             

Jacob Bamberger was born in Germany in 1888, and he came to the United States in 1909. He and Alice Dreifuss were married in 1921. While on their honeymoon in Washington D.C., Mr. and Mrs. Bamberger were the guests of Congressman James T. Begg.  In 1934, the Bamberger store moved to West Market Street in the Hotel Rieger building. In the 1947 Twin Anniversary Edition of the Sandusky Register Star News, Mr. and Mrs. Bamberger  ran this advertisement.

Mrs. Alice Bamberger passed away in 1963. Jacob Bamberger operated the hat shop until the late 1960s. He died on February 22, 1972. Both Mr. and Mrs. Bamberger were members of the Oheb Shalom Temple, and were buried in the Jewish Cemetery on South Columbus Avenue. This lovely hat, once worn as an Easter bonnet, is now in the collections of the Follett House Museum. The hat was purchased at Bamberger’s store in the 1950s or 1960s.