The Schaumburg Township Historical Society will sponsor a series of open houses and events at the Schaumburg Center School on the dates below from 12-3 p.m. The schoolhouse is located on the St. Peter Lutheran Church property at 202 E. Schaumburg Road in Schaumburg.
May 27
June 9
July 14
August 11 (Ice Cream Social in honor of deceased, longtime member Sharon Kimble!)
August 18
September 8 (Schaumburg Township Teacher Anne Fox day!)
Constructed in 1872 and first called Sarah’s Grove School, it is believed to have been the first of five public schools in Schaumburg Township. It was later renamed Schween’s Grove School and then became Schaumburg Centre Public School until 1954. For 82 years, the building served as a one-room schoolhouse, and was the last active one room schoolhouse in District 54.
With the widening of Schaumburg Road, the building was saved from demolition and temporarily placed on the grounds of the Town Square Shopping Center in 1979. It was permanently relocated to the St. Peter Lutheran Church property in September, 1981. It has been fully restored as a museum and is under the auspices of the Schaumburg Township Historical Society.
You can also find the Historical Society at the Schaumburg Farmer’s Market on the following Fridays in 2024:
June 14, 9:30-11:30 a.m.
August 9, 9:30-11:30 a.m.
Come explore and share the history of Schaumburg Township with Historical Society members!
Stop by for an open house of the Sunderlage Farmhouse in Hoffman Estates! Visitors will have an opportunity to see the house’s interior and learn about its history.
When: Sunday, June 25, 2023. 12:00 to 3:00 p.m.
Where: 1775 Vista Lane, Hoffman Estates
Who: Hoffman Estates Historical Sites Commission
What: This free event will examine the history of the 1856 farmhouse, including the layout of its rooms, floors and staircase. The smokehouse, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places for its mid-19th century Greek Revival style, will also be open.
Information about the Volkening family ownership and presence in the early 20th century will be highlighted as will details surrounding the removal of the northeast porch of the house.
Emma Rohlwing and Fred Pfingsten on their wedding day Photo courtesy of Gail Panzer Wilson
It seems that the wedding of the century is the gift that keeps on giving. Over 10 years ago I wrote about the September 3, 1903 wedding of Emma Rohlwing and Fred Pfingsten that took place at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Schaumburg Township. It was a huge wedding that took over a year of preparation with the celebration lasting for three days!
A detailed account of the wedding was published in The Inter Ocean newspaper in Chicago a few days after the wedding on Sunday, September 6, 1903. Until a month ago, I’d never seen the actual newspaper but, here, thanks to Gary Biesterfeld, is the issue itself! Because the details are so fascinating, I will be reprinting the entire article. All spellings and lower case/upper case elements have been left intact.
The article gives you a good idea of how intense the preparations were for such an event. It was not today’s “rent a hall and call a good caterer” sort of thing. This wedding was a year in the making and had to have taken countless hours, lists and conversations. Today we can only imagine…
This is the third, and final, portion of the article.
Standing outside of St. Peter Lutheran Church after the wedding ceremony. Photo courtesy of the Pfingsten family
Schaumberg is a prosperous community. All the people own their own property. John Rohlwing owns several fine farms and Mr. Pfingsten lives upon a tract of 240 acres that his stubborn German industry has paid for and improved. The German is an unwilling renter. When he digs a dollar out of the soil he wants it all for his own. [The following sentence is illegible.] When he celebrates, he goes into it with his whole heart, voice and pocketbook. Neither the Rohlwings nor Pfingstens looked at their expense accounts when preparing to unite the families. They had plenty of money, and it was lavished wherever could be found things that are good to eat and drink. The two families divided the expense of the feast, and it cost the price of several acres of Cook county land to provide it.
When the German feasts he wants his friends with him. There wasn’t a man, woman, or child in Schaumberg, or in sight of Schaumberg, that wasn’t welcome. And there were no strangers there, for in a German community no man can be a stranger. Every newcomer knows everybody at once, and there is no restraint, no formal introductions, no waiting to be invited to “help yourself.”
Standing outside of one of the tents at the wedding. Photo courtesy of the Pfingsten family.
In Schaumberg nearly everybody is related to everybody else. The sturdy people respect the ties of blood even in the third and fourth cousins, just as they do in their own brothers and sisters. Both the bride and groom claim as their kith and kin most of their neighbors.
More than fifty years ago several German families settled there. Their children married and the children of their children married. Supervisor Rohlwing–he has been elected supervisor many times–and Professor Pfingsten are cousins, and even the bride and groom are second cousins. Schaumberg is a community where family is ever visiting family, and where everybody refers to everybody else as “My Cousin Hans” or “My Uncle Jacob.” And that is what makes of Schaumberg a community rather than a settlement.
“Is everybody here?” asked all the uncles and aunts and cousins.
“No; some couldn’t come,” said Professor Pfingsten. There are families in Nebraska and a few in Minnesota and in Washington that haven’t put in an appearance.”
“I wonder why?” ask the relatives.
If a newcomer from Hanover or Hessen or the Rhine region had struck the Pfingsten farm last Thursday he would have sworn that a corner of some German state had been blown away and dropped down in Cook county. He would have heard his own tongue spoken by everybody there; he would have heard the old songs and the old stories of the siege of Strausberg and the old tales of the Black forest. He would have been in the Fatherland and at home.
At Schaumberg the guests danced all night. These were the dances of the old home, and apparently when dawn broke none of the dancers was any the worse for the innocent diversion.
Of the 3000 people estimated to have been present at the wedding celebration many came from Elgin and other Kane county cities and towns, and others from parts of Du Page county. They were made as welcome as were the nearer neighbors and relatives, and the correspondent of the Du Page County Register, who was “among those present,” were moved to observe in his veracious account of the wedding:
“This was the most gorgeous spectacle of a private nature we ever beheld; rural wealth and natural beauty combined with true innocent happiness. Had all the turnouts which came heavily loaded been lined up the processions would have been two miles long. The Germans can’t be beat when they attempt to do a thing, but this affair will long remain a record breaker. The occasion was a proud day for Schaumberg and Elk Grove and the multitude of relatives and friends who attended. Everything passed off lovely and serene.”
This is the end of Part 4 and is a wrap up of the wedding day festivities.Below are some items that struck me as I typed the article.
In small communities like the German farm families of Schaumburg Township, it is true that everyone was related to everyone else. Many people married those who lived within the confines of the township or, those in equally close knit townships like Elk Grove, Hanover and Palatine.
That being said, in doing years of Schaumburg Township familial research, I did not come across anyone who was born here who was named “Hans” or “Jacob.” This might be the reporter stretching the truth a bit.
What is most interesting is that the reporter didn’t write his own ending to this large story but used the ending to the wedding story that appeared in the Palatine Enterprise-Register the day before!
Jane Rozek Local History Librarian jrozek@stdl.org
Standing outside of St. Peter Lutheran Church after the wedding ceremony. Photo courtesy of the Pfingsten family
It seems that the wedding of the century is the gift that keeps on giving. Over 10 years ago I wrote about the September 3, 1903 wedding of Emma Rohlwing and Fred Pfingsten that took place at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Schaumburg Township. It was a huge wedding that took over a year of preparation with the celebration lasting for three days!
A detailed account of the wedding was published in The Inter Ocean newspaper in Chicago a few days after the wedding on September 6, 1903. Until a month ago, I’d never seen the actual newspaper but, here, thanks to Gary Biesterfeld, is the full issue itself! Because the details are so fascinating, I will be reprinting the entire article. All spellings and lower case/upper case elements have been left intact.
The article gives you a good idea of how intense the preparations were for such an event. It was not today’s “rent a hall and call a good caterer” sort of thing. This wedding was a year in the making and had to have taken countless hours, lists and conversations. Today we can only imagine…
This is the second portion of the article.
It was early Thursday when the band arrived from Elgin. In reality there were two bands, the Burlington Cornet band of Elgin and the Blue Ribbon band of Bartlett. Every player is a pupil of Professor Pfingsten, or has been and the bands came over as a compliment to him.
The wedding procession on their way to the church or the Pfingsten farm Photo courtesy of the Pfingsten family
Leaving Elgin in decorated wagons, the horses bearing plumes and the drivers in uniform, the bands reached the Rohlwing home about 9 o’clock. The prospective bride was absent at this time, being with the Rev. Mr. Mueller, the pastor of the Lutheran church of Schaumberg.
When the “mornheister” was over, however, Miss Rohlwing returned to her home to meet her attendants. Later her party started in the “bride’s carriage” toward Pfingsten farm. It is part of the old German custom that the bride must go to meet her husband.
With Miss Rohlwing at this time were Miss Emma and Miss Alvina Pfingsten, sisters of the bridegroom; Miss Martha Rohlwing, the bride’s sister, and Miss Annie Kruse, as well as the two flower girls, Hermina Rohlwing and Aggie Thies.
When the bridegroom was met he was accompanied by Hermann L. Wilkening, Hermann Fenz, Henry Lichthardt and William Lenschow.
The bride’s party turned and went back to the Rohlwing home, where Supervisor Rohlwing smashed a bottle of red wine brought from Hessen. Then, with the bands ahead, the bridal party set out for the church, two miles away, with about 2000 people following on foot and in carriages.
At the church Dr. Mueller met them at the door and gave them the blessing, according to the custom of the church. In the meantime the bands had gone up into the gallery, had tuned their keys to the pitch the organist was compelled to follow, and joined with him when he began the wedding march.
“When President Roosevelt said that we must prevent race suicide he was not referring to us,” said Dr. Mueller. “He knows that Germans love better than any other people–he’s a Teuton himself, and he has shown that. And so it is that when I am asked to preside over a marriage I feel that I am honored.”
After the sermon Dr. Mueller read the marriage ceremony, and then hurried into his home in the rear of the church to change his robe for more convenient garments. Hurrying out he jumped into the bride’s carriage and went to the scene of the merrymaking.
When the Pfingsten home was reached Dr. Mueller came forward again and pronounced a blessing upon the festivities. While he was speaking the guests held their glasses aloft and as he said the equivalent of “amen” they emptied these glasses just as though a toast was being drunk.
“Gesunheit,” they shouted.
“May the good Lord be over us always,” said the preacher.
The bride and groom and many guests stand in front of one of the tents that was erected on the Pfingsten farm Photo courtesy of the Pfingsten family
And then the band which was “on duty” played “The Good Old Summertime.”
Of all people in the world none love music more than the Germans do. Every community like Schaumberg has its brass band and its singing societies. At every festival music plays its part.
It did at the Schaumberg wedding. The two bands were playing most of the time, but even the blare of the brass and the thump of the drums could not drown the strains of the German folk songs. Above the umpah, umpah, umpah of the tuba arose the voices of young and old singing:
Vergangene Zeiten kommen niemals wieder Schoen ist die Jugend kommt nicht mehr Sie kommt nicht mehr Sie kommt nicht mehr Kommt auch nie wier; schoen is die Jugend Sie kommt nicht mehr
At the end of each stanze the singers stop for a banter and a laugh. Maybe one song will not be finished before some tall-voiced singer swings into the measures of “Die Lorelei” or some good old verses that smack of Frankfort-on-the-Main and the wein stube.
“I am come to this country forty-eight years ago,” said John Fasse, supervisor of Schaumberg township, “and never do I see a wedding like this which we hold in the old country before yet. It was fine, no? To us old Deutschers when we see it is good.”
Then Mr. Fasse picked up a pack of playing cards and said: “I bet you, anybody, two beers maybe I can beat you on penuchle.”
Mr. John Hone, who lives at Dundee, thought over the proposition to wager the free beer and finally consented.
Mr. Rohlwing was asked by a fellow who didn’t understand German customs why the marriage of his daughter was made so much of.
[There follows of a string of undetermined words due to the worn newspaper.]
“I got a big surprise when I came over here in America. I saw a beautiful parade coming down a street soon after I got over and I asked who was being married.
“Why that’s a funeral, not a wedding’ said somebody.”
” ‘Why do they make so much over somebody who is dead?’ I asked him. The man couldn’t give me an answer and I decided right there that our plan was the best.”
“Do all German weddings have big displays like this wedding of your daughter?”
“This is nothing. When we have marriages over there the whole town celebrates. Somebody gets married about four times a year in the little villages and every house is trimmed up with flags and every taxpayer comes out when the procession comes by.”
“Did you have a marriage of this kind?”
“Did I? Well I should say I did. My wife Emma and me was married in 1873 under a tent in front of the town hall. My mother was married the same way, and so I wanted to have this ceremony in the same way.”
“Did they make as much fuss over your wedding as they are making over this?”
“Why this isn’t any fuss at all. You ought to come over to Hanover and see how we fix up things there. Our houses are so small that we have our weddings and dances outside. This is a fine country but it doesn’t look like Deutschland.”
“Then you are homesick for that?”
“No, not exactly; but it would be a good thing to those towns und die Madchen again.
“I like America all right. I was telling a fellow how good the old country was, and I said to him that over there we could get two pounds of cocoa for 7 cents. He got mad when I said that.”
“Well, why didn’t you stay over there, then” says he.
” ‘It was too hards to get the 7 cents,’ said I.”
This is the end of Part 3 that concerns the wedding day festivities.Below are some items that struck me as I typed the article.
One has to wonder what time the Rohlwing and Pfingsten households rose in the morning to start what must have been a very long day.
It seemed like there was a lot of back and forthing for the bride, didn’t it?
What a sight that must have been with all of those people in carriages and on foot going to the Rohlwing home and then the church and then to the Pfingsten home. Who took care of the horses during the day?
With both bands joining the organist in a church that held about 250 people, it must have been quite a concert for both, those in the church, and the many people standing outside. Maybe it was planned that way.
If you’d like to listen to a version of “Vergangene Zeiten”, you can hear it online here.
The reporter has the information about Mr. Rohlwing’s wife and his marriage incorrect. John Henry Rohlwing, the father of Emma Rohlwing, was born in Schaumburg in 1860 and married his wife, Louise Lichthardt, in 1881 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. Even if we consider that they might have been talking to Mr. Rohlwing’s father, that would be incorrect too as he died in 1870 in Schaumburg. It is difficult to believe that the reporter would have the bride’s father wrong but, with so many people there, he may have heard a good story from another guest. If we also take into consideration that it might have been William Pfingsten, the father of the groom, that is incorrect as well. William was also born in Schaumburg, only a year later than Mr. Pfingsten, in 1861. He and his wife, Sophia Thies, married in 1880, at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. Mr. Pfingsten’s father married Sophia Schuette and died in 1894. So we have struck out in all ways.
Part 4 will appear next week and will give a description of what it was to be a German resident of Schaumburg Township in 1903.
Jane Rozek Local History Librarian Schaumburg Township District Library jrozek@stdl.org
Standing outside of St. Peter Lutheran Church after the wedding ceremony. Photo courtesy of the Pfingsten family.
It seems that the wedding of the century is the gift that keeps on giving. Over 10 years ago I wrote about the September 3, 1903 wedding of Emma Rohlwing and Fred Pfingsten that took place at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Schaumburg Township. It was a huge wedding that took over a year of preparation with the celebration lasting for three days!
A detailed account of the wedding was published in The Inter Ocean newspaper in Chicago a few days after the wedding on September 6, 1903. Until a month ago, I’d never seen the actual newspaper but, here, thanks to Gary Biesterfeld, is the issue itself! Because the details are so fascinating, I will be reprinting the entire article. All spellings and lower case/upper case elements have been left intact.
The article gives you a good idea of how intense the preparations were for such an event. It was not today’s “rent a hall and call a good caterer” sort of thing. This wedding was a year in the making and had to have taken countless hours, lists and conversations. Today we can only imagine…
THE MOST UNIQUE WEDDING EVER HELD IN COOK COUNTY “THREE THOUSAND GERMANS IN A ROLLICKING THREE-DAY FESTIVAL”
Married–Rohlwing-Pfingsten–At the German Evangelical Lutheran church, Schaumberg, Cook county, by the Rev. G.A. Mueller, Miss Emma Rohlwing and F.W. Pfingsten, Thursday, September 3, 1903
THE MENU
1800 pounds of meat 4 hogsheads of pickles 8 barrels of sauerkraut 150 gallons of gooseberry shrub 5 10-gallon kettles of soup 3 big tubs of potato salad 200 pounds of headcheese 2 milkcans of ausereihuf 200 gooseberry pies 60 nienleier cakes Cigars Beer
Of course you know where Schaumberg is. Therefore it’s not necessary to say that, in order to get there, you take a train to Elgin and then walk or ride fourteen miles east, or got to Palatine and drive nearly as far west, or get off at Ontarioville and go “cross-lots,” or get to Dundee in some way and then over in one of the farmers’ rigs. Really, it is very simple when you know how.
IDEAL GERMAN
The little town nestles down between the hills which crown the Fox river valley. Really, there isn’t much of a town, for the people have small need of shops and stores, for they make or raise nearly every thing they need. The village church, a blacksmith shop over which a hardy citizen presides, a department store where one can get almost anything from needles to pitchforks–this constitutes the town.
There is neither railroad, telegraph, nor express office in Schaumberg, nor is there a bank, but there are good, strong, and industrious people thereabouts, and the little town is the center of one of the most interesting communities in Cook county. For here the people gather for church services on Sunday, and that it is an educational center is shown in the two schoolhouses. Strictly speaking, there are two towns–Elk Grove and Schaumberg–and the country there was settled over fifty years ago by the Germans. Today the population remains almost entirely German-American; the farmers own their own property, and their prosperity is at once apparent to the visitor who comes into this quaint settlement for the first time.
It was at Schaumberg that the marriage took place, in the presence of a crowd which filled the Evangelical Lutheran church to overflowing, with bands playing and hundreds who could not get in the church cheering outside. In all there were 3,000 people present. But the wedding ceremony was an incident.
Prepared for Wedding a Year Ago
Almost a year ago preparations for the wedding were begun. Mrs. John Rohlwing, mother of the bride, and her daughters gathered bushels of gooseberries which were crushed in their cider mill, and then put into stone jars, which were buried in the ground. More gooseberries were preserved whole with a thick sirup. Supervisor Rohlwing picked out his best cattle and turned them into a lot which never before had been used for pasturage. He selected his finest hogs and piled the sty he put up especially for them with the biggest red ears of corn. Back of one of his barns an enclosure was made for the chickens, and these were fed about five times a day and not allowed to run about.
In January, with a full moon in the right place, the pigs were slaughtered and the feet put in brine, the hams and shoulders taken to the smoke-house–where green hickory was made to smolder by heaping embers over it–headcheese was made and carefully put away in the cellar.
Not One Thing Was Left Undone
Later the calves were fattened, the sauerkraut weighted with stones and put away, and then the cucumbers were pickled, pears bottled with old burgundy, and neighbors consulted about giving their help.
In the meantime the father and mother of the prospective groom were none the less active. Professor Pfingsten had been making preparations for the happy event for months, and the neighborhood was sympathetically interested in all that was going on.
On last Monday all these neighbors went to the Pfingsten farm. There were about twenty of them, and some came many miles, but out in that part of Cook county ten or twelve miles do not prevent people from being neighbors.
Mr. Pfingsten had built a “Dutch” oven against the stone wall of his barn foundation, and there the ausereihuf was browned and the cakes baked. A number of brand-new wash tubs, from which the potato salad was served Thursday, were used as mixing bowls, and when the cooks were through the dough was spread out on soap-stone bricks, which were shoved into the oven.
Everything Done On A Generous Scale
While the stuff was baking, chocolate and cocoa were heated in a big kettle, and when the cake was done this rich mixture was spread on a half-inch thick. The cakes were piled up then until they were nine high, and little red seeds, which none of the people knew the name of Thursday, were sprinkled over the top layer.
Raising a toast after the wedding. Photo courtesy of the Pfingsten family.
While the women folk were doing this the husbands of the women were helping Mr. Pfingsten unload the two big wagons of beer that had come over from Elgin.
Ice, which the farmers had gathered from Fox river, fourteen miles away, last winter was piled over the kegs, which were placed under a tent. Six men, all bachelors, following the old German custom, served this, and, according to the legend which the Germans have, they climbed one step of the ladder toward matrimony every time the health of the bride was drunk.
Preparing for the Visitors
Wednesday Mr. Rohlwing and his nearest neighbors began to put up the tents which were to shelter the bridal party. One canvas was spread over the beer, two over sixty-foot tables on which the feast was spread, one above the small tables put out in front of the farmhouse for penuchle players and the largest one of the lot over a platform on which the guests danced from Thursday afternoon until the following morning.
On the porch of the Pfingsten home was a pile of blankets, and when it came dark and the dew began to fall, the neighbors wrapped themselves in these. Lanterns, candles, and kerosene lamps threw flickering light on the scene, as a campfire might.
This is the end of Part 2 that concerns all of the wedding preparations.Below are some items that struck me as I typed the article.
Nienleier cakes are “nine-layer cakes.”
Ausereihuf continues to be a mystery. What is puzzling is that it was “browned” but also stored in two milk cans. According to this link, “Older milk cans from the 19th century tend to be larger, often holding up to 25 gallons. If a milk can is this size, it likely dates to before 1920.”One has to think it was a liquid substance but what would have been browned?In researching this word, I have turned to a contact in Germany and it’s also been sent to the Berlin Public Library and a Napoleon listserv to see if anyone can discern the meaning and/or root of the word. No luck. Each one of those locations evaluated the derivatives of the word. Suggestions on the listserv were: (1) erei is most like “egg” and it was suggested that huf might be “oeuf” or egg, which means it could be something like eggnog (2) maybe the words are “eau cerise d’oeuf” which would be some type of egg cherry dish (3) A Sauferei is a drinking binge. If you can help us out, please put your idea in a Comment or send me an email.
The fact that they mention that Schaumburg Township is fairly self-sustaining confirms what has always been thought. The farmers required the bare necessities–a church, a blacksmith and a general store.
Obviously, with 3000 people as guests, there was no way they were all going to fit in the church that maybe holds 200 people. It makes sense, then, that most people stood outside during the wedding. And that the ceremony was largely incidentalto the party afterwards!
Most of us have heard of planting crops by the phase of the moon but have you heard of slaughtering by a phase of the moon? After a quick Google search, it appears there is a saying called the “butcher’s moon.”
It is interesting that pinochle, the card game is referred to here as “penuchle.”
Part 3 will appear next week and will give details on the wedding and the celebration.
Jane Rozek Local History Librarian Schaumburg Township District Library jrozek@stdl.org
I first wrote this post in 2011. It seemed an appropriate time to repost it. Additional details have been added.
This beautiful, little girl died at the age of 8 on December 25, 1918. Her name was Lanora Troyke and she contracted the influenza that was sweeping the nation. Not even the rural hamlet of Schaumburg Township could escape the pandemic that would inevitably kill up to 675,000 people.
With its beginnings in January 1918, the pandemic didn’t really erupt until June of the same year. It was accelerated by troop movements in the declining days of World War I.
In fact, in her book, A Schaumburg Farm, 1935-1964, LaVonne Presley talks about her father, William Thies, being “inducted in the midst of a flu epidemic, but [he] did not contract the flu. On the troop train carrying the recruits to Georgia for training, many young men became ill and died. William felt lucky to have survived the trip.”
By late summer, the pandemic was in its second wave and was more deadly than the first. Louise Bremer died on October 1, 1918. On October 17, Dr. Theobald, a local veterinarian, sent a letter to William Thies telling him, “The Spanish Influenza is raising havoc around this neighborhood, quite a few people having died and hundreds of them being sick with it. The Doctors are on the jump all the time, schools and churches are closed and picnics prohibited.”
He could have easily been referring to William and Wihelmina Dohl. Like the swine flu epidemic of 2009, this pandemic seemed to hit young, seemingly healthy people more severely. Mr. Dohl became very ill, very fast and was taken to Oak Park Hospital almost immediately on Wednesday, October 2. Despite being ill herself, Mrs. Dohl visited him on Thursday. According to the Cook County Herald, “Upon her return home, she went to bed at once… They both died at the same hour Saturday noon. The double funeral was held Tuesday. They leave a son 11 years [Elmer], daughter 7 years [Malinda] who were also very dangerously ill with the malady, but hopes are entertained for their speedy recovery.”
Mr. and Mrs. Dohl were 34 years old and buried at St. John Lutheran Church on Rodenburg Road. In an oral history that is on the library’s Local History Digital Archive, Erna (Lichthardt) Hunerberg recalled that after the caskets were pushed out of the house, they closed the house as a method of quarantine.
It continued to be a scary month. The October 18, 1918 issue of the Cook County Herald said, “Fred Botterman and family are ill of influenza.” That very day, five year old Paul Krentz died.
On October 23, Pastor Gottlob Theiss of St. Peter Lutheran Church sent William Thies a letter bringing him up to date on these tragedies and others. “I just got it today from your cousin Tillie when I called there to see how they were getting on there. You know they all had the influenza except August and Edwin. They are all over it but Martha, and she is almost well. We have a great deal of the plague around here, so far there have been two deaths, Alma Bahe and Karl Schroeder her brother in law. Alma was buried a week ago today and Karl Schroeder yesterday. We could not have the funerals in church because church and schools have been closed for two weeks already. I wonder how conditions are down there in your camp. Have you any cases of influenza? They are not sending any boys to the camps from here just now on account of the plague.”
The influenza affected those who were unaffected–or who had recovered. The November 1 paper mentioned that “F.W. Botterman and son Alfred are at Dundee on the Henry Nerge farm as the entire Nerge family are laid up with the influenza.”
The chores had to be done and it was truly a time of neighbor helping neighbor as displayed in this letter of October 26th to William from Wanda Boergener. “Isn’t it awful with the sickness? Panzers are sick except Hubert and Ella. Henry has to go there night and morning to milk and do chores. Eddy Stein is sick too. Isn’t it too bad with Tilly Biesterfield? The old Folks are there all alone now.”
By late October some of the worst must have been over. In a November 1, article from the Cook County Herald, it was stated that “Schaumburg schools opened Tuesday. Church services will be resumed Sunday. Anyone who has the influenza in their family is requested to stay home.” And they must have because the same column reported that there was “slim attendance owing to the flu epidemic.”
December, though, still found the flu in the township. In her personal account, Erna (Licthardt) Hunerberg recalled its impact on her family. Calling it the Spanish flu, she remembered getting sick on December 6 at the age of 12. The rest of her family was not immune either. Having told them that Santa was sick too, Erna’s parents postponed Christmas until the 29th when everyone was feeling better.
In fact, the December 13, 1918 Cook County Herald reported that “The Flu seems to be on the increase. Several new cases where entire families are down with it were reported last week.”
The Troyke family, however, did not fare as well over the holidays. Young Lanora died on Christmas Day and was buried in St. Peter Lutheran Church Cemetery. She left her parents, two sisters and three brothers to mourn the loss of a young, adorable girl who simply could not escape the nasty illness that swept our country.
Jane Rozek
Local History Librarian
Schaumburg Township District Library
jrozek@stdl.org
This posting was written with the assistance of letters saved by the William Thies family, Cemetery Walk scripts on Lanora Troyke and Wilhelmina Dohl researched and written by Nancy Lyons of the Schaumburg Township Historical Society, an oral history of Erna (Lichthardt) Hunerberg conducted by FPSAH and articles from the Cook County Herald.
Credit for the photos of the tombstones of William and Wilhelmine Dohl and Lenora Troyke is given to Karen on findagrave.com
Rasmussen Room
Schaumburg Township District Library
130 S. Roselle Road, Schaumburg
The Schaumburg Township District Library is delighted to welcome back Larry Nerge, a direct descendent of the area’s rural German families.
In this interactive workshop, he will guide you through his explorations, techniques, methods of sharing his finds, and observations of the family relationships of our German predecessors.
Larry has been researching his family history for 42 years and has compiled a database of over 141,000 individuals. His ancestors came from Schaumburg, Germany and he has traced many of his direct and indirect German families going back 300 to 400 years. Moving forward in America, he has tied together the German families in our area.
It is a wonderful opportunity to learn, ask questions, share your genealogy and, possibly, meet up with some of the branches of your family tree. We hope to see you there!
The Schaumburg Township Historical Society will sponsor an open house of the Schaumburg Center School on Sunday, November 11, 2018. The open house will be held from 9 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The schoolhouse is located on the St. Peter Lutheran Church property.
Constructed in 1872–and first called Sarah’s Grove School, it is believed to have been the first of five public schools in Schaumburg Township. It was later renamed Schween’s Grove School and called Schaumburg Centre Public School until 1954. For 82 years, the building served as a one-room schoolhouse, and was the last active one room schoolhouse in District 54.
With the widening of Schaumburg Road, the building was saved from demolition and temporarily placed on the grounds of the Town Square Shopping Center in 1979. It was permanently relocated to the St. Peter Lutheran Church property in September, 1981. It has been fully restored as a museum and is under the auspices of the Schaumburg Township Historical Society.
The Schaumburg Township Historical Society will sponsor an open house of the Schaumburg Center School on Sunday, October 14, 2018. The open house will be held from 9 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The schoolhouse is located on the St. Peter Lutheran Church property.
Constructed in 1872–and first called Sarah’s Grove School, it is believed to have been the first of five public schools in Schaumburg Township. It was later renamed Schween’s Grove School and called Schaumburg Centre Public School until 1954. For 82 years, the building served as a one-room schoolhouse, and was the last active one room schoolhouse in District 54.
With the widening of Schaumburg Road, the building was saved from demolition and temporarily placed on the grounds of the Town Square Shopping Center in 1979. It was permanently relocated to the St. Peter Lutheran Church property in September, 1981. It has been fully restored as a museum and is under the auspices of the Schaumburg Township Historical Society.
The Schaumburg Township Historical Society will sponsor an open house of the Schaumburg Center School on Sunday, September 9, 2018. The open house will be held from 9 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The schoolhouse is located on the St. Peter Lutheran Church property.
Constructed in 1872–and first called Sarah’s Grove School, it is believed to have been the first of five public schools in Schaumburg Township. It was later renamed Schween’s Grove School and called Schaumburg Centre Public School until 1954. For 82 years, the building served as a one-room schoolhouse, and was the last active one room schoolhouse in District 54.
With the widening of Schaumburg Road, the building was saved from demolition and temporarily placed on the grounds of the Town Square Shopping Center in 1979. It was permanently relocated to the St. Peter Lutheran Church property in September, 1981. It has been fully restored as a museum and is under the auspices of the Schaumburg Township Historical Society.
The Schaumburg Township Historical Society will sponsor a series of open houses and events at the Schaumburg Center School on the dates below from 12-3 p.m. The schoolhouse is located on the St. Peter Lutheran Church property at 202 E. Schaumburg Road in Schaumburg.
History of Schaumburg Township 