(Narration compiled and written by June Koch Price, granddaughter of Seeley Lindeman. The Letters were transcribed and typed by Susanne Lindeman Lang, daughter of Harry Lindeman.)
Imagine it is the morning of June 16, 1860. Morris Lindeman is living with his family in San Francisco. He is 41 years old. A huckster born in Posen, Germany. His wife Yetta is 40 years old.
Gold Rush Days are in full swing, and San Francisco is the hub of travel between the gold fields and the adventurous… from Europe as well as the eastern United States. Numerous ships jam the San Francisco harbor having completed their trip “around the horn.” Many passengers have also arrived from New York via Nicaragua, a train trip across the Isthmus of Panama, and then again by ship up the west coast of Mexico and California.
Other Lindeman relatives are living in California. There is Ernst Caro and Charlie, in San Francisco, Isidor Caro in Siskiyou County in the mountains of northern California and his brother Morris “in the hat store.” All of them no doubt recent immigrants to the United States from their homeland of Germany and Poland.
The preface of Rasmussen’s book, San Francisco Ship’s Passenger Lists notes that “One eastern steamship line has reduced their cabin passage fare to one hundred and twenty five dollars [It was one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars in earlier times.] so business has been brisk ” Each steamship is welcomed by “a swarming crowd of residents, for the steamer is like a memory which bound them to the past [and reminds them] of distant shores and homes of other days. “
The California census taker records, that day of June 16, 1860, that the Lindeman’s oldest child, Gustav (below), is 16 (born in Germany, September 6, 1845), Simon is 11 and was born in England (there is no record of where or when); their daughter Fanny is 4 and born in Illinois so they had been in the United States for several years before making the California trip.
Hannah L. Schwarz states Morris was born in Posen, October 1818 and came to the USA in 1854. (When more than one date was found, the dates found in Hannah’s Family Bible are used.)
Yetta (Henrietta) Caro was born in Posen, January 27, 1820, and came to the USA in 1839. A family legend says that her uncle, or perhaps her grandfather, was the village postmaster and their town was named Caro in his honor. So far, no ship records of Morris’s travels have been found. Jewish immigrants were cautious and often concealed their identity as much as possible. This may have been true in this case.
Edith Lindeman Calisch writes that Morris was a practicing Orthodox Jew. Her mother May remembers seeing him in 1896 or 97 when he was living with Gustav and Henrietta. He was sitting upright in bed wearing a top hat and tallis reciting his prayers. (Tallis, or tallith, is an undergarment worn by orthodox Jewish men covering the chest and the upper part of the back. It has an opening for the head, and has tassels called zizith, on its four corners. It is also a tasseled shawl or scarf worn over the head or thrown around the shoulders by men, usually during morning prayer.
It is obvious in their letters that Morris and Yetta were dedicated Jews. They often admonished their young sons to “keep the holidays” while the family was separated. There are nineteen loving letters from Morris and Yetta to their sons during the Civil War period that have been deciphered and typed for the family descendants by their great-granddaughter, Susanne L. Lang. It seems unlikely that Morris or Yetta could read and write in English. Infact, several references are made in the letters regarding those who were taking their dictation.
In brief summary the letters tell us that:
Morris and Yetta left San Francisco May 16, 1862 aboard the steamship Golden Age. Apparently, there was not enough money for the whole family to buy passage so the boys, Gustav (then 17) and Simon (13) were left behind with friends and “Cousin Charlie” (Caro?) until they could save enough money to make the trip. The Panama Canal was not completed until 1914 so passage from San Francisco ended in Panama. Passengers in the late 1800’s traveled overland across the sweltering Isthmus by train to board another steamer for the trip north to New York.
Josephine Schwarz said Yetta was pregnant, and they intended to return to Europe. Yetta refused to have her baby in San Francisco -”that dreadfully sinful city!” When they reached New York, Yetta was unable to continue the trip, so they turned west and went to Cincinnati where relatives named Heimerling lived.
That fall Morris was almost drafted into the Union army. He was able to “buy”’ a replacement, a common occurrence at the time, in order to stay with his sick wife, new twin daughters Dora and Susy, and the older daughter, Fanny, then six.
Cincinnati was under martial law as the Civil War continued and times were very hard. The following year the family began planning their return to California. They sold all the furniture, but Yetta was not able to travel, and, as Morris writes his sons, “It being war here, there is no business whatever. “
In the spring of 1863 Morris made a trip south into rebel country with several partners to provision the military camps near Murfreesboro and Nashville, Tennessee. Luck was not theirs. Morris lost $300 in the venture; on a second trip he made only a $50 profit. Future peddling ventures to the army camps were not successful either, and what little he earned he spent caring for his ailing wife. But he continued his trips to Nashville as they planned their return to California in 1864. He hoped to bring goods (he mentions jewelry) with him that he could sell at auction.
Josephine [daughter of Hannah Lindeman Schwarz] remembers hearing another story about their provisioning the people of the south. Morris and his partners had their provisions on a tow barge, but when they got to Louisville there was no one to unload the boats as the negroes [sic] who did that kind of work had moved north. The eggs and butter sat on the dock and were ruined. Morris lost $300 in that venture, also.
Things were better in California. Gustav was able to send his parents a little money from his job at Hayes Park, which I think was also known as the McGuire Opera House. [Ed. Note-Hayes Park was an amusement pavilion some distance from town. The Opera House was a separate entity, in the downtown part of San Francisco] It is likely that he first learned cooking skills here and worked in the saloon during these years. By 1865 he had also enlisted for service in the California National (or Home) Guard.
Rasmussen describes the changes in San Francisco during the early 1850’s
“… Gambling places which had resounded with the clinking of money were now in a measure being metamorphosed into dry goods stores. A goodly number of saloons, which were running gambling on the side, changed their gambling tables for billiard tables. Those places hard-pressed to locate billiard tables hired violinists and piano players (when they were lucky enough to acquire a piano)...To be sure, there was still gambling to be found in the city and there was an inordinate amount of saloons. But the day was not far distant when the public gambling house in San Francisco would no longer outnumber schoolhouses. The saloons were a different matter- they were ‘institutions’.“
It was no doubt a similar experience for Gustav living there ten years later when he was employed by Burns and McGuire, the new owners of McGuire’s Opera House. (Gustav’s address book at the back of his journal lists Mr. J. H. Burns, Mr. J Maguire, and Mr. T. Maguire of Maguire’s Opera House, San Francisco Cal.
In February of 1865 (three years after his parents left San Francisco) Simon, now 16, arrived in Cincinnati and surprised his parents. Morris wrote Gustav:
“I was just passing... Court Street, a young man was calling on me, ‘Father, don’t you know your child?’ I was surprised and looked on him and finally I recognized my dear son, Simon.”
“Simon feels very happy here...I bought him two suits of clothing from top to bottom and expended for it $60.”
Their financial situation had evidently improved!
The letters:
At last Gustav was able to save enough money to travel by ship back to his family in Cincinnati. He began a short journal of his experience. The spelling is quite “creative” and the small, penciled notes are difficult to read. Harry Lindeman (in the late 1970’s) deciphered the small, penciled journal. He’s to be commended for his efforts at decoding the creative spelling. Harry also noted that this was Gustav’s second trip to California. That he was taken to California by an uncle, when he was 13, who made a “slavey” of him. He ran away at 15 and worked in a saloon. Harry states that Gustav “made two trips back to Cincinnati by boat. Storm wrecked water casks on the first trip and they boiled sea water several times, so they had a little to drink. ” At least one of his travels by ship went “around the horn” according to Emma Dhonau and Etta Koch. The only existing journal is of his trip from San Francisco to New York in 1865 when Gustav was 19.
On May 13, of 1865 Gustav left San Francisco on the Steamer America
On May 26th they arrived at San Juan where they took on 150 tons of coal to proceed to Panama.
On May 28th they continued along the coast of Mexico to Panama where they arrived on May 31. They waited over a week for arrangements to be made to continue their trip. The weather was hot and rainy but finally on June 9 they continued their journey in spite of sickness among the passengers. They spent several days in the harbor of Taboga and Gus mentions death of a child, and a fight between the cook and one of the bakers.
“While dinner was being prepared, the 2nd baker was telling one of the cooks to get out of the way and some more words passed and ended in a fight in which the baker was cut across the nose. The pantryman and the cook were put in irons and tied up to the riggings, the baker was put in irons for causing the death of a child!”
On June 11 he wrote “We are again in the harbor of Panama. A man died early this morning from a fever … “
He also told of sleeping on the floor of the steamer and the cool rainy nights. He also made note of the stabbing of the baggage man in a quarrel “on account of one of our lady passengers.” More rain, and the complaint… “can’t sleep, for the mosquitoes trouble us so... “
His entry for June 17 reads:
“On board the Steamer Ocean Queen. We all got on board the steamer last night in a very hard sea. Got soaking wet. No place to sleep for none of our passengers. It has been raining all day and night. Been sick all the time. The sea is very rough. A great many of our passengers a lot sicker. A child of two months died. “
Two days later on the 19th he wrote.
“On board the Steamer Ocean Queen. Health a little better. The passengers are feeling a great deal better. A man died in the steerage last night of fits...Weather cool and pleasant. Slept on a chair all night. Arrived at the Island of San Domingo at 4 o’clock p.m. weather cloudy.”
On the 21st he notes there was a meeting of the passengers to sue the PCM SS for taking so many passengers aboard, however, things must have improved the last few days of their journey because on the 24th a meeting was held to “…return thanks to Captain Meary for the good treatment we received. “
Gustav arrived at his destination on June 24, 1865 and marked the event with this entry.
“We are now at the red lighthouse 6 o’clock a.m. 10 miles from New York.” He continued on to Cincinnati (probably by rail) and was soon reunited with his family in Cincinnati after three years of separation.
Gus’s Diary of Voyages Home:
Another three years passed and on May 10, of 1868 Gustav and Henrietta Okes (Oaks) were married. Henrietta Okes was also nicknamed Yetta, but for the purposes of these pages we’ll continue to refer to her as Henrietta. It was from these two grandmothers that Etta Lindeman received her name at her birth in 1904.
Scanty information about Morris, Yetta or Simon has been found after the conclusion of Morris’ letters to California and Gustav’s diary.
Family records show that Fanny later married Louis Oppenheimer and had several children. Dora married a tobacco farmer and lived in Union (county?) Indiana on the Ohio line. One group photo of the family taken about 1902 or 03 shows Susy, now Aunt Sue Ludwig and three of her young children (Harold, Janet and a younger child “baby”) as well as Fanny, Gustav and Yetta, Grandma Okes and other family and friends.
Hannah writes that Yetta died Feb 7, 1891. Morris lived with Gustav, and perhaps his daughters, Fanny, Dora and Susy, until his death Aug 13, 1903. A family “legend” says that the Lindeman’s were related to Ignace Paderewski (1860 – 1941) the Polish pianist and composer. Paderewski was born in Podolia and trained at the Warsaw Conservatory, but no research has been done to prove or disprove his relationship with the Lindeman family.
[Ed. Note. -After returning to Cincinnati Gus received letters from San Francisco friends and California National Guard comrades. There is also a later letter offering him a catering position in Rochester, New York where he took the family for four years before returning to Cincinnati. Finally, there is a strange letter for which there is no explanation, since nobody mentioned is recognized or identified.]
Letters From Friends in San Francisco: