Found Heirloom: Hecht Family Bible

This is a LOOOOOONG post, I know, but it has helped me to summarize my findings as I gather them. For those who use Ancestry.com, you can also view the family here.

Sometime in the late 1980's or early 1990's, my mother and I went to a garage sale on West 6th Street in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I remember the day perhaps only because I later lived just around the corner from that house. It sits at an odd angle, unlike any of the other houses on the block, and I can still picture the sale there.

That's where my mother found this old German Bible. As I remember, the woman of the house had been recently divorced, and the Bible had been passed down in her ex-husband's family. My mother paid $10 and took it home, though we had no connection to it, because we couldn't stand the thought of it being thrown out with the trash. It's not in good shape now, but it once meant something to someone.

We hoped to find someone in the family who would want it. That person must be out there, somewhere. I'm getting closer to finding him or her, because thanks to the Internet, I know more about the family named inside.


Inside the front cover, in aged ink, the lady of the family is named:

Louise Schmitt
[illegible]
Confirmations Tag -
den 5ten May 1867.
L. Austermann
Pastor

L. Austermann, it turns out, was the pastor of Zion United Church of Christ in Peru, Illinois.

On March 15, 1866, Rev. L. Austmann became Pastor. It was while he was the Pastor that the Church was built. At a special Congregational Meeting on June 4, 1871, they decided to build a tower onto the church. In the summer of 1872 two church bells were installed into the tower, and for the first time in the history of Peru the people were called to worship by means of the clear ringing bells that were imported from Germany. Rev. Austermann served the congregation until 1874.
source: http://www.zionperu.org/history.htm

I've figured out that Louise was the daughter of Philip and Margaret Schmitt, of Peru, La Salle County, Illinois. They were both born in Hessen (Germany) and came to the US around 1855 or 1856. After a short stay in Pennsylvania, they moved on to Illinois. They had a large family:

Henry Schmitt, b. abt 1853 in Hessen (Germany)
William Schmitt, b. abt 1855 in Hessen (Germany)
Louis Schmitt, b. abt 1856 in Pennsylvania
Louisa Schmitt, b. abt 1858 in Illinois
Frank Schmitt, b. abt 1861 in Illinois
John Schmitt, b. abt 1864 in Illinois
Mary Schmitt, b. abt 1867 in Illinois
Ella Schmitt, b. abt 1869 in Illinois

Louisa married a man named Jacob Hecht. My first search was at Ancestry.com, where I put in the name "Jacob Hecht" and his birth year as stated in the Bible. I was immediately led to the family in Peoria, Illinois, from 1870 (when Jacob was single and working as a butcher) through 1920. From 1880 to 1920 they are shown at the same address at 2109 Adams Street.

1870

1880

(The Hechts' son Gerson seems to have been nicknamed "Cassie," which I've never heard given to a male. Given the name, though, it's not surprising that the cenus taker enumerated "Hecht, Casse" as a girl.) The 1890 Peoria directory offers some explanation: a son named Casper is listed as living at the same address as Jacob, working as a clerk for Jacob Hecht. Perhaps his full name was Gerson Casper Hecht?

1900

1910

1920

Another Google search led me to a biographical paragraph about Jacob in the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, 1902:

HECHT, JACOB; Merchant; Peoria; born in Giershofen, Prussia, February 20, 1848: son of Gerson and Dorothea (Baer) Hecht, the former of Giershofen and the latter of Puderbach, Prussia. Mr. Jacob Hecht learned his trade while working with his father who was a butcher and dealer in cattle. In 1867 he came to Illinois, stopping for a time at Springfield and La Salle, and in the fall of 1868 located in Peoria. For two years he worked for wages, and in 1871 engaged in business for himself. In 1885 he and his brother Solomon engaged in the clothing business, under the firm name of Hecht Brothers, which has proved very successful. Mr. Hecht owns the buildings at Nos. 2109 and 2111 South Adams Street, where he conducts his business: he also owns other valuable property in Peoria. In politics Mr. Hecht is a Republican. In 1891-2 he was fruit inspector, and in 1895 he was elected Alderman of the Seventh Ward and re-elected in 1898; he was a prominent member of the Seventh Ward Republican Club, of which he was President in 1899. He is a Mason; a member of the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America; he is a member of the Swedzeit Turnverein, of which he has been the presiding officer. Mr. Hecht was married to Louisa Schmidt in Peoria, August 22, 1871. They have four children living; Gerson, Jacob, Bertha and Louisa. In 1883 Mr. Hecht visited his parents and traveled through various parts of Germany, France and England. Mr. Hecht is one of the substantial and influential men of the Seventh Ward.

source: http://www.peoriacountyillinois.info/bios/1902bios_h.html#hechtjacob

I was intrigued. Giershofen and Puderbach are not terribly far (by American standards, anyway) from the places where I once lived in Germany. It's like Jacob and Louise's Bible was meant to find me.

The 1883-1884 city directory, posted online here, confirms that Jacob Hecht was a butcher, working at 2109 S. Adams Street.


On 13 Oct 1915, the Edwardsville (IL) Intelligencer carried the story of Jacob's attempt to gain citizenship. He was denied by the judge because he had previously voted--illegally, as he was an alien.


Jacob must have sold his store in 1919, because the Chicago Heights Star of 18 Sep 1919 carried an advertisement from a local department store, Lassers & Company, announcing that it had bought out the inventory of Jacob Hecht, Peoria, Ill.


You know, Jacob was probably not my kind of guy... He was, after all, a butcher, and I'm a vegetarian. I won't even go into the fact that he was a Republican, and I am... not. (OK, OK, it wasn't quite the same in those days, ha.) Nonetheless, I'm starting to feel like I know him. I even found his picture, originally printed in the Standard Atlas of Peoria City & County, Illinois and posted online here. I have to admit, I felt a little bad for him. The guy was a mover and a shaker in Peoria, and then within a few years, he was publicly embarrassed by this citizenship fiasco and, for some reason, had to sell off his store inventory at a cut rate.


But he still had friends. When Col. John Warner, who had been elected mayor of Peoria eight times, died in 1920, Jacob was named an honorary pallbearer.

Back to the Bible... Here's the page of family records--some in ink, some in pencil.


From the Bible and these three census records, I know that the Jacob and Louise had the following children:

Gerson "Cassie" Hecht, b. 2 May 1872 - a butcher in 1900
Jacob "Jackie" Hecht, b. 8 Sept. 1873 - a city inspector in 1900
Harry Edward Hecht, b. 2 Oct 1879, d. 19 Feb 1881
Emma Bertha Hecht, b. 11 Aug 1881
Louisa Hecht, b. 26 Oct 1886

and then there's...
Elsie Hazel Hecht, b. 6 Dec 1893

But what's the deal with this Elsie?

Elsie, I think, may have been Jacob and Louisa's granddaughter, the daughter of Jacob Hecht, Jr. Unfortunately, Jacob Jr. is confusing in his own right. He appears in the 1900 census, living with his parents.. but there's also another Jacob Hecht in Peoria, married to Rose, with daughter Elsie, who appears to be a match. Was he enumerated in two places? Why?

I would discount the second Jacob Hecht if not for the fact that there's no other explanation for the existence of Elsie. If she is the same one I find in the census, she moved with her parents to Chicago (where my supposed Jacob Jr. is a butcher--another hint that he may be a match), married George Conybear, and had a daughter named Dorothy Conybear around 1923.

I haven't yet found any information on the Hecht/Conybear line, except that according to the Database of Illinois Death Certificates, 1916 - 1950, a Jacob Hecht died on 19 May 1938 and a George Conybear died on 4 May 1948, both in Chicago. My next step may be ordering their death certificate and searching for obituaries, in the hopes that it names family members.

Meanwhile Jacob and Louise's daughter Emma Bertha--who went by her middle name, it seems--married a widower named Edmund Schnur around 1903. Edmund was a cigar maker in Peoria, according to the 1900, 1910, and 1920 censuses. His first wife, Anna, had a daughter named Martha (later Mrs. William Luna of Des Moines, Iowa), but Anna died around 1901.

Bertha and Edmund had at least two children, Edna (born about 1904) and Bernard (born about 1907). They are both named in the Bible.

Schnur 1910

Schnur 1920

The same death records index linked above lists a Bertha Schnur who died on 3 May 1941, in Chicago, as well as an Emma Schnur who died on 11 March 1930, in Berwyn, Cook County, Illinois. The Social Security Death Index lists someone named B. E. Schnur (maybe Bernard?), born in December 1906, who died in 2000, in Johnson County, Illinois.

With all this, I'm still stuck. I wasn't able to trace the Schmitts or Hechts any further into the future (at least from the comfort of my computer chair). I decided to turn to Jacob's brother, Solomon, mentioned in the short biography.

I found him in Peoria in 1900, single and rooming with the Fredrick Ernst family at 101 Louisa Street, not far from his brother Jacob's home:

Solomon worked as a merchants in the dry goods business. He said he had come to the US in 1884, which was around the time that he and brother Jacob started their clothing business.

In the 1890 Peoria directory, online at Ancestry.com, Solomon is found with two attached addresses, 2109 and 2027 S. Adams.

Solomon Hecht 1900

But seeing that Solomon was still unmarried at the age of 38 made me think that I was unlikely to find many descendants, anyway. However, if I could find his obituary, it might name nieces and nephews.

So for the moment I'm at a dead end. I think to get any further, I'm going to have to pull out my wallet and start ordering some death certificates and obituaries. My first priority would be those of Louise Schmitt Hecht herself, and the Illinois Statewide Death Index includes two Louise Hechts who died in the 1930's, one in Chicago.

I'm OK with putting more effort into the search, as I'm fond of this Bible and would like to send it "home." As with most family history projects, it's just going to take some time. I just hope that, somewhere out there, there's somebody who wants to take care of Louise's Bible at least as well as I would.