Photographic Evidence

Several years ago, my father’s brother was terminally ill and when his eldest brother said he was going to visit one last time, my uncle replied “Don’t come unless you bring the family photos”. The eldest brother did as requested and I ultimately received a large box with many old photos. My mother, sister and I pawed through the box for images which we had never seen and were excited to know that they even still existed. But many of them didn’t have names on them. I am fortunate that my mother is still living and she has a gift for remembering names. She was able to identify many of the photos in the box that my uncles could not. I have since sifted through this box several times since and each time I am able to deduce who more of the people are.

I refuse to give up on this box of photos as I know there are still important pieces of information contained within. This week I pulled out two photos that had a notation on them that they were of George Arthur Albert of Chicago. Apparently, my grandfather, Otto named my father Arthur, after his cousin. I knew nothing more than that. But I was intrigued by this story and wanted to know more about this man who my grandfather thought enough of to name a child after. I examined the first photo:

I guessed that this was taken in the early to mid 20’s and these two are suffering from no lack of funds. The photo was taken in Germany in front of the Reichstag. This is in a postcard format and I flipped the picture over to see if there was anything further.

I don’t speak, read or write German but with a bit of Google translate I realized that these two were on their wedding trip and this was taken in Berlin on 25 September 1922. Great, but that didn’t get me any closer to knowing how this Arthur was really related to my Arthur or anything else about this mystery man (and throw in that woman just to mix it up a bit!)

Sleep does a girl good and after I mulled this over at the feather ball, I awoke with a plan. Seriously, I do some of my best problem solving while “asleep” since I don’t think my brain ever really shuts off. I realized an important point….I knew that he resided in Chicago but I had a photo of him in Berlin….did he have a passport on file? Sometimes I even amaze myself. I scooted over to FamilySearch.org and plugged in what I knew…Name, born in Germany, residing in Chicago and I got a hit. Now for the crazy part. Since I had no other identifying information on Arthur how did I know that I had the right one? Could I get luckier? How about a passport photo!

I asked the mister to step into my lair and compare the photo in Berlin with this one. We both felt it was a match. Take heart in the fact that passport photos made you look just as terrible then as they do now. But this application? An absolute goldmine of information. His parents names, his date of birth, his place of birth, when he came to the US and when he naturalized. It also included his home address as well as when he was traveling and what ship he would be sailing on. He departed on the maiden voyage of the SS Resolute on May 2nd, 1922. This ship was one swanky ride over the pond. Just check out the details here: SS Resolute. Back to the Berlin snapshot….I now had a date when he was present in Berlin and I did a bit of digging. I was able to discover a record of his marriage in Dresden on the 16th of September, 1922 and that the lady in the photo was Anna Frieda Crasselt b. 11 Sept 1886. This was a first marriage for both of them (at least so they say), he was 49 and she was 35. This begs the question of whether this marriage was arranged or did he meet her while traveling or what? In the few records I can find she states she was naturalized in 1923. In other words, since she was the wife of a citizen she was automatically naturalized upon arrival, so I can’t be inclined to believe that she had been living in the US long term, if ever. Remember that this was post WWI and anti-German sentiments were still quite strong. I have to wonder if she wasn’t eager to escape the crushing issues of post-war Germany and was more than happy to have a ticket out. I may never know but it does create a whirling storm of questions and theories.

Next I examined the second photo:

This is such a cool photo! Love the old brass cash register and note the mix of electric, gas and converted lighting. This would be the inside of the Albert Brothers Saloon with an entrance on Irving Park Road and one on Elston Avenue. Faintly, in pencil my grandfather wrote Otto F Albert 1915. Sometimes I think our ancestors leave us clues and sometimes they leave us stink bombs. This is the latter…because the next thing that I observed is that man number 1 and man number 3 look like brothers. (This was before I knew there was a brother or even the name of the joint). A few hours of poking around in Chicago city directories helped me discover the name of the saloon AND the name of the brother. Gustave Adolf Albert was born in Ottendorf, Germany 30 October 1867 and he died in Chicago 1 March 1912. Hmmmm…..Otto misled me as Gustav couldn’t have possibly posed for this photo in 1915. I am now thinking that Otto kept in touch with his cousin and this was sent to him in 1915 and probably dates to around 1910. I *think* Gustav is the third man and George is standing in front but I can’t be sure. At this point I know from Gustav’s death record that he was married but I still don’t have even a first name for his wife.

Which leads me to another observation. These men don’t show up on ANY census record until Anna and George are recorded living in Dundee, Illinois (east of Chicago) in 1930. Gustav arrived in 1887 and George in 1890. Short of their death records and the passport application there isn’t much to go on. In 1940 Anna is back at the Irving Park address and George is now deceased. Here begs the question…were they running a legit business pre-prohibition in 1919 and then a speak easy thereafter until 1933? Multiple properties, sailing first class, a year-long trip to Germany and an appearance of “flying under the radar” makes me wonder about where all the assets came from and what kind of life they were leading. How many people really retire at age 46? This is quite the enigma. But I must be grateful, I certainly know a lot more about these faces and names this week than I did last and I suspect this won’t be the last that I write about them.