Furniture Makers and Undertakers in Holland’s 1886 Directory

It was common for craftsmen who built furniture to also provide coffins and the Holland’s Directory listed two men in Naperville: Charles Babst and Frederick Long. 

The mass production of furniture was just beginning, so stores might offer both ready-made and hand-crafted items as well as furniture repair or other fine woodworking. Coffins were a natural offshoot of the woodworking business and providing funeral services was an added source of income. 

I’ve written about Frederick Long before, but here’s a review:    

Long started his career in cabinet-making in 1857. By 1861, he was operating his own workshop and had added undertaking by 1870. In 1861, he married Amelia Beidelman and they had one son, Charles, who only lived until the age of thirty and left no children from his brief marriage. 

Amelia’s nephew, Oliver Beidelman, worked for Uncle Fred and eventually acquired the business. He and his son, “Dutch” replaced the old frame building on the corner of Washington Street and Jackson Avenue with an impressively large brick building. Adjoining the building to the north was a space where funerals were held and you can still see the arched windows of the chapel on the second and third floors. 

The Beidelman’s Furniture business continues to be run by the family and still occupies the corner building. The funeral business is now helmed by a different branch of the family with two Beidelman-Kunsch locations in Naperville. 

Babst’s shop was on the corner of Main and Jackson, which is now the parking lot for Dean’s Clothing. Holland’s says that Babst has been in business “a long time” and has “a fine hearse,” but doesn’t detail when the business started. As Babst was a younger man than Long, no doubt he had less experience. The Babst family is buried in Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery and the Longs are buried in the Naperville Cemetery, so apparently Charles Babst specialized in Catholic funerals. 

Long seems to have been a savvy businessman. He formed a partnership with James Nichols and John Kraushar to launch the Naperville Lounge factory in 1893. They hired a young clerk named Peter Kroehler who eventually also became a partner and then the sole owner in 1916. The Kroehler Furniture Company was a major employer in Naperville for many years. Technically, that company closed in the 1980s, but the name continues to be used with other manufacturers.

Babst also married, to Catherine Bauer of Alsace, France. They had eight children together. Two little girls, Mary and Cecilia, died of scarlet fever in 1887. Edward was a victim of the Spanish Flu and died in 1918 at Great Lakes Naval Base where he was serving during World War I. 

Two other sons also served in that war, August and Julius, and both returned home. Julius was around forty when he went overseas and it was not the first war for him as an army chaplain. The Naperville Clarion published many articles celebrating Father Babst. 

A third son, George, was married to Mayme Kennedy in Los Angeles with his brother, the chaplain, officiating. Mayme died in her forties of a cerebral thrombosis and there is no evidence she and George had children. 

Daughters Rose and Anna remained in Naperville with their parents. They seem to have been musical. Anna taught piano and both were involved in theatrical productions in town. During that time, Rose advertised for a position as an “experienced children’s nurse” so they kept busy, but neither one ever married. 

Mother Catherine passed away in 1903 and soon after Charles sold his “3-story stone building.” An advertisement in an 1908 issue of The Clarion tells that Babst offered his funeral ““paraphernalia and good will for sale. A good opening for a Catholic.” 

Where the family went from there has been difficult to trace. Tidbits in the Clarion tell of travels to Kankakee, Springfield, Colorado, and other places so it seems they liked to travel. 

The 1910 census has father Charles living in Naperville with Rose, Anna, Edward, and August. In 1924, the Clarion says that Capt. Chaplain Bapst was visiting his father and family, so they must still be living in town, but the 1930 census records Charles, Rose, and Anna in New London, Connecticut. In the 1940 census, Julius is living at the Fort Lewis Military Reservation in Pierce, Washington, with father Charles, now 89 years old, and his sisters Rose and Anna, both in their fifties. 

Charles Bapst passed away in 1941 and his son Julius followed in 1943. George was already living in California and his sisters soon moved to California as well. George died in 1951, but the sisters continued to live in Santa Clara until the 1980s. Anna died in 1984 at the age of 94 while Rose lived to be 100, passing away in 1988. All of the family is buried in Naperville in Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery, save George’s wife. 

Happy Anniversary, Joe!

On or around July 15, 1831, Joseph Naper and a bunch of other folks started a little community on the banks of the DuPage River. I always take a moment to stand outside and imagine what it might have been like.

Was it hot, especially with long dresses and woolen trousers? What if there were thunderstorms like we had the other day? From what we can tell, there was one log house here, but most folks must have slept under their wagons or simply under the stars.

I look at the restored prairies, like the one at the College of DuPage, to get an idea of what it must have looked like when they arrived. What flowers were blooming? How tall were the wild grasses? Were there any fruits ripe enough to enjoy?

Joe's group always intended to build a community. They brought their families, their livestock and the iron works to build proper houses -- not log cabins -- from the very beginning. And this land wasn't exactly wilderness. There were several homesteaders in the general vicinity as well as the native people who regularly moved through the area.

They were probably excited and a little nervous. Happy to be on land after nearly a month of sailing on the Great Lakes. Apprehensive to be so far from the comparative civilization of Chicago. Sentimental, perhaps, over the homes they left behind in Ohio and New York. Worried about being ready for the coming winter.

But they pulled together and made it happen. And Naperville folks have been doing the same every since. I believe Joe was more of a whiskey kind of guy, but we're toasting with a cold beer because the Naperville Ale Fest happens to be this weekend. Happy Anniversary, Joe! Here's to many more!

Don't Give up the Ship Story!

Recently the Associated Press reported that a team of divers, Charles Buffum, Craig Harger and Michael Fournier, believe they have discovered the wreck of the USS Revenge off the coast of Rhode Island.

The divers say they have viewed four canons, an anchor, and some other metal objects. Nothing made of wood has survived and they have not yet found a ship's bell or anything else that has a name on it that might identify the wreck, but the objects seem to be from the right time period and no other military ships were reported to have disappeared in that area.

The Revenge sunk while under the command of Oliver Hazard Perry when it hit a reef during a storm in 1811, 200 years ago this week. Perry supposedly was demoted following the event and was sent to sail on Lake Erie, a much smaller sea.

Perry became known as the "Hero of Lake Erie" during the War of 1812 when he became the first US commander to defeat a British squadron. He is also credited with the saying "I have met the enemy and they are ours" and his battle flag's motto "Don't give up the ship" is still symbolic to our Navy.

Once can visit Perry's Victory and Peace Memorial at Put-in-Bay in Ohio and a painting, "Perry's Victory on Lake Erie hangs," hangs in the rotunda at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus.

The local interest in this story is about a legend that ties Joseph Naper's brother to the Battle of Lake Erie. A book published in 1907 called Concerning the Van Bunschoten or Van Benschoten family in America indicates that Joseph's brother Benjamin Naper served under Perry and is in fact depicted as one of the oarsmen in the painting. An art historian, however, says that the artist, William Henry Powell, used seamen from Brooklyn as his models. Still, the gentleman with the white sidewhiskers sure looks like the only photo surviving of Joseph Naper!

If you've lived near Lake Michigan long enough, you will have heard or read something about the Christmas Tree ships. This year, the Christmas Tree Ship arrived on December 3 at Navy Pier, welcomed by escort boats, a band, school choirs and throngs of children with their families.

United States Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw currently brings the Christmas trees for distribution to disadvantaged youngsters, but the Mackinaw is simply re-creating a long-standing tradition on the Great Lakes.

Christmas as we celebrate it today wasn't embraced by America until the mid-1800's. Our Puritan forefathers strictly forbade merry-making at Christmas time and December 25 wasn't declared a federal holiday until 1870. Christmas festivities were more common in the southern states and after the Civil War the custom of celebrating Christmas spread across the country.

Along with the celebration of Christmas came the Christmas Tree. Swaths of pine trees grew in the forests of northern Wisconsin, easy to harvest and sometimes even available for free. Retailers got the buyers lined up and all a resourceful person needed to do was get the trees from Wisconsin to Chicago. In the last half of the nineteenth century, that meant moving them by ship during the golden age of Great Lakes sailing.

Unfortunately, November is a treacherous month on Lake Michigan and many a ship loaded with Wisconsin pines never made it to the Chicago port. The Christmas Tree run was usually the last trip a captain made before the ice and snow made sailing impossible and it was always a calculated risk. If successful, the captain stood to make a profit almost as much as he earned during the whole rest of the year, but if a storm should blow up, he could lose both his profit and as his life.

The Rouse Simmons with Captain Herman Schuenemann at the helm is the subject of a well-known Christmas Tree Ship story. The Captain's older brother went down with his ship on a Christmas Tree run and the Rouse Simmons disappeared with her cargo and Captain Herman in 1912. The Captain's widow and daughters continued with the family business for a few years, stringing the new ship with lights and tying a pine tree to the top of the tallest mast in keeping with the Christmas Tree Ship tradition.

If you'd like to read more about the Rouse Simmons and the other Christmas Tree Ships, there are several good books available on the subject that would make excellent holiday gifts:

The Historic Christmas Tree Ship: A True Story of Faith, Hope and Love by Rochelle Pennington

The Christmas Tree Ship: The Story of Captain Santa by Rochelle Pennington

Lives and Legends of the Christmas Tree Ships by Fred Neuschel

Lutefisk for Christmas

In 1870, during what is known as the Golden Age of Great Lakes Sailing, nearly 65% of sailors on the Great Lakes were Norwegian. Sailing was a skill that many men brought with them from Norway and since the vast majority of Norwegian immigrants settled in the upper Midwest of the United States, the Great Lakes were easily accessible.

During an eight year period around that time, more than 110,000 Norwegians came to America, a migration wave bested only by the Irish. A rapidly growing population faced with limited industrial growth led to large numbers of young people searching for greener pastures outside of Norway.

Most set out for America and many wound up in Minnesota, just like Garrison Keillor's jokes about Sven and Ole on his Prairie Home Companion radio show. The Norwegian immigrants celebrated Christmas as Twelfth night so they had ample opportunity for feasts, including sausages, flatbrød (flatbread), smultringer (doughnuts) and home-brewed ale.

Lutefisk, dried cod soaked in lye, was not necessarily a Christmas delicacy, but as the Norwegians became Americanized, they seized on lutefisk as a unique remainder from the old days and incorporated it into their Christmas traditions. In fact, Madison, Minnesota has a giant fiberglass cod statue named Lou T. Fisk to commemorate their standing as the Lutefisk Capital of the United States.

Chicago's Three Ships of 1831

When the Christmas carol "saw three ships come sailing in" they could have been singing about Chicago in 1831. While shipping was about to explode on the Great Lakes, in 1831 ships were still a rarity.

Chicago wasn't actually a city yet but a small village of log houses and wigwams squatting around Fort Dearborn. The fort, built originally in 1808, was burned to the ground during the War of 1812 by the native people in an attack known as the Fort Dearborn Massacre.

The fort was rebuilt in 1816 and used again by the military, but in the spring of 1831, the Napoleon arrived to remove the last of the troops. That was the first ship. In July, Joseph and John Naper's Telegraph brought settlers and supplies to the Chicago community. In November, Captain Stuart anchored the Marengo off shore in Lake Michigan for the last contact until winter was over.

The sailing season was ruled by ice on the Great Lakes, sometimes not breaking up until May. Captain Stuart was probably racing to get back to Detroit before the lakes froze. Meanwhile, Chicago started building their lighthouse again to be ready for spring's first schooner.