Emma Bauer

The Klopp Grandparents V

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Miller Master Peter Friedrich Klopp

1852 – 1900

Adapted from Eberhard Klopp’s Family Chronicle

Miller’s apprentice Peter Friedrich Wilhelm Klopp and Emma Christiane (née Bauer) were married on September 27, 1874 in the village church at Jersleben. He was 22 and she was 18 years old. Their marriage of over 25 years was blessed by a phenomenal fecundity, coming close to the Austrian Empress Maria-Theresia. Sixteen children emerged from this union.

Windmill at Osterweddingen, Peter F. Klopp once worked

Windmill at Osterweddingen, where Peter F. Klopp once worked – Photo Credit: Wikipedia.org

A few years after the wedding P. F. Klopp became qualified as master miller. Several attempts of running his own mill (e.g. the ‘Düppler Mill’ at the southeast end of Olvenstedt) as well as working in three different other mills in Jersleben failed. Around 1890 already blessed with seven children it appeared that he was finally able to secure a solid economical foundation. Together with his eldest son Friedrich (grandfather of author Eberhard Klopp), who had just finished his rope making apprenticeship, he acquired a house in Wolmirstedt. Peter concentrated on the production and sale of flour, while Friedrich operated the rope making plant. Housing for a very large family, storage facilities for grain, flour and feed, manufacturing shop etc., were all under the same roof.

Rivalries, quarrels, and petty disputes about who was in charge of it all did not create a climate conducive to a prosperous enterprise in the Magdeburger Straße (now Friedensstr.). When brother Ferdinand, also a trained rope maker joined them, Peter began to worry about losing his independence and looked for  a way of dissociating  himself from the troublesome business in Wolmirstedt.

Supported, perhaps even driven by his energetic wife, Peter F. Klopp returned with his family to Jersleben, where he established his own business of producing and selling flour. He seized on a golden opportunity of acquiring a long sought-after watermill. All indications  are that he was not to see his final dream  come to fruition. For documents show that widow Emma Klopp  was the owner of the mill in 1901 one year after her husband’s death. The reader can find more about the tragic event in Chapter 4 of ‘The P. and G. Klopp Story’ on this blog.

 

The Klopp Grandparents Part III

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Emma Christiane Klopp (née Bauer) – Chart I -I

1856 – 1941

Adapted from Eberhard Klopp’s Family Chronicle

The miller’s apprentice Peter Friedrich Klopp became acquainted with Emma Bauer, the daughter of the factory inspector Friedrich Wilhelm Bauer, born in Groß Ottersleben on March 3, 1818. Her father had moved to Jersleben, where he died on April 4, 1886. Emma at the time of his death was only 12 years old and was the fifth child out of her father’s marriage with Rebecca Sophie, who died in Wolmirstedt in 1898.

Würzburg Marienberg - Photo Credit: Wikipedia.org

Würzburg Marienberg – Photo Credit: Wikipedia.org

What brought Emma’s family originally from the Würzburg area to Jersleben, author Eberhard Klopp explains in his ‘Letter to the Descendants’ as follows:

Already blessed with four children Emma’s parents lived from at least 1855, most likely even sooner, in Rottendorf near Würzburg. In this village the wealthy Jewish Würzburg banker Joel Jakob von Hirsch managed an increasingly flourishing sugar factory. The socially conscious entrepreneur and owner of a large estate ‘wanted to provide a livelihood for lower class people, for he was kindhearted toward the poor people.’ Von Hirsch’s declared intention was to make  the South German market independent of ‘the dominant North German sugar factories.’ To this end he hired specialists from Magdeburg, Cologne, Baden and Holland. An additional incentive was the voluntary health insurance fund established by the factory owner for the workers and their family members of his Rottendorf plant. This, at that time, was a rare, but socially groundbreaking undertaking.

Attracted by such favorable and promising working conditions, the Bauer family settled in Franconia probably until the shutting down of the Rottendorf plant. There in House No. 3 (Dürrhof}, property of the aforementioned banker Emma Bauer was born,

Unfortunately, due to a shortage of water it was no longer possible to process sugar beets. The production was shut down, which was  a major cause for the Bauer family to relocate in the sugar beet region in the north near Magdeburg.

To be continued …