Vissering Genealogy

“Vissering Genealogy”

 

From Ost (East) Friesland, Germany to East Texas

 

I am writing this for the younger family members of Mama and Papa Vissering.  It is my hope you may gain some genealogy information that, even if some is familiar to you, might become clearer.  My sources are my own research, Mama Vissering, Aunt Hattye Vissering Moore, my own mother, Rose Evalyn Vissering Tomberlain, and St. Louis cousin Forrest Rossi and my own memories of what I heard them talk about and then asked them a million questions.

Papa’s parents, Friederich and Reina Vissering brought their family to St. Louis, U.S.A. in 1888 after selling their home and small farm near Leer, Ost Friesland, in Northwestern Germany, adjacent to the eastern border of Holland.

This was an area of once free and independent small farmers and sea traders with their own seven ruling princely families.  When their last ruling family died out, they came under control of the East German state of Prussia, then was annexed to Holland when Napoleon made it part of his Grand French Empire, when all of Europe came under his control.

Napoleon’s brother ruled this area until Napoleon’s defeat in 1813 at the Battle of Leipzig.  We may be lucky to be here since so many men and boys of Holland and Westphalia (which Ostfriesland was a part of) were forced to go with the French army when Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 and came out with only 50,000 out of 600,000.

After this Ostfriesland was free again but then they made the mistake of supporting Austria in her war with Bismarck’s Prussia over which one would become the leading German state that would unite all the states into one united Germany.  Bismarck already had control of the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein and wanted Ostfriesland to join them.

After Prussia’s victory, Ost Friesland came under a strict militaristic and aristocratic control by Prussia, many fled for a better life in North America.  One large colony settled in Franklin County, Nebraska, where Uncle John (Johann) lived.  Life anywhere was better than having to bow to the new ruling class of German Prussians who took over all the best positions.

We were told in Nebraska you had to actually bow on the streets or road to the new landowners and bankers and lawyers and teachers, all Prussian.

I hope to include, however, a picture of The Vischering castle.  From what I can gather, it once belonged to one Alfred Vischering, who became a follower of the Protestant movement of Luther, was excommunicated by the Pope, and became a robber Baron.

He must have been a pretty good businessman for he taxed everyone who crossed his estate by land or river and accumulated a nice holding.  I do not know where we fit in with him, for Papa Vissering and his father were small farmers and had milk cows and hunted ducks and geese on the canals and marshes.

Their house had two stories.  The first floor served as a stable for the cows and their horse in bad weather and this is where they milked.  Papa told Mother it had a concrete floor and was washed clean every day.

As I said earlier, Uncle Johann (John) Vissering lived and farmed in Nebraska within a large colony of other German settlers.  When his feet froze in the terrible blizzard February 7, 1933, (27 below zero) he became helplessly dependent on his neighbors for food and firewood.   Eventually hospital care became imminent.

Speaking only German, he refused to sign any papers necessary to go to the nursing home.  He was also confused when the Great Depression closed the bank where he kept his money.  A deputy sheriff took him to the hospital in Omaha, Nebraska.

His situation improved when a neighbor saw a high school graduation announcement that my mother had sent.  I have the letter this neighbor, Mrs. Johann Mueller (John Miller) wrote to Mother March 13, 1933.

This is when Papa and Uncle George Vissering went after Uncle John.  He lived the rest of his life with Mama and Papa.  With Dr. Smith’s help, Mama saved his feet by using iodine and fresh bandages every day for six months, and he walked again.

Mama was very good to him.  Even if he said, “Ein tase tee, bitte” (a cup of tea, please) on a hot day, she would build enough fire in the stove to boil the water for it.  When Uncle John died, he had willed Mama his 160-acre farm in Nebraska.  Sue and I saw it in the summer of 1998.

I have heard Ikey and Victor say how frustrated he became when they would act like they were tormenting a goat or donkey, just to see his reaction.  He would shout “du kleine drevils” like he was trying to say, “you little devils or rebels”, they were not sure.

Also, once Aunt Amelia asked how he enjoyed a meal she sent him, he responded, “es alles gut, die okra, nicht schmecht zehr gut.”  He was trying to tell her how good everything was except the okra.  In Southwestern Nebraska, most still spoke German but if he had lived a little longer, he may have picked up English.

Papa insisted his children speak only English.  Only Aunt Hattye could teach me a few words and phrases in German.

Mama eventually sold this farm to a lawyer, Mr. John Feurst.  I can remember a Christmas in the 1950’s when she gave $8000 to her and Uncle Fred’s living children.  Sue and I brought back a church directory where Uncle John went to church, and it has pictures of a lot of the old folks he knew and talked about.

I also have a letter in German from a good friend of Uncle John and it has been translated.  It tells about not only the depression and dust bowl times in Nebraska, but there is news from Ostfriesland about the time Hitler was beginning to come to power.  Aren’t we glad they come over?

I have often thought Uncle John was intelligent to refuse to sign the forms for the doctors in Omaha, Nebraska.  Reading only German, he was unable to read the part where they were going to amputate his feet and take his farm for their fee.

Papa Vissering’s grandfather, (and here I quote Forrest Rossi, son of our great aunt Anne Vissering Rossi) “Jacobus Vissering married Bertha Deeken, who was a first cousin to the Queen of Holland and as my mother used to tell when she got mad at us kids.  (You kids have royal blood in your veins.)

Jacobus and Bertha had five kids, 3 boys and 2 girls.  They were of some means and 4 of the 5 went to college.  But one of them did not.  You guessed it.  Our own grandfather.  He also married a girl our Great Grandfather did not like (because she danced).  Her maiden name was Reina Ukena.  Well to shorten this part of the story, our grandfather was cut off from any money because of both of the above reasons.

The first of the Visserings to arrive in Alton, Illinois, was the oldest son and his wife and son and daughter.  The son, Harry Vissering became a lawyer and meat packer and a millionaire.  He was one of the dollar a year men in the World War I and later became President Harding’s campaign manager.

The daughter got into education and politics in Illinois and did much to up the education standards of that state.  She married a Doctor Worden.  I forgot to mention the oldest son’s name was Jacobus, Jr.

The second child was Kate, who married a George Penning and also settled in Alton.  Their oldest son, John, was Mayor of Alton for many years.  The second son George remained a bachelor and lived in the big home there until he died.

Two daughters both died of malaria in Arkansas.  They were there (Stuttgart) to help found the Rice Growing Company started by the Vissering family.

The third child, Bertha, married to Abraham Ewen, also settled in Alton on a farm.  They had 5 children.  Two of them also died in Arkansas of malaria.  The other three lived out a very normal useful life in Alton.

Our great aunt Bertha was a shrewd real estate operator and at her death left 50 pieces of real estate in a half dozen communities in Alton.

Of course, you know Johannes Vissering who lived for a time in Hildreth, Nebraska.  And, of course, you know about our own grandfather, Friederich Peter.   His (our) family came over in 1888 and landed in Baltimore.

It was a sailing ship and steam ship combined.

The following were born in Europe:  Harry Vissering (Peter Jacobus, who was our Papa Vissering), Fred Vissering, Alvena, who married Hugh Neece, our mother, Anne, George, (who died at 9,) Bertha who married Harry Gutfleisch and later Paul Roeske, Rose who married Tom Schalek, Tillie who married Maurice Scher.

Aunt Josephene who married Lawrence Chadeayne and Minnie who married Arthur Miller were born in St. Louis.”  All the others were born in the old country.

They lived in a large house on LaSalle in St Louis and had room to take in young men as boarders.  The daughters had plenty of suitors and all married well.  There were no divorces in this entire family.

The name of the ship they sailed over from Bremen to Baltimore was the Donau (Danube).  I have enclosed a picture of it.

In St. Louis, Papa loved to visit the stockyards and was no doubt influenced by the stories he heard from the cattlemen and cowboys from Texas.  This was quite a distraction for a young boy whose own father insisted he follow his footsteps in iron working and black smithing.  First, though, he was sent to see farming firsthand on his uncle’s farm near Hildreth, Nebraska.

Still, Texas was his heart’s desire and Red River County, near Clarksville is where he entered the Lone Star State.

After his father’s coming to Texas for him and taking him back to St. Louis, he left for Texas a second time.  This time his father relented, and he stayed, learned, prospered, and you might say he fully realized the American Dream.

His mentor in Texas was Mr. George Tucker, an Alabama native who helped him learn cotton farming, stock raising, and tenant supervision.

At 19 years of age, he met and married 17-year-old Lillie Brem of Peters Prairie, near Clarksville.  To this marriage came 12 children.  My mother, Rose Evalyn, was number 10.

Mama Vissering’s mother and father were Isabella Martha McGraw (known as Belle) and Thomas Jefferson Brem (known as Tom).

Thomas J. was born April 3, 1832, in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  Mama’s grandfather Brem was George B. Brem.  He was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1810.  Mama’s grandmother was Katherine G. (Kitty) Wallace.

Mama’s great grandfather was Jacob Brem, born July 17, 1778, probably in Virginia, and died in Spartanburg, South Carolina September 12, 1842.

Mama’s great-great- grandfather was George Conrad Brem who was born in Wiesbaden, Germany, about 1743.  There are records he took the oath of allegiance over here in 1777 during the Revolution.

I do not have much information on Mama’s Grandmother Wallace’s family.

Mama’s mother, Isabella Martha was one of 12 children born to Jesse Wallace and Margaret Wilson McGraw (both born in 1812) in Fairfax, South Carolina, and later moved near Houston, Mississippi.  The children were all born between 1836 and 1855.  They are the following:

Jesse Wallace McGraw (father)

Margaret Wilson McGraw (mother)

Patience Amanda McGraw

Ellen Susannah McGraw

Holly Robertson McGraw

Nancy Amelia McGraw

Mary Anne McGraw

Francis Jane McGraw

Isabella Martha McGraw

Unnamed daughter

Margaret Elizabeth McGraw

John Calhoun Quitman McGraw (named after John Calhoun of S.C. and Gov Quitman of Mississippi) (Good old fire eating Rebels)

David Linsey McGraw

William James McGraw

This list came from a letter Uncle Jake Brem gave me about 1962.  It was written to Ma when she lived at Peach, Texas in 1914 with Uncle Jake and Aunt Julia.  Her sister Margaret Elizabeth had her grand Daughter Annie Laurie Rambo write it.

Those born after Ma (Martha) Brem were born in Mississippi.  All I can say is, I think they were Scotch-Irish, Scotch because of Wallace in some names, and Irish because of a song Mama used to sing about the Catholic-Protestant struggle, a girl and boy burned at the stake because they married outside of their faith.

I was fortunate to be around Mama so much because sometimes things come to an older person just one last time and if no one heard it, it was lost.

Thomas J. Brem was first married to Mariah Caroline Moore in Clarksville, Texas, on November 5, 1861.  She was the daughter of William and Amanda Davis Moore.  Amanda was a cousin to Jefferson Davis, Confederate States President.  They had three sons:  William, Martin Lee, and Thomas Carey.

Mama’s mother (Isabella Martha) also had a first marriage.  His was Richard Owens from Alabama.  He died after they came to Texas following the war around 1866.  I do remember on the way to Texas they had a young horse tied behind their wagon and the rope came loose.  This colt went back home, they heard later.

They had one son who later became well off in West Texas cotton enterprises.  However, the stock market crash and Great Depression affected him to the point of suicide.

Thomas and Martha (Ma and Pa Brem) married in 1873 at Clarksville.  I have a copy of their marriage license.  Thomas was a painter and painted some of the first houses built of sawed lumber in Clarksville.

Their children were Catherine Margaret (Aunt Kitty), Madorah (Dora), Lillie Nora (Mama Vissering), Annie, Jacob Wallace, (Uncle Jake), and little girl Belle who died as a child.

To her dying day, Ma could have fainting spell fits when talking about the War Between the States.  As an 18-year-old girl, she remembered the Yankee raiders coming into their house and taking things.

When they did not find enough, they dragged their feather mattresses out into the yard and cut them open with cavalry sabers and soaked the feathers with syrup.  They also took every grain of salt there was to be had.  When we were little, if we used too much salt, Mama Vissering gave us this lecture.

Also, Ma had packed flour and corn meal in barrels with bare feet to bury and hide from the Yankees.  After the war, they had to dig the salty dirt from the floor of their smoke house where salty bacon and hams had dripped to just have salt for bread until things got better.

Thomas J Brem, Mama’s daddy, served in the 27^th Texas Cavalry for a short time in Mississippi, saw action at Davis Bridge south of Memphis, and then came back to Texas as a buyer of army horses for the Confederacy.

Part of this may have been a better assignment because he totally lost his hearing for life.  He has a beautiful bronze Confederate marker in the Clarksville, Texas, cemetery.

Mama and Papa Vissering’s children were Harry Frederick (Uncle Fred), Hattye Bell, Herman Rollie (Uncle Jack), Henrietta Irene (named for grandmother Reina Vissering), Lillie Josephine, Henry George (Uncle George) Alvena Bertha, (Aunt Vena), Vera Virginia (Aunt Tom), Mary Mildred, Rose Evalyn (Mother), unnamed stillborn daughter, and Martha Ruth (Baby Ruth).

Mama averaged a child every two years for 24 years.  I remember her saying she picked 50 pounds of cotton the morning of the day Uncle Fred was born.

When Mama and Papa started married life, he owned a blind horse, and Ma (Mama’s mother) gave them a feather mattress and a setting hen.  This was the total wealth in personal possessions they started with.  They came a long way through hard work and intelligent planning and management.

It seems Papa’s thrift and efficiency and hard work resulted in their moving to a new home and 500 acres of land in Morris County, near Naples, Texas, and establishing the H. J. Vissering Farm and Ranch which eventually employed all the family and up to 12 tenant families.  The Great Depression of 1929-35 was probably their most trying time.

This ‘new’ home built in 1877 was typical Old South, Cumberland Road architecture, with 12-foot ceilings, a porch all across front and two large screened-in porches at back corners.  One of these had a large eating table for use in warm weather, and the other had the family cistern.  There were three fireplaces and a kitchen stove flue.  There was however, no open hallway through the center of the house like the Lower South architecture.

However, Papa seemed to be a step ahead of others in switching crops and breeds of cattle to obtain the best prices.  The mule and horse production endeavors were probably the leading cash sources.  I am enclosing photos of one of his favorite Jack sires.  For those who are not familiar with mule breeding, a Jack donkey and a mare (female horse) are mated to produce mules.  Their offspring possess odd numbered chromosomes, and the result is infertility in mules in almost all cases.

Of the five different Jack breeds, the Catalonian, Andalusian, Majorcan, Poitou, and Mammoth, the Mammoth was most common in the United States.  The Catalonian was probably second.  Many farmers brought their own mares to this Jack. Stud fee was $10.00, when field wages were 50 cents a day for hoeing cotton.

Papa’s horse breeding program included a standard bred Hambletonian trotter for harness racing and buggy trotters.  Also, for several years in the 1930’s, he kept one of the 6048 stallions kept in 42 states belonging to the Army Remount program to help provide adequate numbers for cavalry and horse artillery use up until 1943 and its discontinuance after motorization of these units.  This stallion was of the Morgan breed.

The second photo shows hay production for their beef and Jersey dairy operation.  The mule walked in a circle to power the plunger that compressed the hay.

At the height of agricultural and timber farming on his own and Senator Morris Sheppard’s lease land, they worked forty-two mules in harness.

Papa’s legacy is still alive.  Today, nearly all the grandsons and several great-grandsons are involved to some degree in cattle and/or horses.

From a German immigrant boy of thirteen, to having a U. S. Senator and U. S. Representative for pallbearers, he came a long way.

I would like to add, Mama Vissering was an equal partner in it all.  Besides supervising and cooking for this large household with no running water or electricity, she played a large part in bookkeeping, banking, milk and butter sales, canning, nursing sick tenants and their children, and repairing harnesses and making their own clothes.

She had to have the patience of Job and a heart of gold when some of Papa’s St. Louis brothers and sisters and many of the nieces and nephews regularly took their summer vacations with them.  Imagine cooking for 16-25 every meal over a wood burning stove in those Texas July and August days.  Although Papa died at 65 years of age, Mama almost made 94 years.

Every acre of the original farm and ranch is still in the hands of a family member.

I hope each of you enjoys this.  I would like to write a book and I think I could, but Sue said after typing this she would break my head if I came up with anything else at this time.

As usual, I must edit.  I very much meant to mention that Papa Vissering had an accordion and played it well.  He especially liked to play old German favorites such as Du Cannst Nicht Treu Sein (You can’t Be True to Me) or Du, Du, Liegst Mir Im Herzen (You, You, Dear to My Heart).

I also want to stress that even though he could still converse fluently in German and did with Uncle John or Aunt Bertha or Aunt Annie when they wanted privacy, he insisted the younger generation speak English only.

While ignorance has reared its head during two world wars in the form of prejudice against German culture in this country, any intelligent person knows no other country in the world has accomplished more in science, medicine, engineering or the arts. Never forget, Hitler was an Austrian, not a German.

Also, remember Germany at the time Hitler and his thugs grabbed power was trying to recover and get revenge for the unfair Versailles peace treaty that had ended the First World War.  Also, they were in the Great Depression, and he brought them out of it before any other country.  Note that Time Magazine named him man of the year just before the Second World War started.

Just a few weeks before Papa died, he and Daddy were walking in the big peach orchard that was planted up by the racetrack pool.  Daddy said, “Mr. Vissering, do you think this conflict in Europe will become a major conflict?  Papa’s answer was that he thought the Germans would remove Hitler from power first.

He just did not understand what kind of brutal control the Gestapo and SS held them under.  Papa really depended on great friend Senator Morris Sheppard who sometimes came to visit and talked to him for hours when he and Papa would take their lunch to White Oak Bottom and talk crops, timber cutting and world events.

Senator Sheppard was sent to Europe by President Roosevelt in 1938 and got a good look at what was happening.  That is the reason he returned concerned about the power of their Air Force and encouraged improvements in ours. Our family rented the Senator’s land for many years, and now much of it is owned by Jimmy and Connie Vissering.

Papa felt bad in March of 1940.  Dr. Smith sent him to Dallas, and he had cancer of the liver.  He came home and lived his last 10 days at home and died on 1 April 1940.  This is strange because he would not touch alcohol.  Senator Sheppard died one year later.

Mama Vissering went away literally on her feet, dying of heart failure walking in Vic and Wanda’s yard with her dominoes going in to play with the preacher.  She was almost 94.  She died September 22, 1971.

Mother and Aunt Hattye and Aunt Sis (Irene) (Suk) told me what Papa told them.  Be proud of your heritage.  Every country has a small minority who cause trouble and does not represent the masses. As for loyalty, our family members from the American Revolution and Confederacy to Iraqi Freedom have served in the military forces.  Clayton Harte gave his life in World War II and Cluren Victor Moore was wounded almost to death in Korea.

Grandpa Vissering nicknamed Aunt Sis (Suk) by calling her ‘mein kleine sukar (my little sugar).  Uncle Fred also had the nickname “Fritz” among family members, which is the German form of nickname for Frederick.  Of course, Aunt Tom got this name from Papa for being what he thought of as somewhat of a tomboy when she was young.  Our mother’s nickname “Bo” came from Victor as a child trying to say Rose.  I don’t know how Uncle Jack took his name.  Ruth was truly the baby (Baby Ruth).

Mama Vissering was probably as kind, peaceful, logical and loving a person I ever knew.  Her sister Aunt Kitty was just like her.  I don’t think Mama ever forgave President Wilson for taking this country into WWI after he pledged, he would not do it.  They knew lots of young men who did not come back, including one Artis Jackson who lived with them for a time and worked for Papa.

I also forgot to mention they tried dairy farming out in the Wichita Falls area before they moved from Red River County to Naples.  Mama said the dirt in the wind got the clean clothes dirty on the clothesline.  She also complained that firewood had to be hauled in by train.

So, now they moved to Naples by train.  Uncle George, Uncle Jack, and Uncle Fred drove 195 head of cattle and 20 head of horses and mules over land.  They were only teenagers, but only three head turned back.  The rest of the family and 200 head of cows came by train.

Five colored families followed them.  Uncle Fred had already come two years earlier to prepare for the move.  From this point Aunt ‘Em’ (Emmaline), who slept on a cot in their kitchen and helped Mama with babies and cooking in Red River County, no longer slept in the house with them.  She was old enough to have been a slave in Mississippi long before the freedom came.

Papa had a coffin made for her when she died, and she was supposed to be about 106 in 1928.  At the end, about the only job she could perform was to sit by the kitchen stove while the family ate and butter the biscuits and cornbread fresh out of the oven.   Her daughter was Della.

Della’s daughter was Pearl (Andrew Wilson’s wife, Papa’s number one colored man or driver of field hands as they used to say in old times); Pearl’s daughter was Lorraine Huey, and her sons have worked out there also in the hay with me, and one still works some for Wes Vissering and Mother before she died.  If any of their offspring ever work for any family members that will be 6 generations.

In the beginning, their economic system was tenant farming or share cropping.

If Papa furnished a house for your family, the land, and the mules along with the seed and fertilizer, the tenant family worked and harvested the crop (cotton and corn) for half of it.

If you had your own mules and lived off the place but rented land from Papa, and shared the cost of the seed and fertilizer, Papa only got 1/3 of the cotton and ¼ of the corn.  This is referred to as farming on the halves or thirds and fourths.  Contracts were drawn up and were legally binding.

For cash to get the renters through the late winter and spring months until crops came in, the landowner loaned them a cash draw, with interest to be paid at harvest time or helped provide them with day labor if he could provide employment.

It is impossible to fathom the poverty that existed in the South at this time.  I do not remember ever being unemployed out to Mama’s.  From hauling hay to bringing up cows to be milked and dipping and vaccinating to hauling up firewood with Kit and Kate, the last two mules on the place.  Not to mention the beautiful and well-trained and gentle horses Cluren Victor, Wes, Son, Ikey, Forrest, Uncle George and John Paul raised.

I do want to say that Papa was fair and did not get his people in debt and hold them against their will as many landowners did in the first part of the 20^th century.  They respected him, and I have heard Andrew Wilson and Harvey Ronie and Tillie and George Parker refer to him affectionately as the “Cap’n”(Captain) many times.

Mama Vissering also had many stories of whippings, hangings, and shootings and other crimes of violence in and around Red River County.  There is no time or space for them here.  Note email address for further information.

Also, to compensate for Mama’s hospitality during their regular summer vacations, Papa’s sisters, Bertha and Annie, sent lots of gifts for the children and the house at Christmas. Aunt Annie’s son Vic Rossi even sometimes brought his friends like Bubby Meyer and Freddy Geltzshauser, and Uncle Fred was more than happy to take these greenhorns “snipe hunting”.

I wish every one of the young ones could have seen the 12-foot trees that were decorated each Christmas until 1972.

I can remember the second generation coming into the 1950’s such as Delores, Donnie, and Doreen (Snookie) Rossi.

There is so much more that I would like to write concerning many, many stories about people, places, and events.  I have a large collection of genealogy and photographs covering approximately a hundred years of our family.  I have to stop somewhere, or it would truly be a book.  I just wish everyone of the younger family members could have experienced all this.

There is nothing like those fresh Elberta peaches in ice cream or those singings around Aunt Hattye’s Grand piano or just all the kids playing together in the big hayloft and down to the ponds.

I will never forget the first time I could relate to some event in Texas or American history I had first learned about from Mama on that big old cool front porch on a summer afternoon.  Pat

 

              Submitted by Pat Tomberlain, son of Rose Evalyn Vissering Tomberlain

Vissering Genealogy