Wisconsin Roots Too; 109; Gaebler

[Cornute] What Kissey(?) did orally, a German immigrant family put on paper and though the latter represents the western European approach to logging history, the end result is the same. The family history of German immigrant Emil Gaebler is not likely to fade away. Why? Because his grandson Hans bound many of the family mementos in what he has titled The Gaebler Museum. Now Hans's son, the Reverend Max Gaebler of Madison has one of two copies of this book which provide an interesting look at German lifestyle in Milwaukee and Watertown. Reverend Gaebler, could you tell us why the Gaebler family came to the United States? [Rev. Max Gaebler] Well yes it's a rather interesting story as a matter of fact. My great grandparents are the ones who really pioneered here, although my great grandfather's older brother had come ahead. He came really to seek his fortune. When he landed in New York he heard there were jobs to be had out in Milwaukee. And [coughs] so he headed off with a companion by boat up the Hudson to

Albany, down the across New York State on the Erie Canal, then got a boat in Buffalo for through all the great lakes and wound up in Milwaukee. He discovered there weren't so many jobs to be had as he heard in New York and wound up finally by enlisting in the army, in the American army, to fight in the Mexican War, was shipped off to Mexico and died of fever in Vera Cruz in an Army hospital. That was in 1847. His younger brother who meanwhile was still in Germany and the first one over had been sent, he had written letters back home and indeed those letters still survive and are down at the State Historical Society. His younger brother who was a teacher in a gymnasium, a secondary school in Germany. He had become involved, as so many people did in those days, in the political turmoil of the times. And one day after becoming involved in some local demonstration, he wound up in jail and after spending a night in

jail the headmaster of the school suggested that perhaps he might find some other climate healthier than the town he was living in. So he and the headmaster's daughter were subsequently married and headed off a week later for America, hoping to find some of the somewhat freer and more promising environment on this side of the Atlantic and indeed they did. He settled first in Connecticut, where someone he had known in Germany had founded a German school. And for two years he taught at this school in Danbury, Connecticut. My grandfather was born while they were there. Then they, having friends in Wisconsin and being inclined to get into business, particularly in the music business, he gathered there would be opportunities out in Wisconsin and so they headed west and he started out in La Crosse. And after a couple of years in La Crosse moved to Lake Mills and then very shortly thereafter to Watertown and lived in Watertown from

1854 on. So he founded a music store there and became very much involved in the cultural life of the community, founded and conducted a men's chorus which participated in all of the uh musical competitions, the zamierfeste(?) which were common in those days. And they even produced grand operas in Watertown if you can imagine that. Watertown I might add was in those days the second largest city in Wisconsin. In 1850, Watertown had a population of almost 10000, second only to Milwaukee. And of course it was filled up by people like my great grandparents coming as they did largely because of the failure of the liberal Revolution of 1848 in Germany and as conditions became more and more were repressive under the regime of Bismarck, more and more of these people found it interesting to come to America.

[Cornute] There was another wave of migration um from Germany as well. [Gaebler] There was indeed, a little later on in the 1860s and '70s many more families left Germany, but they left primarily for economic reasons. Times were very difficult and particularly they were very difficult on them in the countryside. And so many people who were farmers in Germany left and came to this country and a good many of them wound up in Wisconsin. So that I think you'll find that a majority of the families of German ancestry here in Wisconsin really stem from that second wave of migration. But that earlier migration, the so-called '48-ers, the people who came after the failure of the Revolutions of 1848 were the group that included my grandparents and included so many of the people in Milwaukee for example. Indeed the strong emphasis on public education and particularly on higher education in Wisconsin stems largely from the impulse of those early German '48-ers.

[Cornute] What other events or situations have ari-arisen from the German ancestry and which have influenced Wisconsin as a whole? [Gaebler] Well I think for example of the whole political movement associated with the Socialist Party in Milwaukee, this uh which is at least in my childhood was very very strong. The days of Daniel Hoan of course later on the Zeidlers as mayors. The Socialist Party in Milwaukee was always known as a party of honest, clean government and Milwaukee indeed still boasts a reputation of being I think uh the safest city, big city in the country, their crime rate is lower than any other large city in the country and is so safe that I guess some journalists may consider it a bit dull [laugh]. But nonetheless there are other things too, for example from oh, since

long before I can remember, the electric utility has been publicly owned, this tradition of public ownership of electric utilities, in some instances of bus companies now, that's become pretty general. All of this really goes back to the kind of democratic socialism which was represented by many of those early German immigrants, the '48-ers who had that kind of political orientation in Germany itself, and whose political descendants are the present Social Democratic Party which is the government party in Germany today. [Cornute] Tell me about that special feeling you described when we talked previously, that special feeling you get, just being German? Ge-ge-gu- [Gaebler] You're thinking of this wonderful quality of German life that we-- [Cornute] I cannot pronounce-- [Gaebler] quality that's summed up in the German word gemutlichkeit. And there really is no English translation for gemutlichkeit. It's that feeling of

well-being, of being comfortable and at peace with the world and and everybody together in a, in a Pleasant, and I guess comfortable is the best word I can think of. But there's really no no equivalent and I guess one just says "gemutlich". A person can be gemutlich, a situation can be gemutlich, And it's it is a it's a wonderful sense of well-being that this sums up and is is part of German, especially German family life, as I've experienced it both in Germany and in Watertown. [Cornute] Thank you very much Reverend Max Gaebler.