52 Ancestors: #5 - Arthur Schoennauer (1875-1941)

 This is part of my "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" blog challenge.

Arthur Schoennauer - My Maternal Grandfather

Vital Facts

When Arthur Charles John Schoennauer was born on October 5, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois, his father, John Schoennauer, an injured Civil War veteran, was 36 and his mother, Amalia Wilhelmina Schlichting, an immigrant from Prussia, was also 36. Arthur was married three times during his life and had three sons and one daughter from those marriages. He died on October 7, 1941, in Seattle, Washington, at the age of 66, and was buried there.

Arthur Schoennauer as a young man

Biographical Sketch

My maternal grandfather, Arthur Schoennauer, was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was the fourth child born of his parents, and tragically was only one of two brothers out of eight children that survived childhood to have children of their own.

The 1800 census shows him at 4 years old living with his parents at 258 Mohawk Street in Chicago. Twenty years later, the 1900 census shows him at 24 years old living with his mother at 2734 Princeton Avenue in the Chicago Southtown area. The house they lived in appears to have had three apartments, and with the census showing the three resident families in the house, by the order of enumeration, it seems apparent that Arthur and his mother lived on the third floor.

1880 census in Chicago, Cook Co, Illinois. This census show the Schoennauer family of five living together: Father, John, age 41, occupation as filemaker; mother, Amalia, age 40, keeping house; and children, Emiel, age 10, at school, Arthur, age 4, and Amanda, age 1.

1900 census in Chicago, Cook Co, Illinois

This is the Schoennauer home listed on the 1900 census: 2734 Princeton Ave., Chicago, Illinois, where Arthur was living with his mother, Amalia in 1900. 

This entry in the 1900 Chicago City directory (page 1687) validates the residency information from the 1900 census above and shows Arthur's work at the time, an occupation he continued throughout his life. (Source URL: 1900s.pdf (chicagoancestors.org)

Between the 1880 census and 1900 census, there is not much of an official record of Arthur or family events. Unfortunately, the 1890 census was burned in a massive fire inside the Commerce Department building in Washington, DC in 1921, destroying most of the that census.  With a little bit of investigative work, I discovered that the 1890 Chicago City Directory shows the following two entries, one for Amalia, recently widowed from her second husband, Conrad Kratz, and another for her eldest son, Emil Schoennauer, who would have been 21 years old and employed as a printer.  Her younger son, my grandfather, Arthur, still being only about 15 years old, would not have been listed.  When compared together, they show the family's residence at 317 24th Street in Chicago.  (The directory didn't indicate if it was "East 24th" or "West 24th," but neither location provides much helpful information for an historical connection when compared to current GoogleMap street view photos, as so much has changed on both streets over the past 130 years.)

1890 Chicago City Directory. Page 1261 shows a listing for Kratz households. Amalia had married Conrad Kratz as her second husband in 1887 shortly after her divorce from John Schoennauer.  Conrad died within a couple years following the marriage.

1890 Chicago City Directory, page 1957. Entry shows Arthur Schoennauer's older brother Emil, who was 21 years old in 1890, working as a printer.

Other information from that time period that does exist shows a somewhat troubled family life.  I learned quite a few years ago that my grandmother had been married four times, three after her marriage to John ended.  When I presented that genealogical information to my mother (while she was still living), she attempted to explain that life for divorced and widowed women such as Amalia in the late 1800s, in her 50s by the time she divorced my mother's grandfather, John (1887), who had been suffering from the multiple wounds received from military service during the Civil War, would have been extremely difficult, especially in a large city like Chicago.  Her number one priority would have been the care, support and security of her family, and in those times, support primarily came from men.  In many instances, especially in poorer families, the aspect of "love" in selecting a husband in a subsequent marriage would take a back seat to those other factors as reasons for marriage.  Unfortunately, it seems, my grandfather's mother did not make wise decisions when it came to selecting men for those subsequent marriages. (I will go into more detail when I create the blog page for her.)

Chicago had done a great job of recovering from what is known as The Great Chicago Fire of October, 1871, a devastating conflagration that destroyed thousands of buildings and killed over 300 people.  After the fire, Chicago’s population had grown rapidly, but during the 1890s, the growth had led to overcrowding and poor living conditions for many residents. The city’s infrastructure had undergone significant changes to accommodate its growth, including the adoption of electric traction, which replaced horse and cable cars with electric streetcars, and the first lines of the elevated railway system also opened during this time. 

There's always a negative side to fast growth. What my mother had told me resonated with me, and it immediately brought to mind the semester in high school where we read, studied and analyzed the Upton Sinclair book, "The Jungle." It may be familiar to many, but if not, I'll review it briefly.  With its plot centered around a 1900-era Chicago backdrop, the book depicts working-class poverty, lack of an adequate social supports, the harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions there, and the hopelessness among many workers and people living in Chicago (as a metaphor for the whole United States). While Sinclair's primary motive was to advance socialism in the U.S., he accurately portrayed the harsh working conditions in Chicago's meat processing industry of the early 1900s and described the deeply rooted corruption of factory owners and people in power.  The most notable impact of the novel at the time was the public outcry over health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meat-packing industry during the early 20th century, which led to sanitation reforms, including more stringent laws around the industry.  So the working-class environment the book described in Chicago is how I visualized the life my great-grandparents faced with their lives there, made much worse after they divorced and he died only a couple years later.  And my grandfather, Arthur, was in the middle of it.

The two newspaper articles below, reporting on the same event from 1896, show how dysfunctional the small Schoennauer family had become, and the life my grandfather found himself in as a young man.  He was 21 years old at this time.

One of two newspaper articles about the family quarrel that ended with step-father being shot. This article was reported in the "Omaha World-Herald" (Omaha, Nebraska), September 21, 1896, Page 1. 

TELEGRAPH BRIEFS 

V.A Prelick quarreled with his stepson, Arthur Schoenauer, at Chicago, and the latter fired at him, the bullet taking effect in his leg.

 

Second newspaper article about the quarrel and subsequent shooting. This article was reported in "The Inter Ocean" (Chicago, Illinois), September 20, 1896, Page 17. 

SHOT BY HIS STEPSON.

A Family Quarrel Results in a Bullet for V. A. Prelick.

V. A. Prelick, 50 years old, of No. 2734 Portland avenue, is at the county hospital suffering from a bullet wound in his right leg, and Arthur Schoenauer. his stepson, is locked up at the Twenty-Second street police station on a charge of assault with intent to kill. Early yesterday morning the men quarreled over family matters, it is said, and Schoenauer drew a revolver and fired three shots. One of the bullets struck Prelick in the right leg, inflicting a painful but not dangerous wound. The quarreling, it is said, was caused by Prelick's refusal to work and his repeated efforts to have Schoenauer support the family.

It seems to me no one escapes responsibility for this tragedy:  Arthur, who was now an adult, should have been willing to share the responsibility, while living in his mother's home, of contributing to the support of the family, and more seriously, who as a young man faced this conflict with his step-father by using a pistol to settle the argument, with the potential result and life-altering ramification of a murder charge had one of the bullets he fired killed him.  You can be sure that this personality trait did not develop to this level of anger overnight.  Arthur fired three shots at his step-father, so as the second newspaper article correctly shows relating to the police charge, this was more than a warning. He had intended to kill him. Mr. Perlick, who at 50 years old, was probably fully capable of working a fulltime job, but expected his stepson, at 21 years old, to support the family while he refused to work; and Amalia, with the primary focus, it would seem, to select a man capable of and willing to financially support her and the family, and as it turned out, her absolute failure to do so, in all three subsequent marriages. 

First Marriage

In 1902, at 27 years old, Arthur met and married a young woman from Tipton, Tipton County, Indiana, named Fanny Sells, who was 23 years old.  She came from a farming family.  There is no indication of where they met or how long they knew each other prior to deciding to marry. They received their marriage license on 22 September 1902 and were married the following day, on 23 September 1902 by R. H. Boyd.  

Marriage license for Arthur Schoennauer and Fanny Sells issued on 22 Sep 1902. They married the following day. (Source: "Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007," database with images, FamilySearch (21 January 2016), Tipton > 1902-1905 Volume 10 > image 67 of 217; Indiana Commission on Public Records, Indianapolis.)

 

Indiana marriage record for Arthur Schoennauer and Fannie Sells, 23 September 1902. (Source: Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007, Tipton 1900-1903> image 77 of 99; Indiana Commission on Public Records, Indianapolis.)

It's unclear if Arthur remained living with Fanny in the Tipton, Indiana area for a while or if he returned to Chicago with Fanny to live with his mother.  But on 6 July 1903, slightly under nine months after their marriage ceremony, a son was born to them in Chicago, Illinois.  They named him Arthur Paul Schoennauer. Together they lived in Chicago until 17 December 1906, at which time Arthur Sr. moved to Seattle, and Fanny and their son remained in Chicago.  I believe my grandfather went to Seattle to visit his older brother Emil, who had moved from Chicago to Snohomish, Washington (a town about 30 miles north of downtown Seattle) between August 1899 and May 1900.  Arthur's trip may have been intended as a short visit with his brother, or as an employment opportunity, as both were employed as printers.  But Arthur never returned to Chicago!  Details that came out a few years later show there may have been two sides to this story, as there always are.

A year and a half later, on 30 January 1908, Arthur commenced an action for a divorce in Snohomish county, Washington. In court documents initiated by Fanny (as plantiff) three years later in 1911 (appealing for child support), service for the divorce action from Arthur in 1908 had been made by publication.  Because no answer had been forthcoming, the superior court of that county declared that the wife (Fanny) defaulted, and on 20 April 1908, a decree of divorce was granted on the ground of abandonment (by the wife).  Arthur claimed that after he had come to the state of Washington, he had repeatedly asked Fanny to join him, and that he provided her with means for doing so, but that she refused every invitation. Fanny alleged in her suit that she did not abandon him, but rather that he had abandoned her; that she had no actual knowledge of the divorce action until long after the final decree had been entered.  Arthur had remarried in the meantime, and for that reason she refrained from attacking the validity of the decree of divorce. 

 
To make it even more complicated, Arthur offered to show the court that, about three years after their marriage, Fanny had instituted an action for divorce in the courts of Illinois; that her action was prosecuted to a final judgment for separate maintenance, which judgment also awarded her custody of the child, and alimony payable monthly; that shortly thereafter, learning that he had sold his real estate and was about to leave for Seattle, she caused his arrest; that, by reason of his persuasion, they then resumed their relations as husband and wife; that, immediately thereafter, he, without warning, abandoned her and came to Seattle; that she wrote him repeatedly during the succeeding year; that he sent her railroad transportation to bring her to Seattle, but that she was too ill to travel; that her illness continued for several months; that she wrote him advising him that she would come to Seattle as soon as she was able to undertake the journey; that she did not hear from him thereafter; that she wrote him repeatedly; and that she had no knowledge of the divorce proceedings until after the entry of the decree.

The court ruled that, regardless of whether Arthur abandoned his wife, or that she abandoned him, the rights of their child would not be affected, nor would Arthur be relieved of the duties or obligations imposed upon him to contribute to its support. The court found that Arthur had made no reference to the child in his divorce complaint, and the court found it to be "a well established rule of law, and, we think, uncontradicted, that the maintenance of children is a matter which the court can adjudicate at different times during the minority of the child." The judgment for child support was affirmed.[1]

Schoennauer v. Schoennauer Appeal Case (1913)

Their son, Paul Schoennauer, grew up with his mother in Cicero Township, Tipton County, Indiana. The 1910 census for Indiana shows Paul, age 6, living with his mother, Fanny, age 29, and grandparents, Benjamin H. Sells, age 81 and Catharine, age 60.  

1910 Census, Indiana, Tipton County, Cicero Township, sheet 5A

On 27 January 1920, the census record shows Paul (identified with his full birth name, Arthur Paul Schoennauer), was 16 years old and living with his mother, Fanny, shown as 37 years old, still on her parent's farm in Cicero Township, Tipton County, Indiana. 

1920 Census, Indiana, Tipton County, Cicero Township, sheets 2A/B.

These are two photo of Arthur Paul Schoennauer taken while attending high school. 

Arthur Paul Schoennauer (age 16)

This Tipton High School 1920 yearbook extract shows Paul among a group of other students.
He is in the top photo, first row, furthest on the right.

In January 1923, Paul enlisted into the Army. His first duty assignment after training was to Ohau, Hawaii, where he arrived on 18 March 1923 and served as Motor Transport Operator and Mechanic in Battery B of the 8th Field Artillery Division at Schofield Barracks.  Sometime after April 14, 1923 (that was the date of the last letter he wrote to his mother in Indiana telling her how happy he was stationed in Hawaii and that he was in splendid health), he suffered with Peritonitis, and he died from complications of the condition on April 29th. He was shipped home to his mother and a military funeral was conducted at Fairview Cemetery in Tipton, Indiana.

   

 

I have not found anything to show whether or not my grandfather knew of his son's passing. It seems clear by the newspaper accounts of his death and funeral that Arthur was not present for the funeral or burial ceremonies.  

After her son's death, she moved to Kokomo, Indiana, and at some point (date unknown) married a Mr. Raymond, according to the following 1956 newspaper report and her obituary.

Newspaper article on police report showing Fanny had been "fleeced" by
two confidence women in Kokomo, Indiana, losing almost $2,000 by the scam.
(Source: "The Call-Leader" (Elwood, Indiana), June 28, 1956, Page 1)

Late in life Fanny resided at the Methodist home in Warren.  She passed away on 6 November 1961 in Warren, Huntington Co, Indiana.  Funeral services were conducted at the Long Funeral home in Kokomo, with Rev. Sayre officiating.  Interment was in the mausoleum at Tipton, Indiana. 

Obituary for Fanny (Sells) Raymond. She died at age 82.
(Source: The Tipton Daily Tribune (Tipton, Indiana), November 21, 1961, Page 6)

Second Marriage:  

While Arthur was in Snohomish, Washington visiting his older brother, Emil, he met a young woman named Olive Colman. They married on 17 April 1909 in Spokane, Washington. Arthur is shown as 33 years old and Olive is 25. They were married by a Lutheran minister, Rev. Geo. F. Pauschart, pastor of St. Mark's Eng. Lutheran Church on the corner of Walton & Adams streets in Spokane.

Marriage Certificate dated 17 April 1909

Olive was born on 24 February 1883 in Canal Winchester, Franklin, Ohio to John and Sarah Colman.  I have found very little information other than that included on the marriage license relating to Olive Colman. She is listed with her parents and siblings on the 1900 census in Canal Winchester village, Madison township, Franklin county, Ohio. 

Colman family shown on the 1900 census in Franklin Co, Ohio. Olive ("Ollie") is the youngest.

Arthur and Olive Schoennauer are shown on the 1910 census living at his house at 2130 North 51st Street, where he would live the rest of his life.

Arthur & Olive on the 1910 census in Seattle, King county, Washington. If the census enumeration is complete for the block, there may have been only these three houses on the block at that time.

Arthur and Olive divorced only a few years later.  An official record of the divorce has not yet been located.

The next record I found for her was a marriage certificate in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, and marriage to Clarence Jerome Johnson, age 40, a widower, scaler as occupation, and son of Peter & Annie Johnson. On the marriage license, Olive is shown at age 33, housekeeper as occupation. The marriage ceremony was on 3 July 1917 at St. Andrew's Church in Vancouver, B.C.

Marriage Certificate for Olive Schoennauer and Clarence Johnson dated 3 July 1917. 

Olive's new husband, Clarence Johnson, died less than four years later, at 45 years old, in Redmond, Washington. 

Further information on Olive is not known at this time.

Third Marriage:

On 20 February 1915, a splendid walled city of domed palaces, palm-lined courts, and monumental statuary arose on San Francisco, California’s northern shore.  Popularly known as the 1915 World's Fair—formally named the "Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE)," commemorating the opening of the Panama Canal just nine years after San Francisco's devastating earthquake and fires of 1906—it emerged on 635 acres of land previously submerged by water.

The fair featured eleven exhibition palaces showcasing objects from every corner of the globe, more than 1,500 sculptures commissioned from artists all over the world, 65 acres of amusement concessions, and an aviation field. Fifty California counties, forty-eight states, and twenty-one countries mounted displays in the exposition’s grand pavilions. Then, after the fair closed, this ephemeral city was all but erased from the landscape. In the intervening ten months, nearly nineteen million people—about twenty times the population of San Francisco at the time—were drawn to the spectacle.

Two of those people drawn to visit San Francisco's World's Fair were Arthur Schoennauer, and a young woman destined to be my grandmother, Ida Amalia Welk, a woman of German origins who had immigrated with her family to the U.S. in 1908.  Although my grandmother shared very little with me about my grandfather, she did tell me about their meeting there.  After that introduction (not sure how long the trip to San Francisco lasted), they both returned home, her to Portland, Oregon and he to Seattle, Washington, and began a correspondence exchange for a couple years, and I would presume visits by train to see each other.

As their relationship grew stronger over the next couple years, they were engaged and then married on 20 August 1918 in Portland, Oregon with Ida's full family present.

Marriage Record for Arthur Schoennauer and Ida Welk in Portland, Oregon.
(Source: Oregon State Archives. Oregon, Marriage Records, 1906-1910, 1946-1971. Salem, Oregon. Oregon Center For Health Statistics; Portland, Oregon, USA; Oregon State Marriages, 1911-1945)

Portland, Oregon newspaper notice of marriage license
(Source: The Oregon Daily Journal, 21 Aug 1918, Page 10)

Wedding photo of Arthur Schoennauer and Ida Welk (1918)

After they married, they made their home together at 2130 North 51st Street in Seattle, Washington, where they both lived the remainder of their lives.  

The following month, in September 1918, Arthur registered for the draft.  The Draft Registration Card below is a genealogical valuable document for multiple reasons.  It shows his age and birthdate as 43 years old and born on October 5, 1875; it identifies him as being white by race and of native born citizenship; shows his occupation as a Linotype Operator at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, one of the two large mainstream daily newspapers in Seattle located at 4th and Union streets; identifies his nearest relative as his new bride, Mrs. Ida Amalia Welk and their address as 2130 North 51st Street in Seattle; shows his personally identifiable characteristics as observed and recorded by the Draft Registrar: medium height, stout build, blue eyes, brown hair, and "little finger on right hand crooked" as a descriptive and identifiable disfiguration; and has his own full-name signature written by him.

WWI Draft Registration Card for Arthur C. J. Schoennauer filed 12 September 1918.

On 2 January 1920, the Schoennauer household was enumerated for the decennial census, and it showed both Arthur and Ida residing at 2130 N. 51st Street in Seattle.  Had the enumerator visited their house two weeks later, it would have had another name added to the household, that of my mother.  My grandmother must have been 8-1/2 months pregnant at the time.  The census showed that Arthur was 44 years old and Ida was 35. It also showed she had immigrated in 1908 and her citizenship as "Naturalized," with the application probably not yet approved or finalized because of a year lacking in column 15. 

1920 census for Washington, King county, Seattle, sheet 1B, identifying neighboring residences along North 51st Street, showing a few more houses built since the census ten years earlier.

Three children were born of this union within the following four years:

1.  Irmgard Ida Ottilie Schoennauer was born 15 January 1920 

2.  Arthur Henry August Schoennauer was born 26 October 1921

3.  Alfred Walter William Schoennauer was born 3 September 1923

On 17 April 1930, the family appeared on the U.S. census for the state of Washington, residing at 2130 North 51st Street. Arthur is shown as 54 years old, Ida as 46, and children, Irma, age 10, Arthur, 8, and Alfred. 6.  Arthur's occupation is shown as "Printer" in the newspaper industry.

1930 Census for Washington, King county, Seattle, block no. 95 (sheet 40B)

On 9 April 1940, the Schoennauer family was recorded on the decennial census, still residing at 2130 N. 51st St. in Seattle.  Arthur, as head of family, is now 64 years old, Ida, 55, and children, Irmgard, 20, Arthur Jr., 17, and Alfred, 16.  Arthur continues to work as Linotype Operator in the newspaper industry, having worked 42 weeks the previous year and earned $1,900 during that period.

1940 Census for Washington state, King county, Seattle city, block no. 48 (sheet 6B)

On 7 October 1941, he died quietly in his sleep at home, two days after his 66th birthday.  The death certificate reports his cause of death was "acute dilation of the heart" due to coronary sclerosis due to obesity.  An autopsy was done by the coroner and the findings were listed as the same.  Johnson & Sons handled the funeral arrangements, and Arthur was buried at Lakeview Cemetery on 10 October 1941. 

Washington State Certificate of Death for Arthur C.J. Schoennauer, who died 7 October 1941.

 

Arthur C.J. Schoennauer gravesite.  This was the second headstone here, added after my mother, Irma's death in 2003.  The first smaller, in-ground headstone for Arthur was given to me by the Lake View Cemetery caretaker after this new one was added.

Closing:

When I was a child visiting my grandmother and uncle at their house in Seattle, I was always "greeted" by my grandfather, in a manner of speaking, on every visit, because his large black and white framed portrait looked over me as I entered the house in the foyer entryway.  His expression was one of grandfatherly love and a subdued pride in his accomplishments.  He seemed to me to be a peaceful man who had a self-assured demeanor about him. Sometime shortly prior to the Irma's birth in 1920, Arthur had purchased an early Brownie-type camera to photograph memories of the family, and the results showed him to be a loving and proud father and earnest provider through years of family photographs. I looked through the dozen or so handmade binders of photos multiple times growing up.

There was no sign in that calm portrait of him in the entryway or in the spontaneously photographed images of him and the children, my mother and my two uncles, in the photo binders, showing any hints of the somewhat bizarre events of his earlier life, most of which  I would learn much later about him: the young boy who lost his father, by divorce when he was 12, and by death when he was 14, who had been suffering from the wounds and injuries received in a cruel civil war which pit cousin against cousin; or the teenager who saw his mother turn strangers into step-fathers, one right after another; or the young man who would shoot one of his step-fathers in anger over an argument about money, employment, and the responsibility for providing for the family; or the adult who abandoned his first wife and child on the other side of the United States; or the philanderer that manipulated the court to file a one-sided divorce from his first wife so he could legally marry his second; or the smooth playboy who wooed a woman who would be his third wife, quite possibly before the second marriage had even ended, and then once married, moved her into the house he had built or bought new for the second wife.  

Those personalities traits are from two distinctively different people. Was I the only one fooled or not seeing the full picture of his life?  How much of his former life was shared with his third wife, my grandmother?  Were my mother and her two brothers even ever aware they had an older brother from their father's first marriage, a young man who died while serving his country while they were still infants?  Or was I the first to make the connection between this apparent doppelganger named Arthur Schoennauer? 

By looking at some of the highlights I've found on his life, the primary catalyst or point of transformation in his life seems to be the day he married Ida Welk, the woman destined to be my grandmother.  At that point, the uncommitted drifter seemed to be transformed into a faithful, settled husband and family man.  My next blog essay will be centered on my grandmother, a strong, Godly woman I so respected when I was a child and young adult.  I'm sure that she must have been the transforming force in Arthur's life at 42-43 years old.  Thank God he found her!

Despite my settling on an answer for analyzing the most likely breakthrough moment for turning my grandfather's life around, so many questions remain unanswered for me from this walk down Memory Lane on my grandfather's life.  

Endnotes:

[1] Legal case: SCHOENNAUER v. SCHOENNAUER. Opinion Per CROW, C.J. 77 Wash. [No. 10892. Department Two, December 29, 1913.]  FANNY SCHOENNAUER, Respondent, v. ARTHUR C.J. SCHOENNAUER, Appellant. Original Source: Washington Reports Volume 77: Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of Washingnton, By Washington (State). Supreme Court, Eugene G. Kreider, Arthur Remington, William Henry Anders 1914; pages 132-138, 773 (https://books.google.com/books?id=3WotAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA132). Online Repository: Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington (MRSC); Schoennauer v. Schoennauer, 77 Wash. 132, 137 Pac. 325 (1913); Pages 132-138;(http://courts.mrsc.org/washreports/077WashReport/077WashReport0132.htm), accessed 6 Sep 2023

This is part of my "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" blog challenge.

52 Ancestors: #2 - Irmgard (Schoennauer) Cole

This is part of my "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" blog challenge.

Irma (Schoennauer) Cole - My Mother

Highlight

Irmgard Ida Ottilie Schoennauer, born January 15, 1920 in Seattle, Washington, was one of the United States’s premier swimmers in the late 1930s and early 1940s. 

1942 UW Tyee yearbook photo as a senior

Born the year female swimmers became the first American women to achieve full Olympic status, Irma began her competitive swimming career as a child at Green Lake in Seattle, having local swimming champion Helene Madison as her older role model.[1]  Quickly recognized for her natural swimming ability and competitive spirit, Imgard was invited to join the swimming team of the Washington Athletic Club in 1935, soon winning numerous local, regional, state-wide, and multi-state telegraph races,[2] and was a member of the 400-yard relay team that won the National Championship in 1938. Groomed to compete in 1940 Summer Olympics, she continued competitive swimming after the outbreak of World War II, even though the Olympic games were suspended by the IOC. It is very likely, had it not been for the war, she would have competed on the United States Olympic swim team, possibly alongside peer, Esther Williams of California.[3]

 

Two 1938 newspaper articles: The first, about Irma being on the swimming team completing for a national relay title in Santa Barbara, California, and the second, about her being referred to as one of the "Invading Stars" at a Victoria, B.C. swim meet.

Irma was featured prominently in the University of Washington Tyee yearbook for 1939 as a "Titleholder of national prominence...breaking three all-time Western and one National record." 

Irma identified in this newspaper photo as one of "the five beauties" for famous swimming coach Ray Daughters of the Washington Athletic Club in 1941.

 When I visited my grandmother's house in Seattle, I remember well the large trophy case filled with her swimming trophies in her old bedroom right next to her the bed I would sleep in.  I found it interesting to think as an adult, that as many times as my mother and I went to city and community pools when I was growing up, both in Baltimore, Maryland and in Tacoma, Washington, that I didn't learn to swim myself until I took lessons while in college. My mother had been a recognized national swimming champion, but both her children didn't learn to swim until adults!

Biographical Sketch

Irmgard was the daughter and eldest child of Chicago native, Arthur Charles John Schoennauer, and Prussian immigrant, Ida Amalia Ottilie Welk. Irma’s father was a career typesetter employed by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for most of his life; her mother was a seamstress and clothing designer.  As a teen, Irma attended Lincoln High School in Seattle. After graduating, she went to college at the University of Washington in Seattle. In her freshman year, she became a member of "Chi of Phrateres," a philanthropic-social organization for female college students at the university.[4]  She graduated from the University of Washington in 1942 with a BA degree in Communications.  

Family home in Seattle where Irma was born and lived until about 1942. (Although this photo was taken in 2008, it still very closely resembles how I remember it as a child visiting my grandmother and uncle often while growing up. I have many great childhood memories there.)

After graduating from the University of Washington, Irma made her career as a civil servant for the Federal Government for over 40 years; starting first the Department of the War (Army & Air Force) in California during the latter part of World War II, then with the Department of the Interior at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state, then and finally the Social Security Administration from about 1953, working in various states, including California, Kansas, Maryland and finally Washington state, where she retired about 1982.

While working at Mt. Ranier in 1947, my mother witnessed the famous UFO sighting of multiple "flying saucers" flying past the mountain.[5]  That sparked a lifelong interest in the phenomena for her, which she shared with me multiple times as a teen and young adult.  Her and I went to a presentation hosted by a former Air Force officer at the Tacoma Public Library around 1968 (I was about 12-13 years old at the time), and he talked about UFOs and presented a photographic slide show of what he described as UFO sightings, showing various unidentified flying objects, many saucer-shaped and others cigar-shaped, flying alone as well as in groups, some close enough to see the full shape in daylight, others in the distance with indescribable shapes, and many others as unusual luminescent light patterns at nighttime. My mother, though, privately described to me the flying objects she witnessed at Mt. Ranier as very silvery, reflective, and somewhat crescent-shaped (or as something between quarter-moon and half-moon shaped), rather than completely round or saucer-shaped.[6]

My mother met my father, Melvin Leroy Cole of Arkansas, early in 1955, both working as Claims Representatives in the same Social Security office in Seattle, Washington.   They apparently had a short dating relationship, and when she became pregnant with me, they quietly drove to a Justice of the Peace office in Ellensburg, Washington, and married privately and unceremoniously in June 1955. Because they both worked in the same government office, after marrying, they rarely resided in the same city, due to the Social Security Administration's nepotism policy.  Although two children were born of this union, partly as a result of this forced separation and because both were very independent and strong-willed individuals by nature, they separated formally in 1960 and divorced in 1963.  I never learned of this divorce action as a child, and throughout my teen years and into adulthood thought they were still legally married but permanently separated, until I researched and located the divorce record from the Baltimore courthouse on one of my trips there after her death.

Marriage certificate for Irma and Lee Cole. They were married quietly by a Justice of the Peace in Ellenberg, Washington in June 1955. She was one month pregnant with me at the time, something she never admitted to me.

Besides her lifelong interest in swimming, she enjoyed travelling by train (she never got a driver’s license, owned a car, or flew in a plane), investing in real estate, and researching her family history. 

Irma died in Tacoma, Washington at the age of 83. Her funeral was conducted in the same Lutheran church in Seattle where baptized as an infant and confirmed as a teenager, and her body was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle, next to her beloved father. Upon her death in 2003, she was survived by one of her brothers, her two sons, and one grandchild.

Headstone of father and daughter at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle, Washington.

Obituary 

Irmgard Ida Schoennauer COLE 

Irma was born January 15, 1920 in Seattle, Washington to Arthur C.J. Schoennauer and Ida A. Schoennauer, nee Welk. She passed away November 6, 2003 in Tacoma, Washington. Irma attended Trinity Lutheran School, Lincoln High School and graduated from the University of Washington in 1942 with a BA degree in Communications. In 1935 she joined the swimming team of the Washington Athletic Club and was a member of the 400-yard relay team, winning the National Championship in 1938. She worked for over 40 years in various departments of the Federal Government. She is survived by 2 sons, Robert A. Cole of Appleton, Wisconsin and Arthur J. Cole of Huntsville, Alabama. She was a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Seattle and later, Central Lutheran Church in Tacoma. Memorial contributions may be sent to Central Lutheran Church, 409 N. Tacoma Ave. Tacoma, WA 98405. Funeral Services were held 1 p.m. Monday, November 10, 2003, at Trinity Lutheran Church, 1200 10th Ave. E., Seattle, with a Graveside Service at Lakeview Cemetery immediately following. Arrangements by Columbia Funeral Home. Please sign the online guest book at www.columbiafuneralhome.com.

The obituary above was published in the Seattle Times on 8 November 2003.

Closing

It's been twenty years since my mother's death, and as I been researching and consolidating my various sources of genealogical data to compose this, I'm realizing what a shame there are so many things I didn't know or didn't learn about my own mother during her lifetime.  Although I've discovered many old newspaper clippings about her tremendous youthful swimming achievements, much about her adult life remains vague or unknown. She was a very private person.  I'm in the process of assembling data from records pertaining to her various property investments and my own recollections of them, and will include that information once completed for separate blog entry. 

Yes, this has been another journey down Memory Lane for me!

Bob

Endnotes:

[1]  Helene Emma Madison (1913–1970) was an American competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder. She won three gold medals in freestyle event at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, becoming, along with Romeo Neri of Italy, the most successful athlete at the 1932 Olympics: women's 100-meter freestyle, 400-meter freestyle, and 4×100-meter freestyle relay. In sixteen months in 1930 and 1931, she broke sixteen world records in various distances. (Source: Pantheon World Profiles – Helene Madison Biography; at https://pantheon.world/profile/person/Helene_Madison/) She began swimming in early childhood, first at Green Lake, one block from her home in Seattle, and later in Seattle Parks Department swim programs. Catching the eye of local coach Ray Daughters in 1928, Madison began swimming competitively on his team at the Crystal Pool, and later at Washington Athletic Club. Between 1930 and 1932, Madison broke all sixteen world freestyle records in various distances, sweeping the freestyle events at national championships. (Source: MOHAI, Olympic swimmers Helene Madison and Georgia Coleman with Frederic March, Los Angeles, 1932 - Museum of History and Industry - University of Washington Digital Collections; at  https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/imlsmohai/id/8779/)

[2]  In the 1930s and 40s, swimming competitions for teams based in different states or in distant locations based their results on telegraph races when all the teams could not compete at the same location. The process involved swimmers in one location swimming against other swimmers in another location or in multiple different locations.  Each of the swimming locations were connected by a telegraph wire and the race for each competitor was timed using a stopwatch.  The official times were then transmitted via the telegraph wire to the other locations, where the other swimmers would start swimming when directed and telegraph their times as well. The winner was determined by comparing the total times taken to complete the races in the various competition locations.

[3]  Esther Jane Williams (1921–2013) was an American competitive swimmer and actress. She set regional and national records in her late teens on the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team. Unable to compete in the 1940 Summer Olympics because of the outbreak of World War II, she joined Billy Rose's Aquacade, where she took on the role vacated by Eleanor Holm after the show's move from New York City to San Francisco. While in the city, she spent five months swimming alongside Olympic gold-medal winner and Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller. Williams caught the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer scouts at the Aquacade. After appearing in several small roles, and alongside Mickey Rooney in an Andy Hardy film and future five-time co-star Van Johnson in A Guy Named Joe, Williams made a series of films in the 1940s and early 1950s known as "aquamusicals," which featured elaborate performances with synchronized swimming and diving. (Source: Wikipedia contributors. "Esther Williams." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 13 Nov. 2023. Web. 8 Dec. 2023.)

[4]  Phrateres was an international, democratic, social, and service organization that aimed to "uphold the standards and ideals of the University, to develop a friendly spirit among the women on the campus, and to fufill its motto, 'Famous for Friendliness.'" Phrateres was open to all women who chose membership in one of its sub-chapters and were in regular attendance at the University of Washington, passed a pledge test and earned activity points, and paid the pledge fee. The international organization of Phrateres was founded at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1924. The second chapter, Beta, was installed at the University of Washington on February 18, 1929. The Washington chapter was organized into sub-chapters and the All-Phrateres Cabinet (All-Phrateres officers) and Council (Cabinet, sub-chapter presidents, and chairs of standing committees). The Beta chapter of Phrateres dissolved in the 1970's, but the Phrateres Alumnae Association continues to meet and to award the May Dunn Ward Scholarship. (Source: Phrateres Beta Chapter Records - Archives West (orbiscascade.org)  The intention was to bring "independent" women students (i.e. those not in dormitories or sororities) into a collective group for the purposes of socialization and philanthropy. However, the new group proved popular and soon membership was extended to any female student who wished to join. Members later included those who lived in dorms, commuted to campus, as well as members of sororities. (Source: Wikipedia contributors. "Phrateres." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 21 Mar. 2023. Web. 20 Nov. 2023.)

[5]  This was the first post-World War II sighting in the United States that garnered nationwide news coverage and is credited with being the first of the modern era of UFO sightings, including numerous reported sightings over the next two to three weeks. A pilot's description of the objects also led to the press quickly coining the terms flying saucer and flying disk as popular descriptive terms for unidentified flying objects. (Source: Wikipedia contributors. "Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 6 Aug. 2023. Web. 21 Nov. 2023.)  An individual from Glasgow, Scotland who has decades of study in "ufology" wrote a thought-provoking, well-researched, outstanding analysis of the Kenneth Arnold UFO sightings recorded at his "James Easton's UFO Blog" (jceaston.blogspot.com) in August 2023, and makes a case that attributes what Arnold saw as a flock of white pelicans. He also shows some of the many inconsistencies in Arnold's various statements on the sightings over his lifetime. 

[6]  While this portion of the narrative is centered around my mother, I have to add here that I myself saw such a flying object with that shape in the Fall of 2019 returning from an environmental waste construction project I was working on west of Fort Bragg Army Base, North Carolina.  We left the work site a little after 5:00 pm, so it was just a little past sunset.  I was driving with a co-worker from where we were working in the Hamlet-Marston vicinity, stopped for a short while in Southern Pines along Hwy 1 for an iced tea drink from McDonalds and to change out of my work boots into more comfortable tennis shoes, then continued driving in a north-eastly direction.  We were a little north of Sanford, about halfway to Apex, where I needed to drop my co-worker off where he lived. Then we both saw what I can only describe as a twin arc or chevron-shaped flying object with white and blue-green lights up ahead of us flying in the same general direction we were driving. The object arched from the right to the left sides of the highway, then again a few miles later from the left to the right side, not gradually like a normal private or commercial aircraft, but suddenly. My co-worker took a couple cell-phone pictures of it and called his girlfriend to tell her and describe to her what we were seeing. We pulled off the highway at Hwy-55 in Apex, planning to stop at a gas station so we could watch it without having to worry about traffic and possibly get better pictures, but by the time we stopped and got out of the car, the object was only barely visible in the distance through the tree line and shortly thereafter disappeared from our view altogether. Yes, the flying object could have been some type of military aircraft from nearby Pope Air Force Base or from one of the airfields at or near Fort Bragg, but the shape of the aircraft, the light pattern on it, and the speed of its movements, clearly seemed atypical for the military aircraft I was used to seeing at or around Pope AFB or Fort Bragg (having been stationed there close to ten years).  And seeing that Raleigh-Durham Airport is only a few miles west of the path we were driving, the flight path for the aircraft we saw would not have been typical for commercial aircraft landing at RDU, but would have been too close to the normal commercial flight path to be permitted for other aircraft to fly. When I returned home, I watched the local news on TV and checked on-line local news URLs for any information on such reports from others, but when none were found, I dismissed what I saw as just an unusual aircraft sighting and maybe, in part, our own imagination – but not completely. So whether what I thought I saw was valid or not, I found it intriguing that what I saw so closely matched the description of what my mother said she saw 72 years earlier.  NOTE #1: One website (EXO News at exonews.org) reported there were at least 143 reports of UFO sightings filed in North Carolina alone in 2019.  NOTE #2: Although I don't specifically remember the exact date of my sighting of the unidentified flying object, another website that I just searched and discovered today as I am writing this (National UFO Reporting Center at https://nuforc.org/subndx/?id=lNC) shows four independent reports from other people in Apex, NC reporting UFO sightings on 10/10/2019 between 1930 and 2000 hours (including one video), which matches our return time to Apex from work that evening. Interesting!

This is part of my "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" blog challenge.