#prepinkboots

When I’m not getting hailed on while weeding my front yard, I’ve been spending an awful lot of time in my corner chair looking through results in online newspaper databases. 

This morning my husband looked over my shoulder and said "So what exactly are you looking for in those old papers?"

The real answer is “I don’t really know.” The answer I gave him was "clues."

Once upon a time you had few alternatives for doing newspaper research. Boxes of delicate papers or microfilm.

This was time consuming and place-based. You needed to know which newspaper to consult and you needed to go to a place with the paper or film and equipment. You also had to skim... look through many issues to find a mention of the business or person you were trying to find. Arduous, for sure.

But also rewarding because you got an amazing sense of the place and change over time. The issues a community is facing, the babies that were born, and the ads for products people buy. You’d find a clue in an ad, a name of a saloon manager, a small thread to pull in hopes that the name will come up again in the same city. In another city? In some way related to brewing?!?

When journal databases first came online we were delighted. I remember working on a paper for a Comedy/Tragedy Lit class when I was in college, and I was able to search for articles on a computer! In my apartment! It was amazing! But rather than getting full page duplicates, what we ended up with was the content of the article we found - no formatting, no context, no serendipity, no ads. This is sill the case for many academic articles in databases, but now there are digitization projects that are working to provide online access to the content and context - and it’s full text searchable!

For those who did newspaper research “in the olden days,” you know this has opened up a world of information. No more travels, no nausea from microfilm.

There are two main free online sites I use to do newspaper research: 

Historic Oregon Newspapers 

Chronicling America

Newspapers.com is a subscription site that people rave about, but I’ve never paid the fee to see. 

These are amazing and robust sites, but not all newspapers have been digitized and not all years are included. It’s also worth noting that the full text searching isn’t perfect.

There are lots of ways you can use these online sites:

To find names of brewers if you know the brewery

To find names of breweries if you know the name of the owner

To find out if a brewery is written about or advertised in a town. 

To find the location of a brewery. 

To find out information about property assessments or tax payments. 

To find out information about plans for a new business 

To see the advertisements 

To find out who was visiting whom or if someone stayed in a hotel.

But like all sites, there are problems too:

Not all dates are digitized 

Not all names are spelled correctly  

Sometimes names are too common 

Sometimes women are named by heir husband’s name. 

Sometimes women get remarried and use their new husband’s name. 

Not all things I think are news are newsworthy 

When you search for a brewery name you can get rows of hits for advertisements - see below, all ads.

But the thing is, these articles and ads give you clues and details about a life. The little bits that fill out the story of a person make for a good story, but also allow us to think about these people as people, who lived wonderful and complicated lives. These are noteworthy women who end up with their names on a list, or in a presentation, or in a book, but they were also individual people.

I have reflected on this a lot in my own work as an oral historian, and I feel very strongly that the work of an archivist, oral historian, and historian needs to move beyond dates to find the personal pieces that make up a life. We can make these women more than examples in the category of “women in brewing,” something I fear we now defaulted to in an effort to highlight women in the brewing industries. As if there was a static definition? Or as if there is a single “us versus them” narrative, a simple answer to the gender question, a shared set of values, a “monochrome” female subculture?

And as I reflect on my work to save and uncover the history of women in brewing -- pre-Prohibition through crafty Beervana -- in the end, I see it all intertwined in giving women their own voice, a chance to reflect on their own complicated and oftentimes contradictory experiences or observations. In present day that means we give them the power to their own story or record of their experiences. And then, hopefully, to have someone learn from them.  

In the next post I'll share what I actually found. 

Last week I was supposed to give a presentation for the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association conference. That didn't work out... For the COVID-19 reasons. But we did make it work a week later on Zoom and it was terrific!

My talk focused on Louisa Weinhard. Here’s what I said. 

I started OHBA in 2013, the first of its kind in the country. 2013 is also when I met Peter Kopp [see photo above left bottom - Kopp is the author of Hoptopia: A World of Agriculture and Beer in Oregon's Willamette Valley] and we’re old hats at presenting together. Though usually we are in the same room. This talk, “Maybe you’ve heard of her husband? Finding Louisa Weinhard,” is based on an article for the Oregon Historical Quarterly I’m working on revisions for right now. I’m going to talk about women in brewing in Oregon, but first I want to talk about silence.

Archives and records repositories are filled with voices. We visit them to learn about our families, past actions of governments, and the activities of private organizations. But they are also spaces that reflect power and document the dominant narrative. Decisions are made by creators, by archivists, and by researchers about what to include and who to exclude – the result can be distortion, omission, and erasure. And so, for all the voices recorded in an archive, there are also many that have been silenced.

As anyone who has done historical research on women knows, their stories weren’t actually hidden, more often they were simply not recorded. The history of nineteenth century women’s work is often told through the story of husbands and sons. They were categorized as wives and mothers rather than business partners or owners. One issue I always cite when talking about researching women is the complications surrounding names: if their first name was recorded in newspapers (not just “Mrs.”), actually finding a maiden name to track genealogy often feels like luck.

Most (all) brewers in nineteenth century Oregon were men, but as I explored beer history more, I found the stories of early Oregon women and their work in brewing fascinating. In my research I found most women linked to breweries weren’t making beer, but I suspected they played an essential role in the businesses success (for example in running the household, child-minding, doing the books, participating in community events, etc.), and I knew that several ran the brewery for a time after their husband died.

I was preparing for an oral history in 2016 with Dana Garves, owner of BrewLab and former brewing chemist at Ninkasi, and I found a blog post she’d written called “Oregon’s First Women Brewers [1879-1908],” which included names and locations. I have since found photos of three of these women: Left to right is Fredericka Wetterer from Jacksonville, Mary Allen from Monument, and Marie Kienlen from southern Oregon. Garves also wrote about Theresa O’Brien from the north coast and Mary Mehl from the south coast. I added names of own, including Catherine Stahl and Frances Kastner from eastern Oregon; Margaret Beck from Capital Brewing in Salem, and Louisa Kiefer from Albany – she’s also Fredericka Wetterer’s sister.

But is there a way to determine the jobs they did or the role they played? I did a lot of online newspaper searching and onsite research in the places these women lived, and the short answer is no. Variables in terms of family structure, geographic location, brewery size, and available documentation make generalizations and specifics quite difficult. 

But Henry Weinhard? His is a pretty familiar name and his business was extremely successful. And I was certain researching his wife would be a snap. An easy win and good practice for future work on the other women I’d identified.

I was wrong.

It turned out records for the Weinhards are scant, mostly limited to newspaper articles and ads, government records, lawsuits, and, for Henry, glowing biographies in “books about great men.”

And so I dug.

This is Louisa, who had that very famous husband. Although she was famous in her own right for generosity, as well as her involvement in local church and aid societies, her legacy is marked by both details and silences.

Not to jump to the end of the story first, but the fact that I have this picture is a true testament to my Googling superpowers. I scoured archival collections, newspapers, and books looking for a picture of her, only to fail. Finally, using a string of search terms I can’t remember, I found a 2015 reference to a portrait in an article about the Portland Community College remodel. Days before I finished the first draft of my article, I emailed their Community Relations manager and she sent me a picture of the portrait. It sat on my desk and I saved it on my phone to show people who I was writing about. We have signed the paperwork to have this transferred to the collections at OSU – I was due to pick it up the week everything closed…

Luise Wagenblast was born in Germany in 1832. She lost her mother when she was four, traveled to Missouri at fifteen, arrived in the Northwest at twenty-three, and married a man who would become famous when she was twenty-seven. By the time she died at aged eighty-five, she’d buried her husband and four of her five children.

Through online genealogy sites and local history sources, I pieced together details about Louisa’s family’s move from Waldrems, Germany, a small town about 300 miles southwest of Berlin, to Missouri to Oregon. Although she travelled to Oregon by ship, her brother Gottlieb journeyed with the 1855 wagon train led by Dr. Wilhelm Keil, founder of Christian communal settlements in Bethel (Missouri) and Aurora (Oregon) – thanks to Peter’s dad James for his work on utopian communities in Oregon because it helped me tease out whether they were part of the colony or not. They weren’t.

Through government records, I learned when she was married to Henry and when her children were born. Census records and newspapers documented the family’s moves back and forth across the Oregon / Washington border. Through the census, I also learned about her neighbors, the ages of her children, and if she had servants living in her home. While dates and names are recorded, what isn’t is the scope of her loss, which feels immense. Her son Christian Henry died in 1863 at two years old and daughter Emma Augusta in 1864 at 18 months. Her daughter Bertha Carolina (Bettie) died in 1882 of acute appendicitis at 13. Henry died in 1904 of kidney disease. Just over a year later, daughter Louise Wagner died of heart disease at thirty-two. Only daughter Anna Wessinger, who lived to 87, survived Louisa.

However, mentions in newspaper articles gave me a significant, and somewhat intimate, glimpse into her life through her community activities. She sent roses to the 1903 Portland Rose Society annual rose show and thirty pounds of sugar to support unemployed men at the Gipsy Smith Tabernacle. She donated $100 to a benefit fund to purchase artificial legs for Marjorie Mahr, an actress who lost both legs in a railway accident. When thirteen-year-old Ervilla Smith arrived at the Weinhard house in the middle of the night in 1905 after being assaulted near the Lewis & Clark Exposition fairgrounds and left on the street by a saloon; the family welcomed her, called the doctor and the police, while “Mrs. Weinhard got her something to eat and made her comfortable for the night.” She was a member of the Portland Women's Union and sent money to the Louise Home for Unmarried Mothers and Albertina Kerr Nursery Home. And during the last weeks of her life, she offered money to a woman whose husband was in prison in California so she could visit him.

I have lots of stories that could expand and fill the rest of my time: things I found out about Louisa’s siblings; brewery owners, saloon keepers, gambling, prostitution, and vice; women’s clubs in Portland; or family real estate acquisitions. But since it’s where I found the most detail, I’m going to tell you about how Louisa used that wealth and her position at the end of her life.

In the years following Henry and Louise’s deaths, it is difficult to determine how involved Louisa was in the brewery and family estate business, perhaps no more than in name as an executrix of the estate. What is clear is that she continued to support her German community. The most significant was her donation of a twenty-acre lot in Southeast Portland, worth $30,000, to build a retirement facility for elderly Germans to spend their final years “among their own people.” The Altenheim was to be the “most important of its kind in the U.S.” Newspapers reported that she wanted residents to take advantage of fresh air, good water, and rich soil; and because she valued work, also wanted “helpful occupations for charges” and imagined the home would be partially self-supporting through farming. On August 6, 1911, with 2,000 people present, the cornerstone was laid, which contained pictures of Henry and Louisa, as well as copies of Portland’s German and other daily newspapers. Louisa’s great-grandson talking later about a picture in the newspaper of Louisa at the May 1912 dedication, in an open carriage with the mayor of Portland, described her as looking like queen Victoria, “very short and very fat.” That’s the picture you see here – a find made possible by the University of Oregon’s Historic Oregon Newspapers site. I learned more about Louisa from the news coverage for the Altenheim than in most previous articles about Henry or the business. Beyond a tone-deaf comment about her appearance, I learned that she valued work, self-sufficiency, and cultural traditions, but also that she was part of a community that felt isolated from the rest of Portland. What we don’t hear are her words – in all the press coverage regarding the Altenheim there isn’t a single quote from Louisa.

The Altenheim was closed in 2003 and the building housed the German American Society offices until the property was sold to Portland Community College in 2010. And that’s where her portrait is waiting for me!

Louisa died in Portland on April 23, 1918 and was buried at the River View Cemetery. She was eighty-five years old, had been in America for seventy-one years and Portland for sixty-three. News of her death was carried in several papers.

W.G. Maclaren, General Superintendent Pacific Coast Rescue and Protective Society, wrote a letter to the editor that was an unfettered tribute to her good works and the hidden nature of her charity. He said that during the hard times of 1907, she bought $100 worth of tickets for the Portland Commons, and distributed them among “men who were out of work and in need of food and lodging.” He went on “She gave me orders that I was not to allow any unfortunate person to go away hungry and agreed to meet the expenses of feeding them.” He continued, “there never was a case of a mother or child in sickness or distress that Mrs. Weinhard knew of where she would not give assistance” and concluded she was a “good woman with one of the best hearts where human suffering was concerned that I have ever known. I believe that the people of Portland should know something of what she did during her long residence in this city for the benefit of Humanity.”

This last sentence feels like a final reminder that she gave freely to charitable causes and individual people, not for personal recognition (and maybe not for our historical record) but for the purpose of bettering others.

In researching Louisa, I found a handful of touchingly personal details that I couldn’t verify. The Weinhards supposedly had a house in Astoria and a farm of 620 acres in Yamhill County. An Oregonian article, written in 1954 when Louise Weinhard Wagner's home was being demolished, noted a 4-foot stained glass window with a woman sipping from a wine glass, said to have been installed by Louisa Weinhard as a gift with the house. The names Henry and Louise/a are handed down to subsequent generations in their family. And Louisa herself was immortalized in Brewery Block Two, a 242-unit high-rise residential building built on the location of the original Weinhard brewery in Portland.

But the last bit of sparkle to this story is a connection I made with one of her descendants on ancestry.com. I found Lizzie Hart, her great+ granddaughter, which had pictures of Louisa’s granddaughter and Lizzie’s grandmother. I wrote her and said “I’m an archivist. I have this picture of your relative and I’ve written this article about her, would you like either?” Fortunately, she wasn’t creeped out by this... 

Instead, through our ongoing correspondence she has given me a more personal perspective on the Weinhard family and validated my work in this area. My research has added a dimension both the story of the women in her family and in her own personal understanding of how she fits into it. Her family story was the story of men. 

I can’t end with a quote from Louisa, but I can end with one from Lizzie “What you are doing in your work -- the recovery of women's stories, painstaking as it may be to grapple in the dark room of the dominant narrative -- is such an important task to undertake on behalf of our futures.”

***

For more on archival silence, see 

Note: my research on women in brewing is ongoing, I’m writing a book, and these posts may be out of date. Please contact me at [email protected] if you have questions about women brewing in Oregon. ~Aug 3, 2021

In my first post on Louisa Kiefer and the Albany Brewery I closed with some frustration about how little “meaningful” information I was finding in the newspapers. Though there were details about the business, I’d found very little about the lives of the Kiefer family.

I won’t lie to you, this post doesn’t end as an investigative journalism piece that will fills in the satisfying details about where they did their shopping, if they liked to read, or what kind of buggy they had or if they bought it in The Dalles.  

The ad is from 1893, but I don’t have the citation. It came from Historic Oregon Newspapers, or course. 

I did find some articles that provided more personal details for the family, which gave me a better idea of interests, activities, and pastimes.

There were also a couple of really important online discoveries I made when looking into Fredericka Wetterer, and I want to share those here. 

These two sites gave me key clues for what to look for and put some of my findings in context: Early Oregonian Search and Find a grave.

Early Oregonian Search

This project was done for the state’s sesquicentennial, and it documents individuals who lived in Oregon before statehood through 1860. I used this site to search for names of our brewers, and found additional information about their families. It was also a place where you might find a woman’s maiden name or where people were born.

Part of why I could connect Fredericka and Louisa as sisters was because I found their records and noticed that a) they had the same last name and b) that they were both born in Baden, Germany. I made a leap that that were related.

Here’s her record: 

One problem: when I did a search for “Kiefer,” I didn’t get any results. I’m not sure why since the database sited findagrave as a source, but clearly the integration of information in one source isn’t complete...

Find a grave

This site claims to be the world’s largest gravesite collection, with over 170 million memorials created by the community since 1995. You can search or browse cemeteries and grave records for people from around the world.

I used this site to get birth and death dates, both are valuable for knowing about biographical details about a person. The more data points you have for searching the records, the more efficient and productive your visit to a historical society or a county records office will be.

Here is the link to Louisa’s Kiefer’s grave (1844-1894). 

Her name is listed as Louise, which I hadn’t seen elsewhere. The location is listed, and this is actually something I could easily check in person, but if this was our only source of information, having a misspelled first name could be a problem. You also see the location of the grave, as well as other graves related to her family. Beyond the difference in her first name spelling, note that the picture for her gravestone is her husband’s. 

Here is the gravestone for Charles (1837-1912), and you see that he lived for 18 years after she died. 

The graves for her other two children are also in this cemetery, and again it’s helpful to have their names and/or birth/death dates. 

Rosa M. Kiefer

Carl Kiefer

A couple of final notes. Rosa, the daughter who died in 1882, doesn’t have a birth date associated for her records, so this is a place where the newspapers could add to the information on other sites. But also note that if she had been full grown and married, we wouldn’t have found her in this cemetery at all. Only two of her children are buried here with Kiefer as their last name: son because he didn't change his, and the daughter because she never married. You’ll read later in this post that there are at least two other daughters. Even with a site as helpful as this, you still need to know married names to effectively use it.

Okay, so let’s dig in to what I did actually find in the newspapers. In my last post, I did a deep-ish dive into saloon bonds, so if you read that you know that saloon bonds were a thing and that the newspapers often reported on who had been granted one. There were several notices for Kiefer in the mid to late 1880s, but I’ll go ahead and leave those out of this post – all you really need to know is that he had a saloon and needed to apply for these “insurance” bonds.

There are a handful of “themes” that come up in relation to the family; performance, travel, marriage, death, and “random” / “miscellaneous.” 

The daughters were quite involved in drama and music performance. There are at least four notices for Clara Kiefer’s activities, including play parts in 1883 and 1894 play (The state rights democrat: May 18, 1883; April 06, 1894). In 1897, brother Carl joined “Miss Kiefer” in a musical production. (The state rights democrat, February 26, 1897).

In 1885, Clara participated in a “mask skate,” which was a carnival of sorts? 

The state rights democrat., March 06, 1885, p3 

I don’t know what a mask skate is, but if you read the bottom of this event report, you’ll note that prizes were given to Fred Whittier and AM Young, presumably for their superb performance of gender fluidity. Or at least the young man didn’t lose it immediately when playing the “Old Woman.”

Clara and Carl weren’t the only Kiefers on the stage. In 1886, Bertha performed at a musical event in both April and December; the latter was at the Opera House. (The state rights democrat: April 02, 1886; December 10, 1886). In 1887, she performed at a masquerade (The state rights democrat., February 18, 1887, p3). And then in 1894, performed at a firemen’s social, which clearly was meaningful to the community. Excuse the long article and the terrible resolution, but it really full of lots of interesting details about the city.

The state rights democrat., February 16, 1894, p3 

Another theme I found was travel, a theme that was the key to linking Mrs. Kiefer to her sister (Mrs. Fredericka Wetterer/Heeley). In 1883, “Mrs. Chas Kiefer and family returned after several weeks visit in Southern Oregon” (The state rights democrat., July 20, 1883, p3) Of course, this was for her sister’s wedding to William Heeley.

January 23, 1885, Louisa’s niece, Miss Pauline Wetterer, visited her in Albany, which was noted in the local paper (The state rights democrat, p3). And then in 1888, Pauline (or Paulina, depending on where you look) married R.E. Putnam, who was from Brownsville, in Albany Catholic Church.  

The state rights democrat., July 20, 1888, p3

And then in 1891, Pauline’s sister Mary Wetterer visited Louisa. (The state rights democrat., September 18, 1891, p3). 

In 1891, something happened that I am really curious about. The State Rights Democrat reported March 13, 1891 that Fredericka had transferred her Albany property to Louisa – lots "5, 6, b, 57" – and I want to know why. Their parents had settled there, so it’s possible that she didn’t need the property any longer? Their father, Joseph Sage, had bought the brewery in 1881, maybe this was repayment? The brewery closed in 1890, so could that be a clue?

This clue actually moves us to the next theme: marriages and deaths.

Another event close to that 1891 property transfer date is the death of Joseph Sage in 1890. I should mention that Sage has two entries in the Early Oregonian Index; in the first I learned that he was born in Baden, Germany in 1809 and his occupation in Oregon was listed as carpenter. This information was recorded in the 1860 census, one year after Oregon became a state. Sage’s other record is more robust, and cites the Oregon Donation Land Claims (ODLC) and “findagrave” as sources. In that record I found this out:  

Date of arrival: 05 Nov 1852

Burial location: Riverside Cemetery, Albany, Linn Co., OR

Land claim information: Linn County, claim number OC 1458

His spouse is listed as Gertrude, who was also from Germany. She was born 23 Feb 1805, married 15 Jun 1833, and died 23 May 1881. She is also buried in Riverside Cemetery in Albany, and the same land claim number is linked to her.

Yes, my beagle nose says that these are super clues for future research. 

One problem: Joseph and Gertrude’s kids aren’t linked from these pages. But in doing a broader search for “Sage” I found Fredericka, Frederick, and Louisa. Oddly, I didn’t find Gertude. However, in Fredericka’s record I found Gertrude’s maiden name. Her full name is Gertruda Biertcher.

Then something strange happened: I searched “findagrave” for Joseph Sage, and found that his spouse wasn’t listed as Gertrude, but Almina Hoag Sage. At first, I thought this was a mistake, because she’d died in Coquille. No mistake.

Almina was his second wife and (according to the site) they’d married 28 May 1882, almost a year to the day after Gertrude had died. It was also a second marriage for Almina, who had been married to Daniel St. John from 1832 until his death in 1880. And she was his second wife; he’d been married to Charlotte E. Hoyt from 1826-1830.

Oh boy. History is always a surprise. 

In September 1887, Louisa’s daughters began their walks down the aisle. In 1887, Clara Kiefer married Harry Noel, one of the proprietors of the Opera House saloon (The state rights democrat). And then on Christmas Eve 1894, Bertha married WH Warner at her parents’ home. 

The state rights democrat., December 28, 1894, p3  

On December 28, Louisa and Charles travelled to Portland, where she was admitted to the hospital for “treatment.” 

The state rights democrat., December 28, 1894, p3

And then, only 11 days after the wedding, on January 04, 1895, Louisa’s death was reported in the Morning Oregonian. 

1899, tragedy struck again. March 10th, 1899, The State Rights Democrat reported that Carl was at his father's home with pneumonia, and then 5 months later he passed away at 21. 

The state rights democrat., August 18, 1899, p5 

This research project is framed with the edges of gender and brewing, but I don’t know how we even process the pain Charles Kiefer must have felt at this time. He’s lost two of his children and his wife. He’s 63, at this point his business has closed, and he lives for 13 more years. Was Oregon different then? Yes. Was the culture/society different then? Yes. Was the grief that people feel after this much loss different? I don’t know, but I doubt it. 

This is my try at a transition after that. 

I came across many other random details about the Kiefer’s lives in the paper, including a wagon accident, clues for political leanings, yummy berries and beautiful lilacs, and a case of stolen underwear. 

In 1884, Clara Kiefer and her sister tipped over in their wagon. 

The state rights democrat., August 08, 1884, p3   

Later that year Charles Kiefer went to the Democratic ratification at Jacksonville (The state rights democrat., December 05, 1884, p3). In 1894, Bertha was a “Lady of Honor officer of the Degree of Honor AOUW” when it was instituted in Albany. The State Rights Democrat reported on January 19, 1894 that this chapter “starts off with a large membership and bright prospects.” 

Curious about the Degree of Honor Protective Association? 

In 1897, someone stole Mr Kiefer's underclothing off his line. It was reported that he was about to get a new suit, and that there are no leads.

The state rights democrat., December 17, 1897, p3 

A couple of years later, in 1899, there was a fire on the roof of Mr. Kiefer’s house. Although this was certainly terrible for him, a fire is only passingly interesting – except for the fact that we get a location for his house. It was near the corner of Lyon and 7th (The state rights democrat., January 27, 1899, p3).

November 07, 1892, Charles Kiefer's raspberries were noted in the Evening Capital Journal. I don’t think of November as raspberry season, but maybe he made jam in the summer? A heaping of praise came in fall 1912 for Margaret Kiefer’s lilacs, which are “notable for being beautiful” in the Morning Oregonian, September 25, 1912; the Independence Enterprise, October 04, 1912; and The Oregon Mist, October 04, 1912). I’m not actually sure if this Kiefer is one of our Kiefers, but this is a great transition into the next topic: how can we actually determine relationships?

I’ve written about using online sources like the Early Oregonians Database or “crowdsourced” burial sites like findagrave.com, but as I’ve mentioned these can be tricky if you don’t know what a woman’s name was before she married. 

Here’s a list of my “what are these relationships?!?!?” findings.  

1892: Charles Kiefer travelled with his two his daughters to meet Mr. L Koelocsk, who is noted as Charles' brother-in-law? Koelocsk is on a larger trip through US and Europe, and Kiefer et al accompanied him to Portland (The state rights democrat, July 22, 1892, p1).

1893: I noticed a Miss Lena Kiefer mentioned more than once – is this another daughter? Here’s an example. 

1893: Mr. L Koelsch is noted as being the brother of Mrs. Chas Kiefer. He and his wife were in Albany visiting from NYC. Questions: is Koelsch another way to spell Koelocsk? And another is that I haven’t seen any Koelschs linked to Louisa’s Sage lineage, and as far as I know her only brother was Frederick (The state rights democrat., August 18, 1893, p3).

1913: Is there a new Mrs. Chas. Kiefer in Albany? Because there is one noted in the Morning Oregonian, June 24, 1913. Charles lived until 1912, so it is possible he remarried and I haven’t found that yet.  

1919: Mary Kiefer was at OAC (now OSU) leading a cooking program. Is this one of our Kiefers? (Morning Oregonian., July 16, 1919, p7). 

I can take these confusion points with me when I do deeper research at a historical society or county records office, because the more names and questions I have the deeper my research will be.

Where does the story of Louisa Kiefer and the Albany Brewery end? With a lot of unanswered questions. The record of her life is pretty scant in the newspapers, but I was able to connect Fredericka to Louisa with the newspaper notes about their travelling to visit each other and just a little Google searching. I have high hopes that I’ll be able to find more information about both in historical records in the cities where they lived.

But as I was reflecting on what I’d learned in researching this post I kept coming back to this question: do we end up “knowing” a woman through her children? Because, at least in Louisa’s case, her kids get several mentions. I don’t know what conclusions I can draw about her from those mentions, maybe that Louisa was musical? Or that they had enough money that her daughters had enough free time to excel in music or community engagement? It also seemed especially touching that her daughter got married at her parents’ house just before her mom died. I may be leaping, but they must have known she was ill, and the timing tells me that it was meaningful for them to all be together.

I like to think my hunches are good, so I am excited to dig deeper into the story of this family.

Where does the story of the Albany Brewery end? With a lot of unanswered questions – one big question mark ends the sentence about the date this brewery actually closed.

Note: my research on women in brewing is ongoing, I’m writing a book, and these posts may be out of date. Please contact me at [email protected] if you have questions about women brewing in Oregon. ~Aug 3, 2021

We’re in Southern Oregon for the story of the 4th woman in this series on the brewing business.

This is a post where I’ll mix more non-newspaper sources, partially because I think it’s good to talk more holistically and realistically about the research process (which is not a straight line with one source type), but also because I just got really curious based on some things I found. 

And yes, it has felt like this. 

So I dug into some online books and genealogy sources.

As it was with the Marie Keinlen story, this is a case of a woman remarrying after her husband passed away. In this case, however, she does not marry her late husband’s brother.

I was also intrigued by a note in the Garves blog about F. Wetterer’s community engagement and this bit about the Sisters at St. Mary’s Academy bartering tuition for her 7 children in exchange for beer-- this most definitely needs to be corroborated. She did have seven children, however only five survived to adulthood. In any case, this touch of “beer lore” suggests beer was a valued commodity and that people thought it was something that could be traded.

More than other stories I’ve written about so far, this one gave me a sense of what the town of Jacksonville was like in the pioneer era. It also brought to mind the challenge women faced when their husbands died; beyond the grief, when women inherited property they also inherited debt. This happened here. Fredericka Wetterer’s story is also one of parental loss, two of her children died quite young. There’s a starkness with which I read the newspaper posts; there is little explanation or anything on how her family was coping.

The Eagle Brewery in Jacksonville was an early brewery in Oregon's industry; it was opened in 1856 by JJ Holman. I couldn’t find out much about Holman, save some references to fuel, funerals, insurance, and civic engagement.

In 1859, it was sold to Joseph Wetterer, a German brewer who remodeled the building (355 South Oregon Street in the rear), added a saloon and a residence, and increased beer production. The brewery had a long list of names, which mirror the story of the owners:

J. J. Holman, Eagle Brewery 1856-1859

Joseph Wetterer, Eagle Brewery 1859-1879

Mrs. Frederica Wetterer 1879-1884

William and Frederica Heeley 1884-1890

You can probably surmise the scaffolding for this story: Joseph Wetterer died, his wife ran the business, remarried, and then co-owned the brewery with her new husband.

September 17, 1859 was the first posting I found for the brewery. In early days Conrad Meyer was listed as partner.

(Oregon sentinel., September 17, 1859, p3)

And here’s an early ad for the Eagle Brewery - with a song.

(Oregon sentinel., December 05, 1863, p3)

In 1865, I found the first ad for a brewery and a distillery. Customers could get whiskey, brandy, and lager beer.

(Oregon sentinel., March 25, 1865, p3)

In 1867, I found a reference to a court case in which John Long sued Joseph Wetterer and John Wintjen. I’m not sure what this was about, because I hadn’t seen any references to Wintjen in any other articles on the Wetterers. 

(Oregon sentinel., October 05, 1867, p3) 

So of course, I had to do some searching! I went on another beagle hunt…

An 1859 ad for Wintjen and Hellms' says that they run a confectionary and bakery, which also sold Thomas and Jacobs' wholesome lager beer. 

(Oregon sentinel., September 17, 1859, p3) 

What?

Who are Thomas and Jacobs?? 

I found an 1858 ad for Thomas and Jacobs' Eagle Mills distillery, which also says they furnish gin, brandy, whisky, and lager beer. 

(Oregon sentinel., February 27, 1858, p3) 

Where is this place and what’s the story? 

I did another Google search and found a hit in the book Distilled in Oregon, where I learned that the business operated in Ashland until 1861, when their mortgage lender foreclosed. It’s unclear to me whether or not they actually brewed the lager or if they just sold it. If they did brew, that 1858 opening date makes them one of the first in Oregon.

Back to Wintjen and Hellms. A notice in 1879 said they had just received a shipment of liquors and cigars – and they always have Budweiser beer on hand. It’s worth noting that Helms had changed the spelling of his name by 1879, and the second L never reappears 

(Oregon sentinel., June 11, 1879, p3) 

That same year, there’s an ad for ice (Oregon sentinel., July 09, 1879, p3). By 1880, they were advertising their business as a saloon (Oregon sentinel., March 03, 1880, p4). Although they’ve dropped the sweets and baked goods, they had added a "cabinet of curiosities” as a selling point for customers. 

Along those same lines, in 1881 they had a piece of quartz taken from Roten Lodge on display (Oregon sentinel., May 14, 1881, p3).

Conclusion to the 1867 reference to a lawsuit? It surely had to do with alcohol.

It often does.

Note: my research on women in brewing is ongoing, I’m writing a book, and these posts may be out of date. Please contact me at [email protected] if you have questions about women brewing in Oregon. ~Aug 3, 2021

I mentioned in my post on Marie Kienlen that I gotten into a bit of a research hole with Arthur and Louie Conklin. Part of what I was trying to figure out when searching for Conklin was whether he'd ever been involved in brewing, or whether he just owned the land.

You can remind yourself how I got here by reading this post: Marie T. Kienlen: Grants Pass Brewery, 1904-1908.

Marie and her husband Eugene purchased the property where their brewery was housed from Arthur Conklin in 1899, the same year that he was reported as the manager of the Oregon Mining newspaper. 

There's no indication he was a brewer, but I couldn't let it go because I had to make sure. What if there was a surprising story to share and I missed it? 

So I started to dig... And here’s all the stuff I found. 

In 1901, Conklin was appointed delegate to the International Mining Congress in Boise. Also in 1901, he was listed as a speaker at a Baptist convention, and was identified as the Rogue River Baptist Association past chair and current treasurer. Clues that maybe he's not super involved in the alcohol trade, right?

The following year he was the Oregon Editorial Association president, and in 1903 he was at an Oregon editors gathering in Hood River - Abigail Scott Duniway was also there. 

The Hood River glacier., October 29, 1903 p4

Why is this noteworthy? Scott Duniway was an American women's rights advocate, newspaper editor, and writer, whose efforts were instrumental in gaining voting rights for women. 

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_Scott_Duniway 

There's quite a well-documented link between temperance, suffrage, and Prohibition. 

"Those who supported both suffrage and temperance in Oregon included many members of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.) and the Anti-saloon League." 

However, 

"not everyone who supported votes for women also supported temperance. Abigail Scott Duniway, a leader of the first wave of the Oregon woman suffrage campaigns, viewed the temperance movement as a hindrance to passing woman suffrage." 

When I saw Scott Duniway's name I assumed this was a slam dunk against any association with alcohol, an irony I hoped to delight in when sharing this post. 

Learn at Century of Action "Suffrage and Temperance: Differing Perspectives"

As is often the case with history and people, nothing is that simple. 

Speaking of politics, not everyone was excited about the progressive movement towards equal rights. I included this 1904 quote in my Marie Kienlen post too, but it's worth a repost:

In 1904, Conklin got into some trouble. He was found guilty in libel case because he wrote about a man who swindled a woman; the sentence could have been jail time, but there's no indication in the papers that happened. 

The next year I started to see Conklin's wife mentioned, though save one example, she was always referred to as Mrs. Conklin or Mrs. Arthur Conklin. 

In 1905, the Conklins visited Ashland - there’s a nice adjacent article on hops.

Daily capital journal., January 28, 1905, p5

In 1905, Mrs. Conklin was actually named with her name (the singular time) in an article in a Salem paper; her maiden name was Louie Church and the article said she was from Salem.

I was delighted.

Armed with this name, Louie Church, I dove in deeper to the newspapers, hoping to find something more about Miss Church's background. But first I did some more grumbling about how hard it is to do research on women when they are always identified as Mrs. So and So.

{insert grumble face}

The first mention of Miss Church is in an September 1901 Morning Oregonian article. She started work at the School for the Blind in Salem, and I learned she was the daughter of the Superintendent for the School for the Blind in Lansing, Michigan. (Morning Oregonian., September 27, 1901, p2)

 A month later there is another article, which says she’s a graduate of Oberlin and taught at a school for the blind for 6 years prior to being accepted to the faculty in Salem. (The Daily journal., October 21, 1901, p3)

And we get a picture, which you might notice is actually the first of a person in this series of posts.

Her 1902 trip to Crater Lake got LOTS of coverage, coverage that included a full page spread in the Oregonian. This isn’t entirely surprising, I suppose, since one of the trip participants was the Governor. In addition to lots of details about travel and receptions, this reporting also gives us an idea of the crowd she associated with. Here are some things for you to read, if you’d like...

http://bit.ly/2pJZqdF 

http://bit.ly/2pE3mMW

http://bit.ly/2pEkOAM

Her social and political activities were reported on again in an article in 1904 about the Women's Club social, which was raising money for the Public Library Movement. (Daily capital journal., April 15, 1904, p5). 

And later that year it’s just her personal life that gets the mention. Her wedding announcement is included in at least THREE papers. 

The Sunday Oregonian., December 04, 1904, p23

It’s also in the Rogue River courier., November 17, 1904, P2 and The Oregon daily journal., December 04, 1904, P14. So yes, she married Arthur, and thereby lost her first name. It was replaced by Mrs. and Arthur. 

He is described as a real estate dealer and news editor. It’s also noted that he’s well regarded in the community and that she's nice. So that's great. It’s unclear to me where they met or what they might have had in common. What’s also unclear to me is what she was going to do down in Grants Pass - because realistically she wouldn’t keep working, right, since teachers at this time were single women.

After that it’s all Mrs. Conklin... No Louie Conklin, college grad and professional woman. Most of the articles that follow were about him or them together.

By 1909, Arthur Conklin is talked about more in relation to property development than newspaper writing. He had a new building in downtown (1909) and leased it to CP Bishop for the Grants Pass branch of the Salem Woolen Mills store.

By 1911 he was trying to rent out a 24 room hotel he owned in Ashland. 

The Sunday Oregonian., April 23, 1911, SECTION TWO, Page 18

In the classified ad, two local natatoriums and an annual meeting of Chautauqua there each summer are noted - are these clues to values/politics? 

And what is Chautauqua, you might wonder?

I did, so I went to Wikipedia and learned that Chautauqua was an adult education movement in the US, which was highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Their chapters expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s, and during that time they brought entertainment and culture to communities, including speakers, teachers, musicians, entertainers, preachers, and "specialists of the day." The popularity of the Chautauqua movement was attributed in part to the "social and geographic isolation of American farming and ranching communities. People in such areas would naturally be hungry for education, culture and entertainment, and the Chautauqua Movement was a timely response to that need in the late 19th century and early 20th century." 

Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua -- it's quite cool.

At this same time, I found an article about Arthur being the owner of the "Vendome Property," which was "opposite the library" in Ashland. It was reported that this building was to be used for "the new school," which I *think* is now Southern Oregon University. So he owns a lot of property, and he travels regularly between Grants Pass and Ashland. 

It's clear that by this time Louie was becoming more active in suffragist politics. August 1912, the Conklins attend a Park Club dinner given for them in Ashland by the Equal Suffrage League. 

In September 1912, Mrs. Conklin was elected president Southern Equal Suffrage League. 

The Sunday Oregonian., September 29, 1912, SECTION FIVE, p5

And we get another picture of her!

The Sunday Oregonian., September 29, 1912, SECTION FIVE, P8

There was a suffragist rally in October 1912, where Mrs. Conklin was speaker. 

Medford mail tribune., October 31, 1912, SECOND EDITION, p1

And of course, that November Oregon votes for women to get the vote. The following year Mrs. Conklin was still active in the community. There was a movement to organize a district federation of clubs and she was appointed secretary. The last mention of them in the digitized newspaper database is in 1916, when they were both in Ashland; he's there for business affairs and she's there to attend the Federation convention.

Ashland tidings., May 01, 1916, p3

As I was concluding tis post, I thought a lot about who and what gets reported in the newspaper. The past three posts I've written on my search for more information about women in the brewing business have been pretty lean, which surprised me. I've taught a lot of library and archival research sessions for students, and I've always praised the newspapers for their view on the "common man," as a place where the stories and lives of the people who may not have ended up in archival collections at a university or historical society might be accessible. But I feel as though what I've learned with this woman, Louie Church, is that it really is the people who make the society page or do things that are "noteworthy" that end up with details about their lives for us to learn about so many years later.

What about Mary Allen, living in Monument, Oregon in 1900? With hints that she was involved in this industry in some meaningful way. But what of the record of her in the "public record," the news that goes to the people on her community and the communities in the little towns that surrounded Monument, Oregon? I didn't find a trace. Will I find a trace when I go to those places? Put myself in front of the county records? Maybe.

Who gets reported in the newspapers? Are the newspapers the great leveler?

And what of Louie Church? She married a land developer. She had advantages and she had connections. It's clear that she followed her independence and advocated for the rights of women through her involvement in suffrage. And I applaud her! As an Oregonian who was allowed to vote when I turned 18, in what turned out to be a fateful election for the fate of women politicians many years later (1992, Bill Clinton), I am so glad that there were privileged women who had a voice and a platform in their communities and in their newspapers.

At the same time, I learned WAY more about Louie Church before she was married. After the nuptials she was someone's wife. She literally lost her name. And as a historian looking for the stories of the lives of women, this is tough. Even independent women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were subsumed by their husband's identity. 

In the public record of newspapers we lose them.

Note: my research on women in brewing is ongoing, I’m writing a book, and these posts may be out of date. Please contact me at [email protected] if you have questions about women brewing in Oregon. ~Aug 3, 2021

Here's what we have from Meier/Meier about Grants Pass brewing: 

The story of Marie Kienlen / Grants Pass brewing includes fires, saloons, death, marriage, troubles with the law, issues with spelling, suffrage, and Prohibition.

Here's the Cliff's Notes version of the Grants Pass Brewery. In 1880, Fred Grob had a saloon and a bakery in Jacksonville. Beer in Jacksonville will come in another post, so for now just note that there were a couple of breweries. 

Oregon sentinel., April 07, 1880, p4

In 1886, Grob was digging a 18x36’ cellar on the banks of Gilbert Creek. 

Oregon sentinel., May 15, 1886, p3

Based on what I read I the papers, Fred Grob stuck to the saloon and the baked goods, but a brewery was opened by William Neurath in 1887. He built it near his well at at Gilbert Creek and Front St (now G) -- the same spot Climate City Brewery is at 509 SW G St? Neurath also was scouting out land with William Healey, who you'll read about again when I write about Fredericka Wetterer and Jacksonville brewing. 

Oregon sentinel., June 12, 1886, Image 3

I didn't find much about William Neurath and brewing in the papers, save this one brilliant article in the 2/10/1911 Rogue River Courier (please do read the whole thing) about artesian drinking water, a testament to why the beer (and generally the water drinking) is good there.

Neurath sold the brewery’s rights in 1891 to Eugene and Marie Kienlen, and they purchased the land from Arthur Conklin in 1899 just before a fire destroyed the brewery. They rebuilt the brewery and attached a saloon. But before I continue with the Kienlens, I will take a bit of a right turn to share things I found on another couple.

I got into a bit of a research hole with the Conklins. I’m actually going to write a separate post about them (I’ll link it when it’s done), because it is such an excellent example of how researching a name can a) lead you all around the continent of "The Past" and b) lead to some interesting (speculative) ideas. 

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, rather than being known as a brewery owner, Arthur Conklin is involved in the mining industry; mainly, it seems, as a journalist. This work in journalism leads him to be involved with the Oregon Editorial Association as president; it also brings him into the same circles as suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway. In 1904, Arthur Conklin stays in a hotel; this edition of the paper also includes a gem on liberal politics in Salem.

Daily capital journal., May 12, 1904, p8

In 1905, Mrs. Conklin is actually named with her name (the singular time) in an article in a Salem paper; her maiden name is Louie Church and she grew up in Salem.  In 1905, the Conklins visited Ashland, and we get a nice adjacent article mentioned hops. 

Daily capital journal., January 28, 1905, p5

Conklin is mentioned more and more in relation to property development than his newspaper writing. The number of properties he is linked with made me wonder if he simply sold the Grants Pass Brewery building to the Kienlens. I've written more about this in the forthcoming post on Louie Conklin, but she becomes really involved in the suffrage movement in 1912, and it's clear that there are links between the couple and progressive politics (journalism, temperance, suffrage). These personal characteristics make it difficult for me to reconcile the idea that Conklin made alcohol.

Okay, back to beer.

In 1901, the saloon bonds of Eugene Kienlen, A. Lempke, and Coburn & Crowe were presented and accepted. Saloon bonds were also approved in 1903 for Kienlen, Henry Walters, and August Fetsch (pay attention to this name,  Fetsch comes up again)

Rogue River Courier, 10/22/1903, p3.

On the Garves blog, it's reported that in 1901, Eugene Kienlen was quite ill and he transferred all his property to his wife. After he died, she supposedly paid $7,000 to his children from a former marriage to remain in full ownership of the brewery and estates. I didn't find confirmation of this in the newspapers, so it's something I have on my to do list for on-site county records research. In any case, Eugene's death left her in charge of the brewery until 1908, when the county passed Prohibition and she married his brother (more on that later).

There was a big fire in Grants Pass. 

Oregon City enterprise., July 18, 1902, Page 8

And it was on July 14th 1902, only three days after Kienlen received and paid for a brewery license.

Rogue River courier., July 24, 1902 p3

This article was an accidental find, discovered because I was on the historic newspaper site to nab screenshots for this post (found by searching blindly for "grants pass brewery") and I noticed how Kienlen is spelled. 

I decided to try searching for logical iterations of spellings I could think of...  

This led me to more about their lives, including an 1896 article that said Eugene was in a tug-of-war competition between Grants Pass and Roseburg (the winners). I located the 1908 wedding announcement for Sam and Marie, which gives us the information that Sam was residing or from in Portland (?) when he married Marie. We get the officiant's name: Father Notaker Maeder 

And I did find random additional information with these spellings:

Oddly enough most were in the Toveritar, an Astoria-based "Organ of the Finnish Working Women of America." I can't read Finnish, but concluded the articles had nothing to do with beer.

This name trail also brings us one of the "troubles with the law" I mentioned in my opening. There was a detective in Portland at this same time who was really active -- and his last name was also Kienlen. Fortunately, there is a no overlap geographically so it was pretty easy to dismiss articles about him. It is worth noting because it's possible, though not probable, they are related.

After the fire, the brewery was rebuilt with brick and they attached a saloon.

In 1904, Eugene died and Marie took over. What were her duties? It's hard to tell, but we do get a clue in a June 1906 article about Laurenz Wieland, who worked for Mrs. Kienlen at the brewery for 6 years. 

Rogue River courier., June 29, 1906, p5

As the country prepared to go dry, the Klamath Fall Evening Herald reported the Grants Pass Brewery was “using plants for manufacturing denatured alcohol.” This is actually pretty interesting, because although we don’t know how big the brewing facility was with what we’ve found in the papers, we can conclude that it was well enough established that the Kienlens had invested enough in the equipment for the business that it was worth converting for other (legal) uses once Prohibition was the law of the land.

The Evening herald., June 20, 1908, p2

A few weeks later, 7/3/1908, Marie married Samuel, Eugene's brother**. 

UPDATE JANUARY 30, 2022: BASED ON MY RESEARCH SAMUEL WAS NOT DIRECTLY RELATED TO EITHER OF THE KIENLENS. 

Rogue River courier., July 03, 1908, p 4

This tells me that Sam was not involved in the brewery when it was producing beer, and it's unknown who was making the beer between 1906 (when Wieland left) and 1908 (when Marie married Sam). However, in 1912 Sam is listed as a the former brewery owner in an article about a raid on his "soft drink business."

Morning Oregonian., February 02, 1912, Page 14. 

And *oh the names!!* 

Klienlin, really? 

There are other articles that actually bring up the really interesting issues of the constitutionality of local option v. the lack of a federal Prohibition on alcohol. 

Rogue River courier., March 01, 1912, P2 

See also Rogue River courier., March 08, 1912, p1 

In 1913, he was appealing the seizure of $1000 worth of alcohol - he wanted to returned not destroyed. (Rogue River courier., February 28, 1913, p1)

Other random details give us clues about Marie: in 1912 she purchased a downtown lot that would be desirable for building, which tells me she had money and was in control of it on her own. 

Rogue River courier., May 31, 1912 p5

In 1919, she's included in a list of women who attended a social event, which tells me that she was still socially active and that she was well-known enough to be called out as an attendee (Grants Pass daily courier., August 12, 1919 p2).