SIXTEEN CHARGES SENT TO SHAREHOLDERS BY KARL EILERS APRIL 18, 1921:
A few weeks after the 1921 American Smelting shareholder meeting, Karl Eilers published these sixteen charges as part of a shareholder letter. The italic comments were added by Karl.
1. The charge that the affairs of the Company are dominated by the Guggenheims, who are but slightly interested in the Company and have large conflicting interests.
This is of the utmost importance and its effects extend throughout the large and small affairs of the company. Its disastrous results are not only in what it causes actually to be done, but in preventing Smelters from having a management of its own with power, vision and initiative. The facts of such dominance and of such adverse interests by the Guggenheims are almost matters of common knowledge. In the litigation known as Ross v. Burrage, Mr. Daniel Guggenheim swore that the Guggenheim firm dominated the A. S. & R. Co., and also swore substantially to the effect that sometimes when they would enter upon negotiations for a mine, it would be some considerable time before they (the Guggenheims) would decide whether to buy it themselves or to have Smelters buy it.
2. The purchase, while the Company was under the control of the Guggenheims, of various mining properties from the Guggenheims and their associates for approximately $22,000,000 and of other mining properties including unsuccessful ones and ones in localities as distant as Chile.
In the statement sent to the stockholders on January 20th, 1921, it was stated that the company should not buy mines, and it was also given as a reason for not purchasing interests which had been acquired by the Guggenheims personally that they were distant and hazardous. Regardless of the merits of the question as to whether or not the company should buy mines, the stockholders should know what the company has bought, what the Guggenheims sold to it, and whether the statement officially sent to the stockholders was true, or as we claim, not only misleading but contrary to the fact.
3. The charge that the Guggenheims, although and at the time when in receipt of large salaries from the American Smelting & Refining Company and although they sold to the Company mining properties in which they, themselves, were interested and caused it to invest in other distant and hazardous properties, nevertheless took for themselves the good opportunities which were presented to the A. S. & R. Co.
The point is not so much concerning the policy of the company as to whether it should or should not buy mines. It is rather that under the Guggenheims they caused it to buy mines on its own account and they bought mines on their own account and they sold mines to the company. The best propositions offered became the property of the Guggenheims. Less desirable ones became the property of the company.
4. The charge that at one time there were as many as five members of the Guggenheim family receiving very large salaries and perquisites fixed by themselves and kept secret even from the Board of Directors.
It is not only the amount paid concerning which information is sought although it may be remarked that even yet no light on that subject has been given. Were the Guggenheims in effect fixing the payments to themselves and keeping their amounts secret? What were their especial qualifications? What did they all actually do for the company?
5. The transfer to the firm of Guggenheim Bros. without consideration, while the A. S. & R. Co. was dominated by them, of contracts between the A. S. & R. Co. and various mining companies for the sale of copper on commission, which contracts are claimed to have profited the A. S. & R. Co. more than one million dollars per year.…
THE TEN CHARGES ON THE RESOLUTION SUBMITTED AT AMERICAN SMELTING & REFINING’S SHAREHOLDER MEETING IN APRIL OF 1921:
The charge that the affairs of the Company are dominated by the Guggenheims, who are but slightly interested in the Company and have large conflicting interests.
The purchase, while the Company was under the control of the Guggenheims, of various mining properties from the Guggenheims and their associates for approximately $22,000,000 and of other mining properties including unsuccessful ones and ones in localities as distant as Chile.
The charge that the Guggenheims, although and at the time when in receipt of large salaries from the American Smelting & Refining Company and although they sold to the Company mining properties in which they, themselves, were interested and caused it to invest in other distant and hazardous properties, nevertheless took for themselves the good opportunities which were presented to the A. S. & R. Co.
The charge that at one time there were as many as five members of the Guggenheim family receiving very large salaries and perquisites fixed by themselves and kept secret even from the Board of Directors.
The transfer to the firm of Guggenheim Bros. without consideration, while the A. S. & R. Co. was dominated by them, of contracts between the A. S. & R. Co. and various mining companies for the sale of copper on commission, which contracts are claimed to have profited the A. S. & R. Co. more than one million dollars per year.
The methods and reasons for the methods which were adopted in the sale of the copper of the A. S. & R. Co. which methods are claimed unnecessarily to have cost the company many millions of dollars.
The claim that the Guggenheims were interested in the subordination of the stocks of the A. S. & R. Co. so that now the preferred stock, instead of being the first security and the common the second security, follow both bonds of the Company and the stocks of a subsidiary.
The question of whether or not the dividends paid during 1920 were earned, as was officially claimed by the management.
The reason why the net quick assets per hundred dollars of capital and indebtedness are approximately the same as fourteen years ago.
10. The use of the company’s funds and facilities and the time of its highly paid officers and of its employees for investigations of properties for the benefit of the Guggenheims, for the solicitation of proxies and efforts to perpetuate the control of the Guggenheims and to extend their strangle/hold on the company and its property.
This is a summary of Thomas A. Rickard’s experience at the Engineering & Mining Journal in the early 1900s.
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After Rothwell’s death in 1901, a publisher named John McGraw bought the Journal in September 1901 for $183,000. He resold it three months later to William Johnston for $283,000, which yielded McGraw a $100,000 profit.
William Johnston was a budding entrepreneur who hired T. A. Rickard, a successful mining engineer and a friend and colleague of both Eilers and Raymond. Rickard soon learned that Johnston had run out of money and needed to raise cash to save the Journal. Rickard helped Johnston organize a group of seventy-two investors that included Anton and Rossiter. Johnston was more interested in purchasing additional technical journals than managing and promoting the Journal, but without any capital, he struggled to piece together his empire.
By late 1903, Johnston was in deep financial trouble again and began to court New York publishers. John McGraw approached Rickard to talk about throwing Johnston out and taking over the Journal. Though he was intrigued, Rickard declined. Another publisher was John A. Hill, who, like McGraw, owned several technical journals.
Rickard met with Hill, but found him too brusque to deal with on a daily basis. Eventually, a third publisher, Mr. H. M. Swetland, approached Rickard. Rickard found him sagacious, which he liked.
In January of 1904, Swetland purchased the Journal, but, just nine months later, Swetland sold it to John Hill without informing Rickard. Hill and Rickard’s relationship quickly soured and Rickard resigned. Meanwhile, Rickard purchased the San Francisco-based Mining and Scientific Press.
John Hill and John McGraw would continue to compete before merging their publishing companies in 1909, forming the McGraw-Hill Company. Some years later McGraw-Hill approached Rickard about purchasing the Mining and Scientific Press, an offer Rickard declined.
Also, see T. A. Rickard, “A Chapter in Journalism,” Mining & Scientific Press, May 22, 1920, p. 749-756.
The letter was written with letterhead from the Engineering & Mining Journal, where Anton and Rossiter Raymond headquartered as Deputy and Commissioner, respectively, for the Mines and Mining Commission In and West of the Rocky Mountains. Anton had just returned from his first trip to Arizona. The letter is in very poor shape and I only had photocopies. The originals are with Nila Savell, whose husband was descended from Regina Haueser Deilmann and Louis Armbrust. Regina Haueser original originally married Anton Dielmann, Anton Eilers’ uncle (and possible namesake).
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Office of The Engineering and Mining Journal and The Manufactuer and Builder.
Western & Company Publishers
37 Park Row.
New York, January 6th, 1870
Dear William (William Henry Phillip Dielmann – Anton’s cousin by marriage),
On my return from a protracted voyage to Arizona I found two letters from you, one for myself and one for my wife, the latter of which has not been answered. I returned on the 24th, just in time to help prepare the Christmas Tree for my little ones and there of course was great joy in the the house. I will not attempt to give you any of my adventures in that wild and distant country, the perils I had to overcome in regard to the Indians and the hardships I had to endure from heat and want of water; it would fll many pages and I am pressed for time, as I find a great deal to do after my return.
Your last letter to my wife contains your wish, that she might send you the “Weekly Herald” and “[indecipherable word in german] New-York Heraldzeitung”. Now you must excuse my wife for not attending to this little business at once, for you know, that she has been confined a short while ago and besides she has not been to the city; and even when she does go, she hardly ever comes low enough down town in the neighborhood of the offices of those papers. I would have attended to it before this, had not my wife been suddenly prostrated shortly after my arrival by a severe attack of inflammation of the lungs. She is now a little better, but still in bed. As soon as I can spare more time in town . . . an hour every day. (I do not dare to stay away from the house long). I will send you both papers, probably to-morrow or day after. I think they cost $2 each for the year.
With the exception of my wife all are well at home. Mother is no a great deal better, than she was, when you were here. Still she can walk around and look a little after things. Emma and Fritz are well and doing fine. Their boy, little Fritz is getting heavier every day and just commences to walk.
My wife sends her thanks for the photograph of your little sister. I do not remember, where you or your mother have ours. If you have not got them I will send them sometime.
It is right you want to sent Margaret to a better school. Where do you propose to send her? Have you good schools for young ladies down there [Mississippi], or will she come here? If so, she shall stop in my house. I shall never move from New-York any more. I am glad you have received the offer of interest … a few words unclear .. it will give you some business knowledge.
It’s not clear who wrote this letter. It may have been more of a note to themselves?
November 28, 1929
Else F. Eilers And K. Eilers
Ueber Friedrich Anton Eilers
Friederich Anton Eilers geboren zu Laufenselden, Nassau, am 14 Januar, 1839, waehrend einer reise der mutter von Mensfelden nach Hof Roedel, dem Besitz seines Vaters.
Er besuchte die gymnasien zu weilburg und wiesbaden in Nassau. Studierte in Goettingen und clausthal; kam in Mai, 1859, nach Amerika. Vermaehlte sich am 3ten Mai, 1863, mit Elizabeth Emrich; geboren in der stadt New york den 10ten Februar 1844 (Ihre Eltern Jacob Emrich aus Bingen a/Rhein und Henreitte Mauer aus Freimersheim, Baiern.
(switches to English)
Luise H. Eilers was born at the Hale Copper Mine near Hillsville, Virginia.
Kalr born a the Schramm Farm near Marietta, Ohio, where Friederich Anton Eilers was boring for oil
Rough Translation:
Anton born to Laufenselden, Nassau, on January 14, 1839, during a trip to the mother of Mensfelden to Hof Roedel, the possession of his father.
He attended to weilburg the high schools and wiesbaden in Nassau. Studied in Goettingen and clausthal; came in May 1859, to America. Married on the 3rd May, 1863, with Elizabeth Emrich, born in the city of New York February 10th 1844 (Her parents Jacob Emrich of Bingen a / Rhein and Henreitte wall of Freimersheim, Bavaria.
On July 27, 1919, there passed away a simple, unassuming gentleman, who, throughout his life, allowed his intense modesty to keep himself in the background and during his later years effaced himself so thoroughly that but few of his acquaintances knew aught of him. Yet he was one of our accomplished metallurgists, who did good work in the practice of his profession and lived an upright life. Now that he is no longer with us Franz Fohr cannot plead to be overlooked, and those who fondly remember him will be gratified by his receiving his due.
Franz Fohr was born, Sept. 7, 1838, in Mannheim, Germany. Of his ancestry, education, and early career we know scarcely anything. We do not even know just when he came to America, or what led him hither. The first record of his professional work in this country, found among his papers, shows that from July, 1870, to Jan. 1, 1872, he was superintendent of the Newark Smelting & Refining Works, then owned by Edward Balbach & Son. At that time the Balbach works at Newark, established in 1850, and the Selby works at San Francisco, established about 1866, were the only important silver-lead refineries in the United States. Mr. Fohr may have been associated with the Balbachs for some time before he became superintendent of their plant or he may have come from Germany but a short time previously. At all events, it is certain that he was at that time an experienced and accomplished metallurgist. After leaving Newark and going to San Francisco, he soon formed a connection with Thomas H. Selby & Co. Early in 1874, this firm sent him to New York to procure information respecting the manufacture of white lead. His engagement in New York terminated on Jan. 31, 1875. …
In this May 30th, 1885, dictation from Anton Eilers he mentions traveling in Europe for two years. However, he wasn’t there longer than six months (Jan 1882-May 1882). I can only conclude this was a transcription error or some other mistake. The original is Hubert Howe Bancroft Collection.
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Mr. A. Eilers
So Pueblo, Colo. May 30th, 1885
Was born in Germany January 14th, 1839 and educated at the Mining Academy of Clausthal and University of Goettingen. Graduated when 20 years of age and came at once to the U.S. Was employed by a firm of Mining Engineers in N.Y City for a number of years and in Dec. 1869 was appointed Deput of U.S. Mining Statistics and held position until 1876. Was in Salt Lake and rebuilt the Germania Smelter running it in 1877 and 1878. Next to Leadville, Colorado, in 1879 and built smelter there, remaining two years when health failed and sold out and traveled in Europe for two years and returned to Colorado.
Organized the Colorado Smelting Co in Pueblo and broke ground for the works in April 1883. Started work in Aug same year with one furnace and now have 4 furnaces with a local capacity of 200 tons per day. Employ 125 men and will increase capacity of works as fast as business demands it.
English Translation of Hahn’s 1938 Article on Karl Eilers
Below is the letter from Karl Eilers to Maxwell Hahn about an upcoming biography by Hahn on Eilers for a German newspaper. The German version can be found here.
March 15 1938 Letter from Karl to Mr. Hahn
Mr. Maxwell Hahn Room 1811–570 Lexington Avenue . New York City
My dear Mr. Hahn: I was much pleased with your biographical article concerning myself, and I have done as you suggested– made a few corrections in pencil; also, I am having your article re-written, with some copies for my children.
On your last page you make a very nice and very proper comment about Frank Van Dyk. I wish you could also say something to the effect that I am very grateful for the friendly, congenial assistance given me and our Associated Hospital Service by Homer Wickenden and yourself; and if you do not think it would clutter up the article too much, I would also like to have recognized the fine assistance given us by Mr. Pyle, Wm. Breed, Jr., Mr. Stanley Resor, and the many other important members of our Executive Committee and the Board. I had thought that something could be said immediately after your paragraph about Frank Yan Dyk covering Homer and yourself. Perhaps to add the other names at this point might be too cumbersome; but if your ingenuity could work it in somewhere advantageously, I should like very much to have it.
Very truly yours, enc. KE/S;
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Maxwell Hahn’s biography draft of Karl Eilers (English Version):
“Because I wasn’t worried, and because I had confidence . . .”
With these words, Karl Eilers, American-horn son of a German father, explains how he has traveled the long road from his birth seventy-two years ago in a small Ohio town to a position of prominence in New York City as President of the Associated Hospital Service of New York and President of Lenox Hill Hospital.
Today tall and portly, with the erect carriage of an army officer Karl Eilers is as full of confidence and faith in the future as in his youth. White-haired now, he goes about his tasks with the energy of a younger man and greets each day with the zest carried over from his colorful and adventurous past.
He has watched the Associated Hospital Service grow until now more than 650,000 men, women and children in the New York metropolitan area are enrolled and entitled to hospital care when needed. The skeptics who questioned the non-profit three-cents-a day plan for hospital care at its beginning less than three years ago have found their answer in the fact that subscribers have share and individually saved more than $3,7l5,000 in hospital bills.
And with the faith that enabled him to accept the presidency of the three-cents-a-day plan when others were doubtful of its success, Karl Eilers is convinced that enrollment in the plan will exceed in in York City a million members by the end of this year.
Mr. Eilers’ confidence in the idea of placing hospital care on the family budget for payments of a few cents each day has been strengthened by the confidence of the public.
But for a decision made eighty years ago, Karl Eilers might have been a ministers son, pursuing his destiny in Clausthal, in the Harz Mountains, Germany.
The decision was wade by his father, F. Anton Eilers, who, given the choice of the ministry or mining for a life’s work, decided to be a miner. He was sixteen at the time, and from America came reports of a great Western territory as yet hardly touched, and of minerals that slept under the grass roots, ready to yield their wealth to the finder.
And so, in 1859, Karl Eilers’ father came to America. He brought his small savings and a stout heart to a country soon to be torn with internal conflict. Slavery, not minerals, was the subject he heard discussed at every corner. In that year, a man named John Brown had led a raid on Harpers’ Ferry in Virginia to incite a slave revolt. John Brown was killed, but the issue grew sharper and sharper. There were rumors of war in the air. Disturbing rumors to the ear of the young man who had left a quiet home in Germany.
He found a Job in a clothing store on Chatham and Pearl Streets, and a place to live in the Tremont section of the city. He worked there for several years, meanwhile seeking an opportunity to carry out his determination to be a miner. In 1861 Civil War was declared. Mr. Eilers remained in New York. In 1863, when he was courting the girl who was to be Karl Eilers’ mother, the draft riots broke out in New York City and left 1,000 dead to decide whether or not Republican officials had stuffed the draft lists with the names of Democrats. But the violence of the times proved no handicap to romance and in that year Mr. Anton Eilers married.
Shortly after his marriage, he left the clothing store where he had been employed and started his career in the mining industry in an assay office on Park Row. His employer was Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond of Adelberg & Raymond, assayers.
Mr. Eilers and his young bride traveled about the country from one mining operation to another. In 1865, while with a company drilling for oil near Marietta, Ohio, his son, Karl Eilers, was born.
The first American-born son of the Eilers family opened his eyes in a perplexed country. Abraham Lincoln had been shot and torn from the helm of the nation when it most needed guidance. Andrew Johnson was inaugurated president of the United States and assumed leadership of a broken and uncertain people.
The family returned to New York and took up residence in the Morrisania section of the city. Young Karl Eilers developed into a tall husky boy, receiving his first formal education at a public school in the Melrose section. His father was advanced to the position of Deputy Mineral Surveyor. Dr. Raymond had become United States Com-
miasionor of Mining Statistics for the western part of the United States and had six men scouting around the country, gathering information concerning the mineral resources of the nation.
In 1873 Karl Eilers witnessed his first financial panic and saw a city demoralized. With business structures tottering the depression began with a series of bank failures on September 20. The Stock Exchange closed that day and remained closed until September 30. Dr. Raymond retired from his position in 1876. Karl Eilers’ father also resigned, and went to Colorado to investigate the copper resources there at the request of a Boston organization.
At Saints John, Colorado, Karl Eilers received the first indication that his life was one curiously favored by fate. He was in the flimsy shelter of a small smelting plant that had been set up at the foot of a towering mountain. He stood watching the progress of a rainstorm that had been raging about him for hours when he heard a roar as though the whole mountain were collapsing. Tree-roots, loosened by the torrents of rain, gave way. Tons of earth crumpled and roared down the mountainside, throwing a barrage or trees and rocks into space. It was useless to run. Karl Eilers watched the mountain as it flattened and spread towards him. When the slide had spent itself, the twisted trees and broken rocks were piled a scant fifty feet from the plant there Karl Eilers stood and breathed thankfulness.
Mr. Eilers left the exciting life he had led with his father in the west and returned to New York to study at the Hill School, Pottstown, Pa., and at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in 1883. Later he took courses in mining and metallurgy at Columbia University.
In 1889 he finished his studies in America and returned to his father’s native Germany to study in Berlin. Interested in European mining operations, he visited France May, 1891 to see the mines there. While in Paris, he studied Spanish in preparation for a trip to Spain. He left for that country in fall and lived for several weeks at the American Embassy. Later he traveled through the southern part of that country, inspecting mining conditions.
Karl Eilers returned to the United States in 1892 and, like his father, arrived at a time when the country was in upheaval. Labor trouble had swept the land. Riots were frequent. He joined his father who had become a power in the mining industry and worked with him. In 1894, that industry, too, became the target of labor manipulations. A nation-side strike of miners paralyzed operations throughout the country. Again, the Eilers weathered the storm, moving alertly from one organization to another.
In 1896 at the age of thirty, Karl Eilers married. He had acquired a reputation by that time for his knowledge of smelting theory and practice, and in 1900 was sent to organize a lead smelting plant that the American Smelting and Refining company had built in Utah. The Guggenheins had taken control of the American Smelting and Refining Company in 1901, and his association with them lasted until 1920 when he parted company with Simon Guggenheim and his organization.
Recalling the problems met during his smelting career, Karl Eilers remembers that their troubles were not all under ground. The smoke that poured in great volume from the chimneys of the smelting plants made the smelters unpopular with the eastern farmers, and lawsuits were frequent. The farmers protested that their crops and animals were stifled by the rolling clouds and carried their complaints to the courts. Efforts were made to change this condition by building the plants at the mouths of canyons and valleys so that the smoke would be swept out and up by the air currents. These efforts were futile, however, and the smoke continued to sweep over the land for a radius of twenty-five miles and more from whore the plants were constructed.
But that, and the mountain slides, forest fires and ruggedness was part of the expansion and development of the West in which Karl Eilers played such an active part, It was to be, if cities were to grow where forests and empty plains stretched limitless and forbidding.
The men who met and solved the difficulties of that forced and hurried growth of a nation had to have confidence, they had to be unafraid.
In New York four years before Karl Eilers was born the second and more peaceful half of his destiny began shaping itself. The German Hospital and Dispensary was founded in 1861. Because of Civil War, the first building was not completed until 1868 although six beds were then in use at the dispensary which had been establish at 8 East Third Street.
It, too, expanded and developed. Now known as Lenox Hill Hospital, with modern buildings at 111 East Seventy-sixth Street it has taken its place as one of the leading hospitals in New York City.
When Karl Eilers was invited several years ago to become a member of the board of trustees of the hospital, he accepted because he ‘considered it a civic duty.’
Today, as president of Lenox Hill Hospital, he continues to regard his position as a fulfillment of a civic duty, one more contribution to a community he loves.
In 1934, he was asked to accept the presidency of the Associated Hospital Service of New York, a non-profit community organization that planned to put hospital care on the family budget of the man and woman in the metropolitan area for payments of a few cents a day.
There were critics of the idea, and others who warned Karl Eilers that it would not work.
“Why become associated with an organization that is pre-destined for failure”, they argued.
Enrollment rates had been estimated at $10 a year for a single subscriber. They were too low, the doubters pointed cut. Too many hospital benefits were provided, the cost of operation would be too great. And, anyway, the public would not be interested.
Karl Eilers shrugged his heavy shoulders. It was not a new idea to him. For in Pueblo, Colorado, many years ago, the miners and smelters had agreed upon a similar plan to ensure themselves proper care in times of illness and injury. From each man’s monthly rage was deducted a certain sum which was put into a central fund. From this fund, the money was taken when needed for medical care. The plan had worked well and served its purpose. And Karl Eilers had confidence in this plan to serve millions of people in the New York metropolitan area. He accepted the presidency.
Today, more and more people are learning that they don’t have to worry about unexpected hospital bills. Letters pour into the headquarters of the three-cents-a-day plan at 570 Lexington Avenue from grateful subscribers, stating that, because of their membership, they have been able to meet the problem of unexpected hospitalization without financial concern. The bills are paid in advance.
Every day, 1,198 incoming calls are handled by Associated Hospital Service telephone operators. Most of the calls are from persons who want to know more about the plan and its methods of enrollment. The doubters have been silenced, and Karl Eilers maintains his well-placed confidence in the plan and the people who are responsible for its success.
The three cents-a-day plan has upheld its standards as a non-profit community service. If it were otherwise, it is doubtful whether Karl Eilers would be associated with it.
He speaks proudly of Frank Van Dyk, executive director of the Associated Hospital Service of New York, and credits him with the growth of the plan and the extension of hospital benefits to subscribers.
[Large empty gap in the draft document at this location between the paragraph above and below. No obvious reason why]
He is proud, too, that as president he never interferes with the activities of his executives.
“One of the biggest things I have learned is to keep my hands off the man who is doing the work”, Karl Eilers explains. “I believe it was the father of John D. Rockefeller, who said, ‘Find the man that knows more about your problems than anyone else, put him in charge, and then let him work them out’”.
He looks up from his desk and smiles. Not a young man now, but certainly not an old man. With a past already filled with rich memories, he keeps his eyes to the future and the opportunities that may be in it for him to serve the community further.
Karl Eilers might have been a minister’s son, resigned to old age in Clausthal, in the Harz Mountains, Germany. He might have failed in the West and been swept aside by the waves of progress. He wasn’t.
“Because I wasn’t worried, and because I had confidence—“.
Karl Eilers, Der Mann und Sein Werk, March 27, 1938
This article about Karl titled “Der Mann und Sein Werk” appeared in a German newspaper March 27, 1928. It was written by Maxwell Hahn. The english translation can be viewed here.
Karl Eilers article “Der Mann und Sein Werk” by Maxwell Hahn, March 27, 1938.
Karl Eilers drafted this unfinished autobiography three months prior to his death in August of 1941.
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My earliest recollection of where my parents [Ed Note: Anton & Elizabeth Eilers] lived about New York were in Harlem, not far from where the Third Avenue Street Car came to an end, at the Harlem Bridge. We lived in a two-story, two-family house, with Grandmother Eilers [Elizabeth Dielmann] and her daughter Emma [Ed Note: Anton’s sister, not his daughter the painter] on the top floor and father’s small family on the first floor.
To the south and east were unoccupied lands, which at times in the summer served for circuses.
In Virginia my earliest recollection were of a trip with Else and some grown lady a short distance from the house towards Wytheville. All along, the ground was covered with tall willow trees and other vegetation in which I became lost from the other two and of course, was terrified.
Another recollection was on the trip from New York to Virginia. Stopping at the hotel in going through Washington, where leaning out of the window, running in and out of the trees, I saw a monster which frightened me terribly, evidently a switch engine. In Virginia another recollection is of the time when it became necessary to slaughter a few hogs for food and the squealing of those hogs still is strong in my memory. My sister Lu was born here and father always spoke of her as belonging to the F. F. V. [Ed Note: Possibly the First Families of Virginia]. Else was born in Grandfather Emrich’s house, 156th Street, South Melrose. I, as related above, was born near Marietta, Ohio. Annie again in New York. Now Lu in Virginia and Emma in 1870 in New York. Meta in 1875 also in New York.
On returning from some of these trips to the mines we lived first in Morrisania then in Tremont and finally in a more pretentious place in [Ed Note: just a big blank line, apparently didn’t know or remember the answer].
Else and I went to school with Minnie Emrich [Karl’s mother’s youngest half sister], south from Grandfather Emrich’s house a little way on Third Avenue and my memory is strong of a large woods, “Bathgate’s Woods”, the famlly name being retained even today in “Bathgate Avenue”. …
