The Haberer Family

By Duane Meyers (1928-1997)

Grandson of Leonard and Grace Haberer

Written December 1993

Leonard Haberer and Crescentia "Grace" Bauer, our maternal grandparents, were born in Germany and were part of the Great Wave of Immigration to the U.S. from western Europe in the late Nineteenth Century. It is not clear to the writer whether they were married in Germany before embarking for New York or if they met on the ship or in New York State.

According to Grandma Haberer, they settled first in Buffalo, New York; moved west to Peru-LaSalle, Illinois; moved further west to Perkins County, Nebraska, where often, not seldom, was heard a discouraging word. Turned off by extreme heat and cold, drought and near starvation in that hard-rock part of the state, they finally made their way to the rich, black soil of Cedar County, Nebraska.

Grandma Haberer told many stories about the dangers and hardships faced by foreign pioneers: violent summer storms, blinding winter blizzards, plagues of grasshoppers and locusts. The remnants of displaced and disgruntled Indian tribes must have posed milder threats because she hardly mentioned them.

The fact that they spoke broken English proved not to be a handicap in Cedar County. German was the first Language in Constance, Nebraska for many, many years. Grace retained her thick German accent (HIGH Schermun," she said proudly) throughout her long life.

The lives of the Haberer’s revolved around Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church in Constance. Leonard attended Mass there just about every morning.

Somewhere in the memory bank of the Haberer grandchildren the occupation of Grandpa Leonard Haberer is waiting to be retrieved. I am not sure if he was a farmer but it seems likely that he was. In conversations with our mother, Elizabeth Haberer Meyers, the precise profession of her father never came up. Her reminiscences yielded very little about her parents except for the great sorrow she felt when her father died in comparative young adulthood or early middle age. For the purpose of this "history", we shall declare that he was, primarily, a farmer.

From the few pictures of Grandpa Leonard Haberer I’ve seen, I can deduce that he was not a large man, probably around five and a half feet and less than 150 pounds. His face had regular features. In one portrait, he looks solemn and dignified, with a Joseph Stalin moustache. His hair is light brown turning gray. From all reports, he was not a robust person, having encountered in the early middle age an affliction that eventually killed him. I was told by my mother Elizabeth that her father had what was called "dropsy" in those days. To the best of my knowledge, this was some sort of circulatory insufficiency that caused one to retain fluids and to become weak in the limbs and short of breath. I have also heard that dropsy involved kidney failure.

By contrast, Grandma Haberer, was a vigorous, outdoorsy, peasant type who appeared, in a photograph taken in "The Old Country", somewhat like an American Indian. Her complexion was dark, as was the facial tint of her two sisters pictured with her. She had a luxurious head of hair, silver when I knew her in her middle and older years. Her facial features were average; her nose was short, unlike the proboscis of some of her sons and daughters.

Leonard and Grace had eleven children. Two young daughters, both bearing the name Mary, were taken from them in separate epidemics sometime between 1903 and 1907. (Note: my records show a total of 12, with the possibility of the two Mary’s).

Seven sons and two daughters survived into adulthood. They were:

George, Joseph, Mike, Henry, Franz (Frank), Leonard, Jr., and Anthony (Tony), Caroline and Elizabeth.

German was spoken at the Haberer house and that guttural language resounded in the accents and syntax and vocabulary of nearly all of the "volks" for the rest of their lives. The men were fond of referring to "der seebve brudders" (a rough, phonetic replication of their words) almost as if they were an outlaw gang. Crips and Bloods they were not but they may have qualified as a tag team of television wrestlers. As a matter of fact, real wrestling was their forte - not because they were bucking for the Olympics or for money but because of the sheer joy they seemed to experience in slamming bodies to the ground.

Like the Meyer men of Cedar County, Nebraska and Yankton, South Dakota, most of the Haberer males were rough around the edges, hard drinkers and carousers; at least one of them was often in trouble with the law.

Caroline and Elizabeth’s "seven brothers" came in several packages - tall, medium and short. They all had a copious supply of black hair - wavy or curly in Frank’s case and Tony’s too. Most kept their hair into their final years. Most Haberer noses were prominent, to put it kindly, and, alas, they stayed that way until doomsday; their ears protruded when they were young and thin-faced. Still, their faces were appealing, open, friendly (except when provoked) and "lived in". George, Joe, Frank and Tony were strong as oxen. Leonard looked frail but, as we shall see, he was not at all weak. Henry and Mike were softer.

Like his father, Mike died at a relatively early age - even for the time. He was probably around 48. (Note: age 52) Mike was the first non-farmer in the family. He was a railroad man and he lived in town.

Frank (Franz) quit farming early on, and moved away from Cedar County to Yankton, and later, to Sioux City; youngest brother Tony farmed by Coleridge for nearly 22 years before moving to Orlando, FL; but all the other boys remained farmers in Cedar County until they retired; and all lived into their 70's at least. George reached the age of 94.

Caroline, who married George Kuchta, lived all of her adult life on a farm near Menominee in Cedar County, not far from Constance. They had a good- sized family. Caroline passed away at the age of 74, in 1973.

Her little sister, Elizabeth, is the sole survivor (Elizabeth died February 20, 1997) of the Leonard and Grace Family.

Hypertension (high blood pressure) and other cardiovascular problems, including lipidemia (genetically related high cholesterol), have been the Haberer bugaboos. Heart attacks and strokes took some of them. Elizabeth has long been doctored for hypertension and she is suffering the effects of hardening of the arteries; primarily short term memory loss and confusion. (December 1993). Still, she seems to have inherited her mother Grace’s long life genes. Grace endured well into her 80's.

The Haberer’s were considered to be hot-blooded people. They produced a bunch of descendants. Most of them had seven, eight, nine, ten or even more children. Only Tony, who was as sexy as any of them, had to settle for one child. This was not due to a lack of trying; fate and some errant gene decreed that Tony and Julia would have to stop at one; but their single child, Patricia - Patty, who was my best friend among the cousins on both sides, told her father that when she got married she would fill his granary with grandchildren. She did. She had a dozen babies. (Really only 11.)

Grandmother Grace Haberer lived out her widowhood with her youngest son Tony, his wife Julia and their daughter Patty, on their farm near Coleridge; almost every summer, though, she would have Tony bring her across the Missouri River bridge to Yankton, SD, where she would stay a few weeks with her daughter Elizabeth and family (us). Elizabeth and Clarence had a huge garden, much to the discomfort of us kids, who had to weed it. So, we were happy to see Grandma Haberer come and help us out. She and Clarence were taskmasters when it came to keeping the garden free from weeds and bugs, and Grandma went him one better; she would take her shoes off and, moving slowly through the rows and between the plants, would swing a broom until everything was slick and smooth - the vegetables standing proud, showcased in black soil, smooth as a table top.

Now and then she would take a break. She would wash her big, wide feet in a bowl she kept outside just for that purpose, and enter the house with some freshly picked lettuce leaves. These went into a salad bowl. She would wilt them with hot liquid bacon fat. On the side she had homemade bread crumbled into a cup, into which she would dump her coffee and an inch of milk. It seemed Grandma was reenacting a ritual she must have engaged in dozen of times as a peasant in the Old Country, her beloved Germany. But, for her, it was good eating - not any silly rite.

Grandma Haberer provided us with lots of laughs - at her own expense and sometimes unwittingly. While sweeping the garden one day, she heard my friend and me trying to yodel, having witnessed a movie cowboy trilling away the previous night at the Moon Theater. Grandma slammed her broom down, hot footed it into the house and cried to Elizabeth, "Dem boys call me Old Leddy Whoo-Whoo!"

Another time, her face turned red with anger when seeing an airliner fly over and simultaneously feeling what was probably sweat on her scalp. "Summbuddy in dat airplen just peed on me," she exclaimed.

Yodeling grandsons and urinating airline passengers weren’t the only crosses Grandma had to bear. Two of her sons, Frank and Leonard, put the most silver in her hair. They were often in trouble, both heavy drinkers. Leonard was also a bootlegger and a rum runner. During the national Prohibition against the manufacture and sale of alcohol, 1919 - C.1932, Leonard for a period of time, drove a big, roomy Chandler car, with its backseat removed and its springs reinforced, on whiskey runs to Canada, where he would load the Chandler with hundreds of bottles of Scotch and Canadian firewater and race back down to his home territory (Nebraska and South Dakota) to sell them.

He was eventually busted when a "friend" squawked on him. Leonard vowed he would deal harshly with the informer when he got out of the pen. Upon release, he went looking for the man, only to find out that he had taken up residency in the local cemetery.

On the Nebraska side of the Missouri River, across from Yankton, there is a wilderness known as The Devil’s Nest. On the lam from the law, Leonard once hid out there. He later told many hair raising yarns about the Nest, about exotic snakes that chased him, and eerie sounds in the night. I believed him. Maybe they weren’t real snakes, but...

Uncle Leonard was as generous as he was wild. One hot summer day, when my father was unable to provide a dime for an ice cream cone, Leonard fished in his pocket and gave me a five dollar bill. "Here, kid," he said, "get yourself a whole pot full." I had never seen that much money at one time in my life. I spent it wisely and was sick of ice cream for a day or two.

Another loveable and generous uncle was Frank. He had little money, however, so his generosity came in his giving us laughter and music. He played with words and made witty sayings; he made fun at himself for our entertainment. He would often say, "I’m big for my size." Or, wearing a nearly new pair of brogans (shoes), "I found these at the Salvation Army for fifty cents. I tried on a pair of 10's, but they pinched me. The size 11's fit pretty good, but these 12 ½’s are just right." Like all of Elizabeth’s brothers, he loved his little sister. Frank would show up, usually unannounced, at our house on a Saturday afternoon about once a month. He brought his old violin one Saturday evening and played some old tunes.

Once, a truck knocked Frank down outside the Sioux City plant where he worked as a security guard. Frank, tough as a rhino, went back to work the next morning. The editor of the plant newspaper printed an article about his remarkable comeback and called him "Iron Man Haberer". Frank carried the paper around with him for years, showing it to anyone and everyone.

Most of Frank and Tess’s children were friends and playmates of ours through the years, especially sons Albert and Frank, Jr.

We were also good cousin buddies with Uncle Tony’s and Aunt Julia’s Patty, and with Jerome Haberer, who was Aunt Caroline’s first son, and with all of Jerome’s half brothers and sisters, the Kuchtas. George and Caroline and their children lived in poverty most of their lives on farms in Cedar County, but they never hesitated to share what food and wood they had to spare, making annual trips across the Missouri with a wagon load of firewood and fish they caught, anything they had that we needed. Their generous spirit is embodied today in Jerome and in Bob Kuchta. Bobbie and his family make an annual "pilgrimage" to Sioux Falls with meat for the freezer at the home of my sister and her husband, Ilene and Ed Hink, where their Aunt Lizzie lives.

Uncle Tony’s farm was a favorite place among the Clarence Meyers family. When I reached 12 or 13, I began spending a month or so over there helping Tony with the harvest or pulling weeds and picking potato bugs during the early part of each summer. I always had a great time.

The Tony Haberer’s and the Clarence Meyers’ would exchange "hostages" twice a year. In the early summer, Uncle Tony would bring Grandma Haberer to Yankton and take me back to his farm. In a few weeks, he would take me back home and pick up Grandma.

When Grandma Haberer wasn’t gardening at our house, and while I was in her care one summer, she spent much time ordering me around. In her heavy German accent, she would issue imperatives: "‘Twen" (her version of Duane), meck out duh lekrish light. Put on yer nightgun. Git your bare feeties to bed."

When she wasn’t ordering me around or working in the garden, she would be praying the rosary. Each time she had to say good-bye to us, to go back to Tony’s or when we went somewhere without her, she would pray her rosary, then cry big, fat tears and sob out her fear that she would see us no more. Now looking back and realizing how much death and sorrow she had experienced in her younger years, I can understand her anxiety. She was a good woman who feared Purgatory. I don’t think she had anything to worry about for herself. Maybe she feared for the rest of us. With good reason.

I did not set out to do a rigorous genealogical report and I doubt that anyone would accuse me of having done one. If anyone is offended by anything I’ve written here, try to get over it.

You may not agree, but I think "He has a right to criticize who has the heart to help." What I’ve done may only be the framework for a more careful study of the family. If a sibling of mine, or one of my children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews comes along and does it right or expands on it, I will be happy. Or my ghost will be tickled; that is, if the result is as interesting as I think this effort has been.