Full Circle - Holy Grail Moments
It was something I looked forward to, cleaning day at Grandma's house. Really every day was cleaning day but this would be the day I would plop myself on the floor with furniture polish and rags to get every bit of dust off it's wooden shelves in the bookcase and the items that stood on display. Two of those items were my favorites, the antique vase I give out life ending threats about mishandling it, and a book.
I would sit and flip through the pages, even before I could read the words-my imagination absorbed the images and took flight. I didn't realize how remarkable that my East Prussian Catholic little hausfrau of a grandmother even had that book for me to marvel at in wonder.
400 Outstanding Women of the World & Costumes of Their Time (1933) by Wilhelmine Friederike “Minna” Moscherosch Schmidt
This one is being sold by OldRareUnusualBooks on Etsy
The sections were divided by countries and then notable women of history, in order of appearing on our planet's timeline. I not only saw women from all walks in life, all colors, and all levels of wealth, but I was also learning just how vast our world is- how many different lands and cultures. I was hooked. Having that book at such a young age in the 70s, I didn't know that I was getting a glimpse beyond the average into voices calling out to be heard in a sea of noise and disregard. It was my normal. Every week. And, as my little Oma was fluttering around the house with her duster in hand, apron in hand, and something cooking on that stove.
It's amazing how memories like this, the ones that touch all your senses at the right moment, when remembered, are felt deep in the core -our centers, along with that bitterache of remembering innocence. Holy Grail moments will be my new term for them.
I started remembering those moments and book last night when I was thinking about Anne Boleyn's rock opera. This is why I tell people not to tell me to get creative, do you see my rabbit holes of creativity?
I hopped down a hole this morning when I started wondering how my little devout grandmother came about that book -really she didn't have many that I remember other than those raunchy German soap opera stories that came in the mail. The scene was always some mountain and a lot of lederhosen.
Anyway- yes, I had an odd childhood and now you see why I have so many questions. This morning I asked some and the answer was immediate, the author lived in Evanston -on Sheridan Rd near Northwestern University during the time my grandpa worked in the school's maintenance department and grandma worked for the daughter of the one of the Kraft family's founders. Grandma did their laundry and nanny like duties with the kids.
The Kraft Brothers who founded that empire were protestants born to Mennonites. The author of that beloved book, also protestant. And while grandma may have been seen living on a lower rung on the class ladder, income and religion - the German and Polish communities banded together, including East Prussian Germans who happened to be Catholic. Both respecting their own cultures first, snide comments and all, but always with an open door and always with a blanket of warmth to rest while with friends. They had to -it was survival during a time when everything any immigrant from that area could be confused for, was a target.
They all looked out for one another. My grandmother retired her position from the Kraft-Nestler home decades before her death, they sent her a check every month until her dying breath. I have two pieces of furniture I hold dear that were given to her, by them somewhere during those wars years.
The book now made sense. It was most likely given to my grandmother - that once East Prussian farm girl who grew up knowing how to farm potatoes and who walked away from her poverty stricken homeland,Rosengarth. She left her family behind to join up with my grandfather who arrived at Ellis Island a few years earlier. They were married in Evanston
I am confident that grandma knew her, Grandma did laundry for a few of those wealthy German families, there's no doubt in my mind that they didn't know one another.
Holy Grail - Full Circle.
Needless to say I looked into the author's life -and it's fascinating. Her and her husband came from Germany a time a part from each other. They were childhood sweethearts, but unlike my grandparents, she came over first, and he followed.
Her interests was deeply in costume design. Within that book are sections dedicated it and I always wondered why. She displayed at the World's Fair when it was in Chicago.
Amazing -
But rather me try to keep writing with some very sore fingers, I am going to lead you to your own rabbit hole with this....
For a free viewer and a copy of 400 Outstanding Women of the World- give a click!
The following and image above was taken from the Chicago- Kent College of Law
Minna Schmidt, Class of 1924
Wilhelmine Friederike Moscherosch Schmidt was born in Sindelfingen, Germany in 1866. The first of 17 children, Schmidt became a seamstress, saving the money she earned for passage to America. She entered the United States in December of 1886 and found work as a seamstress, as well as teaching dancing and singing lessons, which led to directing pageants and plays, for which she made costumes. Schmidt and her husband opened the Schmidt Costume & Wig Shop at 920 N. Clark Street, where Schmidt rented the costumes she created, and taught courses in “scientific costuming.” Interests in history and costuming led Schmidt to create detailed miniatures of powerful women through the ages, from Cleopatra to Mamie Eisenhower, which were displayed at the 1933 World’s Fair. In 1924, at the age of 58, having become known as “Chicago’s leading theatrical costumer,” she graduated from Chicago-Kent College of Law after four years of night and Sunday classes. She received her Masters in 1929; her thesis was entitled “Ancient Laws and Customs and the Evolution of the Status of Women.” Her intention, she told the Pontiac Chautauqua, was not to use her degree to practice law, but to do “simple, helpful things for the good of humanity.” Throughout the thirties, Schmidt was giving popular lectures from the basement of her Clark Street business and the University of Chicago, and her costume business was renting 60,000 costumes annually. She became a special lecturer at Northwestern University from 1936-1937. A respected and successful businesswoman, teacher, and costumologist, Schmidt dedicated her later life to philanthropy by financing a hospital for women and children in her native Sindelfingen, and providing for the education of seventeen nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. She passed away at the age of 95 in 1961.
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