Nean and Ross Papke                           

This synopsis is based largely on the first twenty-three pages of a seminar paper in oral history presented by Lois Oleson (daughter of Dorothy Papke Bergelin) at Southern Connecticut State University.  A large part of the first 23 pages and lessor parts thereafter were based on research done by Richard Winch (son of Ida Papke Winch) and upon oral history by Dorothy Bergelin as well as Lois Oleson.

The story begins with August and Charlotte Papke, because they are as far back as we have any information.  That early information is very, very sparse.  We concern ourselves primarily with Gotthelf and Augusta (Kleist) Papke, Gotthelf being probably the third child of August and Charlotte, the progenitors of our branch of the Papke family.                                       

The Papke family came from Pommern (Pomerania), a part of Prussia.  Gotthelf talked about growing up on a bauernhof, so we know that August E. Papke, his father, inherited the family farm.  The only facts we know for certain are that he owned the family homestead in Altenwalde and he was also identified as a journeyman carpenter.  His wife, Charlotte, was born in Koelpin, Pomerania, Germany on March 25, 1816, the daughter of Johannes Goede (or Göde) and Frederica (maiden name unknown).                                                       

Charlotte and August Papke had at least four children.  The oldest one’s name is unknown, but we can reasonably assume he was the son who inherited the family farm under the laws of primogeniture.  The oldest could, and often did, share some of the personal property, but, by law, could not share, or divide, the land itself.  One of his sons, Gotthelf’s nephew, was named Albert Papke.  The second child was Caroline, who was also called Helena or sometimes by the nickname, Lena.  She was born on July 28, 1853 in Koelpin, Pomerania.  The third child was Gotthelf Ernest, born December 16, 1857 at Altenwalde.  His entry papers into the U.S. list him as being a laborer.  The fourth child was Emilie Albertine who was born in Altenwalde on April 2, 1861 and died in 1878.  Charlotte told a granddaughter that Millie had been a sickly child and had died at an early age.                                   

Gotthelf’s wife, Augusta (Kleist) Papke, was born on April 2, 1857 in Schneidemühl, Neustettin.  Her father’s name was William Kleist and her mother’s last name was Pomranke, but we do not know her mother’s first name.  The town is now called, in Polish, Piła.  We know nothing about the background and family of Augusta.  According to the 1900 Federal Census, she was able to read and write but did not admit to speaking English, and none of her grandchildren ever remember her talking about her life or her family in Germany.                 

Augusta and Gotthelf were married in Raddatz, Pomerania, Germany on April 30, 1881, hastened by the fact that their first child, Gustav, was born on July 14, 1881.  Their second child, Bertha, was born on October 7, 1883.  A few months later the family began their journey to the United States.                                                                                             

On April 5, 1884, an immigrant laden German steamship named the Kaffaria left Hamburg for Hull, England.  The immigrants went across England by train to Liverpool.  On April 10th aboard the steamship Texas they sailed for Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.  They landed at Halifax on April 22nd.  With Augusta and Gotthelf were their two children, Gustav, nearly three years, and Bertha, about six months, and the sixty-year-old mother of Gotthelf, Charlotte Göde Papke.  From Charlotte’s presence we conclude that her husband August probably died and perhaps there wasn’t room for her or sufficient support on the bauernhof, estimated at six or eight acres.  Included with the group were Wilhelmine Freitag, forty-eight, her daughter, Bertha, twenty-one, and her son, Julius, seventeen.  At that time, once admitted to Canada, there were no restrictions on them and no records were kept as there was free access anywhere across the border.  Logically, they would have taken a great lakes steamer from Halifax to Milwaukee or possibly to Chicago and then a train to Chilton, Wisconsin.  There is no explanation for the choice of Chilton except possibly Freitags living there or possibly the organization of immigrant groups by a local travel group or agency.  The area was extremely heavily populated with German expatriates.  A year later, in 1885, the census shows a Gustave Pappke living in Chilton.  We know nothing of the first six years in Chilton.  During the early years, Charlotte’s daughter Caroline (nicknamed Helena) and her husband immigrated to nearby Menasha, Wisconsin and Charlotte went to live with them, possibly not seeing Gotthelf again.  About 1898, Charlotte, the widowed, remarried and divorced (after three years) Caroline (Papke) Rospletz (her second husband was abusive from the second day--she retook her late first husband’s surname), and her children moved (possibly fled) to Brownsville, Wisconsin, where Charlotte died on July 10 or 11, 1900 (a discrepancy).  Gotthelf tried to make the funeral but missed a train connection.  Gotthelf became a citizen on August 11, 1906 at Oshkosh.  He went alone to Oshkosh but before 1920 wives acquired citizenship with their husbands.                                                                                     

Beginning on July 14, 1890, Gotthelf bought the first of several plots of land in Chilton, possibly attempting to replicate the old bauernhof concept of family life.  The children were Americanized and only Gus lived on adjacent land to his parents, although the children did care for them in their old age.                                                                                     

Augusta and Gotthelf had eight children but only seven lived.  We do not know when there might have been a stillborn/infant death.  In addition to Gustav (July 14, 1881) and Bertha (October 7, 1883), born in Germany, the other five and their birth dates were: William Albert (actually born Frederick William, unbeknown even to himself until he applied for social security benefits at age 65 and had to prove his age by affidavit) on October 3, 1886; Ernstein Clara on April 5, 1888; Otto on May 7, 1890; Ida on July 27, 1892, and Anna on September 4, 1894.                                                                                                         

We have no idea of what type of work Gotthelf engaged in to support his family for the first sixteen years.  In 1902, when the Chilton Malt House began operating, he was employed there as a stoker for the furnace.  He worked the night shift and his son Gus worked the day shift.  In March of 1914 he changed jobs and worked for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad for the first several years on what was called the “section gang” and for the last ten years as a flagman at the juncture over Main Street in Chilton.  Gotthelf retired from the railroad when he was around seventy years of age.  He died early in the morning of May 6, 1930 at the age of seventy-two and was buried in the family plot at the Hillside Cemetery.  At the time of his death he owned a sizeable piece of property, had raised and provided for seven children, and left an estate with an assessed value (in 1930 dollars) of $6,500.     

Augusta lived on alone in the family homestead for several years after the death of Gotthelf.  Her son, Gus, and his family lived on the adjacent property and her daughters, Bertha and Anna, lived nearby in case of need.  For the last few years of her life Augusta lived on the farm of her daughter and son-in-law, Bertha and Henry Weeks.  She died early in the morning of October 17, 1938 at the age of eighty-one and a half and was buried beside her husband at the Hillside Cemetery.

We know for certain that there were members of the Papke family living in Pomerania for many years after the departure of Gotthelf and Augusta because Gotthelf corresponded with them (with Gus’s help) long after his own children had reached adulthood.  After the fall of Communism, in September of 1991, Richard Winch traveled to the last known European region where the Papke family resided in search of further information concerning the family history.  Hinter-Pommern had been cleansed of its ethnic German population and given to Poland in 1945.  Either due to the devastation wrought by the war or to the ethnic cleansing, all tax and property records had been destroyed or transferred to centers and he was unable to even find anyone in the area who had ever heard the surname Papke.

   Nean and Ross Papke

114 Armsby Road, Sutton MA 01590-2935

Phone (508) 865-8417