The Immigrants

In 1874, the SS W. A Scholten was put into service by the Netherlands American Steamship Company (later, the Holland-America Line) for regular mail and passenger service between Rotterdam and New York. The ship was a three-masted steamer, capable of traveling at 40 knots and carrying about 700 steerage passengers and 50 first and second-class passengers. The Scholten boasted the most modern conveniences—compartmentalized steerage, providing a little privacy, and two hospital wards, one for men and one for women.

For thirteen years, the Scholten transported (primarily) German emigrants to America. Then, on 19 Nov 1887, the ship left Rotterdam, heading for New York with 230 passengers and crew. At 11 pm that night, in a dense fog, the ship struck the English steamer Rosa Maria, ten miles off Dover. The Scholten sank within an hour with the loss of 150 lives. Many of the dead were German. No lives were lost on the Rosa Maria.

Six years earlier, the SS Scholten had sailed from Rotterdam, docking in New York on 15 Apr 1881. (16 Apr 1881, the date that the passenger list was signed, is often given as the arrival date; however, newspaper articles show that Apr 15 was the actual date.) Among the 707 passengers were a family of seven from Gündelbach, Frederick and Marie Imle and their five children (at that time), Marie, Fredrick, Christian, Gotllieb, and Adam. Had they been part of the 1887 voyage, this posting would likely not exist, nor would we.

 Imles on list of passengers docking in New York City, 16 Apr 1881 on the SS W. A. Scholten.

The Adam Pantle Conundrum

In my last posting I stated that the Adam Pantle family were sponsors of the Christoph and Anna Maria Imle family when they came to the U.S. I may be wrong. I obtained that information from a paper "The Imle Family" prepared by Edgar Imle for the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Imles to the U.S. In that paper, Edgar stated

They [the Imle immigrants] were sponsored by the Adam Pantle family with whom they stayed for some time after arriving in this county. The Adam Pantle family lived near Snyder (also called Hatton) about six to seven miles south of Marshall, Ill. Later on the Pantle family moved to the Dennison area north and east of Marshall where I recalled having visited them around 1912. It was while living with the Pantles that the Imles bought, in 1881, their first farm near Ernst, Ill., which is about two miles north of Snyder and five miles south of Marshall.

Edgar was right about where Adam and his wife lived, but may have been wrong about their role as sponsors or hosts. There are numerous documents showing that the Clark County Pantles (Adam Frederich and his wife to be, Lucy Greiner) did not arrive from Germany until 1887, six years after the landing of the Imles.  It is remotely possible that Adam Pantle traveled twice to the U.S. and that we have only a record for the later voyage (arrival date, 15 Nov 1887), but Adam always gave 1887 (in one case 1889) as his immigration year.

This marker in Dunlap Cemetery, Dennison and other
sources clearly show Adam Pantle's birth year as 1864.
Why "Louise" rather than "Lucy"?  Evidence indicates
that Lucy may have used both names.

Even had Adam come earlier, there would have been no "Adam Pantle family" when the Imles arrived. When Adam and Lucy came to the U.S. in 1887, they were unmarried. Traveling separately, they may have first met in this country. They were married 21 Feb 1891 in Terre Haute, where Lucy was living at the time. Plat maps and censuses show Adam and Lucy with a farm on the railroad track two miles south of Ernst in 1892 and 1900, and a mile north of Dennison in 1910 and later.

Furthermore, Adam Pantle was born in 1864, which means that when the Imles docked in New York, he would have been only 16 or 17, a very young age to be sponsoring or housing an immigrant family. Perhaps the Imles sponsored and housed Adam Pantle, rather than the reverse.

And finally, John Frederick Imle Sr., brother of Edgar, had this to say:

at the 1981 Imle reunion in Marshall one Pantley [sic] claimed that his Grandfather - Adam Pantley- who hailed from Grandad Imle’s home town of Gündelbach Württemberg Germany had preceded Grandad’s emigration to America by several years for the express purpose of locating a suitable grape cultural and wine-producing area. He evidently traveled quite widely and eventually came to Clark County & to Snyder where he found the place he was looking for. Back in Germany he influenced Grandad Imle and encouraged his immigration in 1881. Well, that was the first I had ever heard of that episode and as far as I could determine none of the living relatives had any knowledge of it either. The Adam Pantley family did come to America and did settle in Clark Co. near Dennison, Northeast of Marshall. I recall several occasions when we visited them at their farm on a Sunday, but I was always led to believe that these were people whom Grandad met after arrival here - not people he had known in Germany! My father never - nor did any of my uncles or aunts - ever mention that Pantley almost went into the wine business at Snyder, Ill.! Viticulture requires a moderate climate, good drainage and relatively high altitudes for success, none of which prevails in East Central Illinois. It would be fun to run down this rather thin rumor.

Comments?

Ein Imle Familie Geschichte

I’m back on track with the Imle book, although I am trying to write two books simultaneously (the other on the Tapscotts of Clark County). I hope this works out. Tentatively the Imle book will be titled It Started in Gündelbach, Ein Imle Familie Geschichte—probably far too long, but C’est la vie (or should it be So ist das Leben?).

In 1881, Frederick and Anna Marie Imle lived in Gündelbach, Württemberg, Germany with their five children Maria, Fred, Chris, Adam, and Gottlieb, where they managed vinyards. Not wishing their sons to be drafted into the compulsory German Army they decided to move to America, with the Adam Pantle family as sponsors. (Pantle descendants still live in Marshall and Paris.) The Imle family left Rotterdam, Holland on 26 Mar 1881, landed on in New York on 15 Apr 1881, and made their way west to settle on a farm a few miles south of Marshall.

Frederick bought the farm and he and his sons spent their time tending crops, while Maria tended children, house, and gardens. In time, four more children—Bertha, Anna, William, and Herman—were added to the family.

No one knows for certain how many descendants there are from the nine children. Attending a reunion in honor of the 100^th anniversary of the arrival of the Imles in the United States were 150 people from a dozen states. A recent count from my incomplete database shows 304 descendants plus 176 spouses.

Imle Family Reunion, 12 Jul 1981, Lincoln Trail State Park, Clark County, Illinois.

 My interest in family history was sparked by my mother’s passing around Christmas, 2000, but it was encouragement from Dorothea Maria (Imle) Dunlap, “Dottie Rose,” my mother’s cousin, that that got me going on the Imles. Dottie Rose and several other Imles (in particular, Edgar, author of a magnus opus), had already written large portions of Imle family history. I was asked only to expand their work.

The expansion has turned out to be much more difficult than I had envisioned. First, it has taken on a life of its own to include Imle relatives, history, and geography. Second, Imle descendants have increased geometrically, possibly exponentially. Third, Imles have spread across the United States and outside the country. For over 300 years, the Imles had lived in the same small region of Germany, most of this time in the same town, much of that time in the same house. Then, for 40 years or so after arriving, most remained in and around Clark County. But then the small dispersion became a diaspora and since the 1981 reunion a DIASPORA! The reason is affluence. H. B. Guppy (Homes of Family Names in Great Britain) wrote a passage about the dispersion of affluent Englishmen. It applies equally well to Germans:

“It was the boast of a wealthy old Devonshire yeoman, 150 years ago, that he had never crossed the borders of his native county, and I cannot believe that in this respect he differed greatly from his fellows. From the stationary conditions of their lives, and from the nature of their pursuits and surroundings, they acquired a solid mediocrity of character, to which the long persistence of families in the same locality and in the same station is mainly due. England, in truth, owes much to their lack of aspiration and to their home-loving ways. It is, however, remarkable that the rise of a family into a condition of opulence is, as a rule, shortly followed by its dispersal, until within a generation or two, the home of the name for centuries knows it no more.”

Tracking down the multiplied and dispersed descendants has proven almost, but not quite impossible. These postings will describe this venture and what I find along the way.

All genealogical data are from primary or reputable secondary sources and never from unsourced online trees. Contact the author to request sources, omitted here to improve readability. Readers may use any posted material for any purpose as long as this source is cited. Most important, I need your help. Please tell me of errors, suggested additions, and photos you can contribute. I need your criticisms, comments, complaints.

Battles and Blooms

   
    

The last post said that there would be more on Helen Imle and the Amateis family. Here it is.

On New Year’s Day 1942, just three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Harold Amateis joined the Navy, serving in WW II as a Radioman 2^nd Class. During the battle of Munda in the Solomon Islands (2 Jul to 5 Aug 1943), Harold, though wounded himself, leaped overboard from his PT boat to save a wounded and unconscious buddy. Before the action was over, Harold received a broken leg and 27 shrapnel wounds. For the rescue of his comrade, Harold received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, the highest non-combat decoration awarded by the Navy.

Sometime around this time, Harold and Helen Imle were married, though we lack an exact date. How a girl from a small Midwest farming community met the east coast serviceman is unknown, but the marriage leads us to our final story

.

Rhododendron 'Doris Amateis' (photo by Edmond Amateis).

Like his father, Herman’s brother Edmond was also a sculptor, and was commissioned for a number of important architectural works. Towards the end of his life, however, Edmond became fascinated with horticulture. He developed two rhododendron crosses, one of which he named ‘Dora Amateis’ for his mother, the other ‘Helen Amateis’ for his sister-in-law. Rhododendron ‘Dora Amateis’ has become exceedingly popular among flower fanciers. Rhododendron “Helen Amateis,” less so (sorry Imles).

Harold Amateis passed away in Broward County, Florida, 23 May 1965. Helen lived another thirty-six years, dying 16 Jan 2001 in Sun City, Arizona, the only Imle, as far as we know, to have a flower named after her.

All genealogical data reported in these posts are from primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or reliable transcriptions thereof, and never without warning from online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability. Permission is granted to use any posted material for any purpose as long as this source is cited.

The Arts

Louis Amateis in Studio (Architect of the Capitol, Washington, DC).

We seldom think much about “The Arts” when speaking of the Imles. Not that they were uncultured, just agrarian, at least the earlier ones. But Helen Imle, daughter of Christian (“Chris”) and Alta Imle, did provide a connection to The Arts when, around the time of the second World War, she married Harold Louis Amateis. For Harold had been born 5 Mar 1908 in DC to Louis and Dora (Ballin) Amateis, an artistic family of greatness and tragedy.

Harold’s father, Louis was born 13 Dec 1855 in Turin, Italy, where he was educated at the Institute of Technology and also the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, the latter awarding him a gold medal for his work. After further studies in Paris and Milan, Louis immigrated to the United States in 1882, living first in New York City and then, after marrying, in Washington DC. It was at the nation’s capital that Louis achieved real fame, by his sculptures and by his founding and heading of the School of Architecture and Fine Arts at Columbian (now, George Washington) University. Although best known for the bronze “Amateis Doors” that graced the west front entrance to the Capitol (now on display within the building), Louis also sculpted the Heurich Mausoleum in Rock Creek Cemetery, the Qualities of Womanhood spandrels on Hearst Hall near the National Cathedral, and busts of Chester A. Arthur, Winfield Scott Hancock, General John Logan, and Andrew Carnegie, among others. His Texas Revolution Monument was erected in Galveston, and his Nathan Baldwin memorial, in Milford, Connecticut.

Amateis Doors (Architect of the Capitol).

But the family’s life of fame and fortune included a significant measure of distress. the first child Edmond, died a violent death on 4 Aug 1896 from accidental burns with carbolic acid. (A later son was named “Edmond Romulus Amateis” in his honor.) And at the height of his fame, on 16 Mar 1913, at the relatively young age of 57, Louis died suddenly from a stroke, leaving behind a widow and three sons, Roland Paul, the second Edmond, and Harold, the youngest, who had just turned five.

It was too much for Louis’s widow to take. A year later, on 12 Sep 1914, after setting up some small investments to care for her children, Dora placed a shotgun to her side and pulled the trigger.

Two of the three children were old enough to take care of themselves, but Harold had to be placed in St. John’s orphanage in Washington, DC, where he may have received little consideration. The orphanage incorrectly claimed that Harold had been born in Italy, with Italian as his first language. 

Our Amateis story does not end here but this is sufficient for now. A continuation will follow.

All genealogical data reported in these posts are from primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or reliable transcriptions thereof, and never from online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability. Permission is granted to use any posted material for any purpose as long as this source is cited.