Frederick Kohlhepp - Mission Journal Entries - April 1906 (2 of 2)

17 April 1906 - Tuesday

Tues. 17th Just received [a] circular letter from Pres. Serge F. Ballif of an intended Trip through Switzerland, and [a] Conference to

[p. 48]

be held In Zürich [on] May 25th [19]06.80 Received [a] letter from sister Anna [Kramer Schneidt] in [the] evening, stating that she and Lizzie were comming to Germany in the latter part of May.[N9] I am answering her letter now [at] 10 P.M.

18 April 1906 - Wednesday

Wed. April 18th 06 Went tracting to day[. I] am not feeling very well. Visited [the] Ketterers on [the] way home from tracting and had diner there. Met an old gentleman in a park, had [a] conversation with him + gave him tracts which he said he would read. Received the [Der] Stern from Zürich today.[N10] My money is all gone[.] my land lady lent me two Marks.

19 April 1906 - Thursday

19th Did not do anything[.] walked around town[. I] am not feeling very well.

20 April 1906 - Friday

20th Am feeling somewhat better today [and] went tracting to Guttenfingen [Gundelfingen]. Weather is rainy and cold. I have a slight head ache yet.

[p. 49]

21 April 1906 - Saturday

Sat. 21-1906 April. I just received new’s of [a] big Earthquake and destruction by fire of the city of San Francisco[,] Cal[ifornia].[N11]

22 April 1906 - Sunday

Sun. 22nd Bro. [John] Mack called on me in the morning, and we had a pleasant walk together for a way’s in the country. Then we went up town and had dinner togeather. after which we went out to Bro. Ketterers and held [an] after noon meeting, had supper at [the] Ketterers[.] in the evening we all went down to a woods outside of the town where there is a small stream of water, and I baptized Sis. Bertha Ketterer.[N12] I confirmed her the same night in their house. After which we sang a hymn, and Bro. [John] Mack and I went home togeather[.] our room’s are not

[p. 50]

far apart.

23 April 1906 - Monday

Mon. 23rd April 1906. Went tracting, around town. There are a great many students comming into Freiburg now.[N13] Many of the Students have scars on their faces from swords wound received

in fighting or duels.[N14]

24 April 1906 - Tuesday

Tues. 24 April 1906 Rainy and cold[. I] did not tract. In[the] evening went out to [the] Ketterers and held [a] Bible Class.

25 April 1906 - Wednesday

Wednesday April 25 tracted around town[.] Some more students arrived to day.

26 April 1906 - Thursday

Thur. 26 April Tracted in Freiburg[. The] Weather [was] Cloudy + Cold with [a] sprinkle of rain.

27 April 1906 - Friday

Freiday April 27 tracted in Freiburg[. The] Weather [was] still cold and disagreable.

28 April 1906 - Saturday

Sat. 28th Still cloudy + stormy.

29 April 1906 - Sunday

Sun 29th April. Went out [to] the Ketterers and held [a] meeting.

[p. 51]

30 April 1906 - Monday

Mon. 30th April 1906. Went trackting in Frieburg. Also visited a family of friends by the name of Stein. The weather has been a little more agreeable with occasional sunshine[.]

NOTES:

[N9] It appears they arrived in either late May or early June. However, Frederick did not see them until the end of July. See 28 July 1906 entry. I have much of their correspondence during their visit available to post later.

[N10] Der Stern [The Star] was the Mormon church’s German periodical, similar to the British Millennial Star. During Frederick’s mission, it was published semi-monthly.

[N11] The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco and the coast of northern California at 5:12 A.M. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. It ruptured along the San Andreas Fault both northward and southward for a total length of 296 miles (477 km). Shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles, and inland as far as central Nevada. The earthquake and resulting fire is remembered as one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States. The death toll from the earthquake and resulting fire represents the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California’s history. The death toll resulting from various aspects of the disaster reached over 3000, and the damage caused by the earthquake was estimated at $500,000,000 in 1906 dollars.

[N12] Bertha Ketterer was Bro. Ketterer’s daughter. See April 16, 1906 entry.

[N13] Some of these students would be attending Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg, an educational institution established by the Habsburgs in 1457. It is one of the oldest universities in Germany, and has a long legacy in the humanities, and the social and natural sciences. Around Frederick’s time it admitted around 3000 students.

[N14] Duels were consentual fights between two people, who fought with matching deadly weapons. Rules of engagement were typically predetermined by the parties before the match to ensure that there was fair sport. Duels usually ensued over offended honor or over the impass of some law. The goal of the duel was not so much to kill the opponent as to gain satisfaction, or to restore one’s honor by demonstrating a willingness to risk one’s life for it. Duels were often illegal, though in most societies

where dueling was socially accepted, participants in a fair duel were not prosecuted, or if they were, were not convicted. Only gentlemen were considered to have honor, and therefore qualified to duel. These students at the universities at Freiburg were probably the sons of gentlemen. By 1906, legalized dueling was extinct through nearly the whole world, so this would have been interesting for Frederick to witness.

1938 Article on Minerva Teichert (Fred's Daughter)

The Relief Society Magazine (a periodical for women published unofficially by the Church of Jesus CHrist of Latter Day Saints) in Volume 25, No. 3 (March, 1938), pages 168-170 has an article on my great-grandmother, Fred's daughter Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert. The article is entitled "One of Ours (Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert)," and judging by it, this is a recurring series. It was written by Dorothy Clapp Robinson. An interest article in its own right, I'll only focus on the details in it up to Fred's death in 1919. I prefer providing the source not in bits (as you can tell by now), so here is the section I am interested in:

"Undoubtedly her talent for drawing was inherited. Perhaps there was born with her, too, a talent for perseverance but both qualities were added upon by a rare type of directed effort. There came a time when she tasted the joy of recognition by critics and teachers but not until she had paid the price. Out of Boston came an educated talented Jew, convert to a new faith. In the West he married a girl who had been bred in that faith. Both had literary and artistic ability. Minerva, their second child, was given all that complete understanding and encouragement could give, but there was no money for painting lessons. Isolated on a farm, miles and miles from a teacher, no money to take her where there were teachers, mere living was a struggle. One less valiant would have wept and succumbed to their lack of opportunity. Not Minerva. 'Knock and it shall be opened unto you' had literal meaning for her. She knocked and knocked until doors of opportunity began opening as doors will to those who persist.

At age thirteen, the age when most girls are just leaving the doll period, she was already making her own living and paying for painting lessons. Minerva Kohlhepp was born in Ogden but in her first months her parents moved to Idaho. There is little about dry-farming and ranching that she does not know. There is little of it she has not put on canvas. In a little shore in American Falls she first exhibited. While still a child she dressed a group of dolls in native costumes of every country. They drew a great deal of praise but seemingly took her no nearer an art teacher.

In Pocatello she worked for her board and attended high school. There she met a woman with splendid artistic ability who helped her to other contacts. A Mrs. Sparks who was going to San Francisco needed a girl for nursemaid. Minerva had been preparing herself for just such an opportunity. In San Francisco she found time for work at Mark Hopkins' Art School.

After graduating from high school she taught in rural Idaho just long enough to insure a year of study in the East. In February, 1908, she enrolled as a student in the Art Institute in Chicago--and what a student! Once there, nothing less than finishing would satisfy. She worked and schemed and borrowed money in order to stay. By July she had completed the first year's work. In 1912 she completed a three years' academic course beside studying Dramatic Art and Indian Dancing at the Chicago Conservatory of Music.

The year 1913 found her back in Idaho teaching school, paying debts, writing poetry and finding time to file and live on a homestead near American Falls. It was at this time also that her determination to be a great painter suffered a slight retard. Herman Teichert, who pursued her as persistently as she pursued art, came near winning his case. But before she had quite decided, an offer came to teach art at the University of Utah. Her ambition flared anew and she went to New York for final preparation.

All these years her reputation had been growing and hardly had she reached New York when she was offered a scholarship under Robert Henri. Henri had come back to the Art Students League for the year 1914-15. This big chance swept away all immediate thoughts of homestead, sweetheart, and teaching offer. She was the first to enroll under the master portrait painter and became not only a favorite pupil but a warm personal friend. Some think her portraits show a strong Henri influence. She received other scholarships as well, one under George Bridgeman for draftmanship.

The next three years brought Miss Kohlhepp another rare privilege. The war was on. The wealth and culture of the world settled in New York. The Art Students League, fearing complications, would accept no gifts of money, but wealthy patrons of art could and did aid the struggling pupils. This aid came in the form of tickets to things of worth. Minerva Kohlhepp being an advanced student shared generously.

Many of her evenings were spent listening to opera, studying theatrical lighting effects, enjoying Russian ballet, etc.

During this time her financial problems were still with her but with the determination so characteristic of her she found things to do about it. She had a natural bent for making the most of a dollar and a propensity for finding work along the line she liked. She sketched cadavers for doctors. She painted animals for a series of school books. One afternoon she did a portrait of Wallace Beery dressed in skins for the show Purple Knight. She received fifty dollars for that. She did much work for the movies.

Of her the great Henri said, "She is one of the coming woman artists of America."

The summer of 1917, when war clouds hung so threateningly, Miss Kohlhepp woke to the realization there were other fields of interest far from halls of learning. For the first time in her life painting took second place in her heart. She hurried home to marry her cowboy sweetheart, Herman Teichert. While he served in France she lived on his paternal homestead that in the days of stock companies had been known as Tall Tree Center. Mrs. Teichert loved this old ranch and some of her finest work was done there. She loved the Snake River "bottoms" where the ranch was located. She told of it in verse and story as well as on canvas. It is her delineation of life on the "bottoms" that makes her so essentially an Idaho artist.

There was everything in that section to stimulate the artistic urge. From Horse Island to Big Hole, from Ferry Butte to the cataracts at American Falls she gathered her studies. And such a variety! Here were tradition, scenery, and local color. Here she found marsh grass, brown-topped tules, gray-green sage, blue pools and foaming rapids, stretches of meadowland and warmscented cowpaths, giant gnarled cottonwood, tangy willows and flaming kinnikinick. Here, too, were picturesque cowboys, gaudily attired bucks, squaws in bright blankets and papooses in boards. She studied bucking broncos, dances to the Sun God and the ruins of old Fort Hall."

Items to consider/research further:

- Look into "One of Ours" to see if it was a series and what general purpose of the series was. Clearly, it is to highlight and draw positive attention to Minerva in this particular case.

- Who was Dorothy Clapp Robinson and how would she have learned about Minerva?

- Here we encounter the Jewish myth once more. I've not seen in friends own writings or those of his sisters or parents anything on Jewish ancestry. I remarked in a prior post how I wonder if this spread from a folk etymology of the term Kohlhepp and family ancestry speculations.

- Fred is noted as educated and talented. It describes Minerva's art talent as inherited. There's often a reference to Fred as being a source of her artistic talent in other sources. This article (perhaps since it is an article for women) also notes that Mary Ella was a source for her talent ("Both had literary and artistic ability").

- It gets Fred's Boston upbringing right, and his marrying Mary Ella in the west. It's interesting that it seems to suggest Fred converted to the faith first, and then married a girl bred in the faith. I'm not sure that sequence of events is quite right.

- It really stresses the Kohlhepp's family poverty. They cannot afford lessons, but they do provide encouragement. No teacher is anywhere near where they live. Quite likely true in towns like Neeley and Rockland. Poverty is driving the Kohlhepps to have their children work at young ages to pay for their living and board, to live in other homes. As a teenager, Minerva is going out to San Francisco. Perhaps for someone like Frederick who made his own journey throughout the United States as a young man, this is seen as they way of things.

- The article reports that the Kohlhepps moved quite quickly to Idaho following Minerva's birth, "in her first months." This would have put the migration to Idaho in late 1888, early 1889.

- She exhibits the first time in a little store in American Falls.

- It isn't until she makes it to Pocatello that she finds a woman (Mrs. Sparks) to further her artistic abilities.

- The other items don't tell us much about Minerva's relationship with her family, as much as her having been away. It does make one wonder how much the sisters really grew up together.