 Johann Gottlieb Ferdinand Garbe, son of Johannes of Johann Gottlieb Garbe and Louise Anna Marquard, was born 17 February 1832, at Ebersbach, Silesia, Germany. He was the fifth of nine children. His father and his uncle fought against Napoleon in 1813. His father settled in East Prussia, in a town called Ebersbach. This is where his grandfather, Georg Garbe and his great-grandfather, Peter Garbe had lived and raised their families. His father and grandfather were both tailors by trade and were considered the poorer class of people, but they were honest.
Ferdinand met Louise Amalie Schink, who was born in Warningkeim, Germany, 28 August 1834, and was the daughter of Christof and Louise Amalie Borem. Louise's family were wealthy farmers in East Prussia. They had many cattle and sheep, and raised much grain. They wanted their daughter to marry into a well-thought-of family, but Louise couldn't see it that way. She loved Ferdinand Garbe, who was just a poor laboring man who didn't own any property. In spite of what her parents thought, she married him and was almost disowned by her parents. She had it so nice at home...she could even play the piano.
Louise Garbe Wintsch, remembered going for a walk when she was a little girl, with her mother and another little girl. They went through a meadow and met a man herding sheep. This man had a sore on his face and her mother greeted him. They went on to a pretty cottage and visited with a lady who was very kind to them. Around the house was a beautiful flower garden, and among the flowers was a bed of little blue flowers that she thought were so pretty. When Louise was older she asked her mother about this and her mother said, "Can you remember that? Well, the old man and lady were your grandfather and grandmother. The little girl was your twin sister, and the cottage was their lovely home."
There was a war in their part of Germany for many years, which made it very hard for the poor people. They must have moved to several towns trying to find work; because each child was born in a different town. Ferdinand decided he must go to Berlin to find work. He found work there and earned enough money to send for his family. When Louise started on the trip to Berlin she had seven children, the oldest being fifteen years old and her baby just fourteen days old. It took them three days to get there. When they arrived, her husband had a little place fixed up that he had rented for them. This was in September of 1873. Having so many children and small pay, it was very hard to get along.
Louise had a good friend, Sister Guddy, who joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1878. She invited Louise Amalie to go to the meetings at her place. Louise Amalie and her daughter, Louise, attended and became very interested. But, Ferdinand didn't like it so she didn't go any more. Now Sister Guddy and a daughter and Louise would go and visit her, and attend the meetings. This went on for tour years. Louise, in this time became interested and wanted to be baptized. They set a date, but her father just wouldn't hear of it. They lived in a small apartment on the fifth story of their building. There were two rooms with a hall in between. The parents slept in one room and the children in the other. The night Louise was to be baptized, her mother found her in the middle of the night ready to jump out of the window. Her mother called to her but she was asleep, so she shook her to wake her up. After this both Louise Amalie and Ferdinand investigated the church, and let their daughter be baptized on 16 September 1883. She wanted to go to Zion. So, Louise and a friend left Germany with money a nissionary loaned them on 3 June 1889, and reached Salt Lake City, Utah on 26 June 1889. Louise Amalie Schink was baptized a member of the Church on 11 July 1890, and her husband, Ferdinand, was baptized on 21 August 1890. They and and their youngest son Ferdinand, their son Friedrich Carl, and Carl's wife, Emma A. Lehmann, who had also joined the Church, desired to go to Zion. In 1892 they all immigrated. They settled in Manti, Sanpete County, Utah, where their daughter Louise and her husband Henry Wintsch lived.
There were several German speaking families living in Manti, some from Germany and the others from Switzerland. Because of difficulty with the new language, these people were drawn together. They held a Sunday morning worship service in the South Ward Relief Society Hall. The speaking and singing was all done in German.
Frederick Carl found work and bought some land. Ferdinand and Louise Amalie made a basement on their son's land. They made adobes out of dirt and built a home. In her Memories of Grandfather and Grandmother Garbe: Ferdinand and Louise Amalie Schink Garbe, written by Martha Louise Wintsch Bartholomew in March of 1965, she tells the following:
"The home had two rooms with a shanty or utility room built onto the north end. Fred Garbe and his wife, Emma owned the lot. Their house was frame and had two stories and a broad south porch which made the two houses seem closer together. The houses both faced the west and both had basements, cellars, as they were called in those days, and their principle use was for food storage, being cool and dark. We entered Grandma's cellar through a trap door in the east end of her kitchen floor. Also at the east end of her kitchen were two cupboards, one attached to the south wall and one to the north wall. At the center of the east wall hung a rack on which were hooks of various shapes and sizes. Across the bottom of the rack was a row of little square drawers. All three of these, the two cupboards and the rack were reached by standing on the trap door, but she assured us it was strong...grandpa made it! The south wall cupboard held her dishes. Next to this cupboard stood the wood box which had two shelves built over the woodbin. On the top shelf stood the water bucket and the wash basin. Just west of the wood box stood the cook-stove and west of the stove was the door leading into the bedroom.
At the west end of the kitchen was a window where Grandma sat much of the time, at a small square table that Grandpa had built for her. A hinged board in the table top raised up and showed a compartment full of skeins of soft, fluffy, colorful yarn, and the muslin on which she did her beautiful cross-stitching. She did not have transfer patterns, but leaflets in which were pictured the designs she copied by counting the threads represented in the pictures, counting the threads in her muslin and then placing her stitches accordingly. Her work was most exact and beautiful, the stitches crossing in perfect order. Grandpa was proud of her work. It seemed to us that he idolized her. His treatment of his wife was one of the things that our mother admired most of all in her father. They both had a humble dignity and pride about them that was most unusual.
In Grandma and Grandpa's bedroom was a small lamp table and a wardrobe, a coal heater, bed and dresser. The heater and the cook stove were both kept shining bright. The dresser had a large oblong mirror at the top, below the mirror were two small drawers, one on each side of a marble center. In the lower part were three large drawers. The bed was a beautiful four poster in mahogany. On it were two feather ticks. One of these was placed on top of a tick filled with straw for a mattress. The second was used as a cover in place of quilts. I remember one beautiful hand-pieced quilt and a "Bettdecke" [bedspread]. Also in the bedroom was a commode, with a shiny white porcelain bucket in it to be used in case of sickness. Otherwise, they walked nearly 1/2 block to their outside toilet.
Just south of the house Grandpa had a small garden about fifteen or twenty feet square. The west side of the garden was bordered by a row of herbs, on the east side were rhubarb and gooseberries. At the southwest corner of the garden, just at the turn of the boardwalk was a greengage tree. Grandma used to give us slices of bread spread with jam made from the plums that grew on that tree.
Grandpa would bring their laundry to our house and he used to turn the washer for Mother to pay her for running their clothes through. Often he sawed and chopped wood, also. When he went home he usually took a little bucket of milk. On the days he did not come we took turns taking the milk to them. At one time when he was busy at our house, I climbed up in a mulberry tree and picked some ripe black mulberries for him to take home to Grandma. The next time I went to their house she had a surprise for me. It was a new kind of jam on my slice of bread, made of a mixture of mulberries and red currants. It was really good. It seemed to me that Grandmother was the sweetest, most lovable person in the whole world. I can't remember ever seeing her cross or angry with anyone.
Grandma always preferred to sleep in her own bed because no one had such fine feather beds as hers. She often told us of her girlhood. Her parents lived on a large estate. I got the impression that they owned it. She said that they employed so many people that there was a separate house in which the employees ate. She said they had "graue Erbsen" [gray peas] and coffee for breakfast. She described beautiful slippers and silk dresses she wore. She played the "Klavier" [pianoforte], which was in their home. How I wish I had paid more attention and remembered more.
Grandma told us of ducks and geese they raised. In the early summer, at sheep shearing time, the soft breast feathers and down were plucked. It made the fowls more comfortable and it gave the grower a valuable crop of feathers. She thought this should have been done in America, too.
They were sealed in the Manti Temple for time and all Eternity on 2 April 1897, and had six of their eight children sealed to them. Two of their children were buried in Berlin as infants. A married daughter was also buried in Germany. They had two children still living in Germany who had not joined the church. Three children lived close to them in Manti: Friedrich Carl, Louise, and Ferdinand. They were a comfort to their parents.
Grandpa suffered from asthma, but I do not remember about his last illness. He died on 11 January 1908 just a little more than a month before his 76th birthday. Grandma visited us occasionally, but she preferred the quiet of her own home, where she still worked on her cross-stitching. When Grandmother was 78 years old she had a stroke. Mother brought her to our house, where she passed away on 5 February 1913. She had lived for five years after her husband's death, and she worked on her stitching until very near the end. She was like he had been...she just could not be idle.
One day Aunt Emma fell down her stair steps and injured her head. The doctors wanted to operate to relieve the pressure of the concussion on her brain, but Uncle Fred would not consent, because he was afraid the operation would kill her. He took care of her at home until she became too ill and had to be placed in the hospital. On August 14th, 1925, Uncle Fred passed away. Our mother said he died of a broken heart. Aunt Emma died November 28, 1933.
The youngest son of our grandparents, of those who grew to maturity, was Uncle Ferdinand. he joined the church in Germany and came to America with his parents when he was 19 years old. Here he was called Ferdinand, Junior. On 30 August 1895, when he had been in Utah for about two years, he was married to Martha Hedwig Liebig, a sister to the girl who had emigrated with his sister, Louise. This young couple made their home in Salt Lake City, where their first three children were born. It used to be very exciting when they came from Salt Lake to Manti for a visit. They wore such beautiful, stylish clothes and brought pretty things for us. After they moved to Manti, four more children were born to them, three of whom died in infancy. The one of these who lived was Waldo. He grew to maturity with his two brothers, Arnold and Frank, and their sister, Pearl. Thy all married and settled in Manti and reared fine, upright families.
Aunt Hattie passed away 30 April 1937. Uncle was like a lost soul, he missed her so very much. She had been so all-important to him. She had been a good wife and mother, and a favorite aunt, jolly, kind and lovable. On 5 September 1940 Uncle Ferdinand was married to Therese Rose Spoke. he died 28 April 1956. Aunt Therese died 12 January 1965.
Two other sons of our grandparents, August and Franz, did not join the Church. They remained in Germany where they married and had families. The folks really rejoiced when they received letters from them and often expressed the wish that they might see them again. Many times Uncle Fred spoke of plans to go back to the 'Old Country' for a visit with his brothers and I believe that he and Aunt Emma would have gone if she had not had that tragic accident. When my brother, Henry A. Wintsch was serving his mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany in 1922-23, he visited these relatives. They were happy to meet him and to hear news of their folks in America, but they had no interest in his gospel message."
Johann Gottlieb Ferdinand Garbe: born 17 Fev 1832, in Knauten, Eylau, Germany. Died 11 Jan 1908 in Manti, Sanpete, Utah.
Louise Amalie Schink: born 28 Aug 1834 in Warnikeim, East Prussia. Died 5 Feb 1913 in Manti, Sanpete, Utah.
Children:
- Friedrich Carl Garbe: born 28 Nov 1858 in Almenhausen, Prussia. Died 14 Aug 1925 in Manti, Sanpete, Utah
- Augusta A. Garbe: born 27 June 1861 in Behnkeim, Prussia. Died April 1886 in Germany.
- August Garbe: born 28 Sep 1863 om Stadienburg, Prussia. Died in 1942 in Germany.
- Franz Garbe: born 25 Aug 1866 in Grosshonan, Prussia. Died 15 Jan 1944 in Germany.
- Justina Friederike Garbe: born 11 Feb 1870 in Diedrichsdorf, Prussia. Died 9 Feb 1874 in Germany.
- Louise Garbe (twin): born 11 Feb 1870 om Diedrichsdorf, Prussia. Died 21 Sep 1937 in Manti, Sanpete, Utah.
- Ferdinand Garbe: born 2 Sep 1873 om Diedrichsdorf, Prussia. Died 28 Apr 1956 in Manti, Sanpete, Utah.
- Otto Paul Garbe: born 7 Jul 1877 in Berlin, Germany. Died 24 Aug 1879 in Germany.
|