Krieg-Stasel-Schiffler Connection
Compiled by Laurence J. Krieg from information
provided by Jeannette Krieg Drake
2012-08-26
William Burnham Woods
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In
the early part of the 20th century, Laurence Montgomery
Krieg, my grandfather, lived and worked in Newark, Ohio. This is
a brief account of his connection with the Stasel and Schiffeler
families.
Laurence M. Krieg worked at the hardware store in downtown Newark,
eventually becoming a partner and finally sole proprietor of
Crane-Krieg-Flory Hardware. As such, he was often in contact with
homeowners and farmers in the Newark area. One such individual was
Mr. Stasel, who became a good friend. Mr. Stasel owned a home
in Newark and a farm near Hanover, Ohio; he was the father of two
daughters, Sarah and Mary. Their maternal grandfather
was William Burnham Woods, of Newark.
Meanwhile,
the Stasel girls grew to adulthood and married. Sarah had
considerable musical talent, and went to the conservatory in
Cincinnati. There she met and married German opera singer Carl
Schiffeler. He returned to Germany with Sarah, where they had two
children, Carl and Betty Lou. Betty Lou, the younger, was born about
1927. |
William Burnham Woods (August 3, 1824 – May 14, 1887) was
an American jurist,
politician, and soldier. He was elected mayor of Newark in 1856,
and to the Ohio
General Assembly in 1858, being named Speaker of the House shortly thereafter. In 1862 he left the Ohio state house and joined
the Union
Army. He was appointed lieutenant
colonel of the 76th
Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which served in the Western
Theater. He fought at the battles of Shiloh and Vicksburg,
and was promoted to brigadier
general. At the end of the war, Woods stayed in the South,
settling in Bentonville,
Alabama, where he reopened his law practice and began farming cotton.
In 1869 he was named by President Ulysses
S. Grant as a circuit
judge for the Fifth Circuit.
Woods sat on the Fifth Circuit for 11
years, before being named by Rutherford
B. Hayes to the Supreme
Court in December 1880. He remained on the court until his death
in 1887. (Condensed from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Burnham_Woods; Image source: http://www.supremecourthistory.org/history-of-the-court/associate-justices/william-woods-1881-1887/ |
The Raleigh Hotel, 12th and Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. |
Sarah's sister Mary married Curt Schiffeler, brother
of Carl. They may have lived some time in Germany, but their
permanent home became the United States, where Curt became successful
in the hospitality industry, rising to the position of Manager of the
Raleigh Hotel in Washington, D.C. |
This note about Curt Schiffeler is found in the Raleigh Hotel
entry of “Greater Greater Washington”: “One of the factors
that made the Raleigh such a success was its manager, Curt C.
Schiffeler, who managed to create a warm and informal atmosphere
that pleased the guests. Schiffeler remained at the Raleigh until he
retired in 1954.” |
| Carl
and Sarah had two children, Carl Jr. and Betty Lou, but
their marriage did not fare well; Carl left Sarah and the children to
marry Marjorie Wintermute. |
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 |
Sarah then returned with the children to the U.S., but finding
herself a single mother of two children, she determined to become a
teacher by earning a Master’s degree in German. In order to do so,
she entrusted Melody and Carl to her sister Mary and her husband
Curt, who took them in as their own and raised them at the Raleigh in
Washington. Sarah earned her degree at Ohio State University in 1938,
writing a thesis entitled Schiller's Attitude Toward the French
Classic Drama.
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| Curt
and his wife were apparently unable to have children, and they often
introduced Carl and Melody as their own; though this didn’t please
Sarah, she was grateful to have her children well cared for and
educated. Betty Lou liked to refer to Sarah as “Mutti” (which
Curt strongly discouraged) and to Mr. Schiffeler as “Uncle Curt”.
However, Carl was the star of the show in the Schiffelers family,
graduating from the U. S. Naval Academy in Annapolis to become a
Naval officer, while Melody remained in his shadow. Perhaps it was to
emerge from the shadows that she traveled to Germany in her Junior
year of high school to visit Schiffeler relatives there. While there,
she adopted the name “Liesel”. |
That
was in 1939, when Germany was at war. The United States was neutral
when she went over, but as the situation grew more tense and the war
at sea intensified, she found it difficult to return. It is from this
period that we have part of a letter from her to her mother Sarah.
On
July 23, 1936, L. M. Krieg’s first wife Helen Crane Krieg had succumbed to cancer; in January, 1940, he married Sarah. William
and Janie had a new step-mother; Janie was studying at Dennison
College (now University, Granville, Ohio) and William came to Newark
en route to his post as Vice-Consul at the American Consulate in
Milan, Italy. When he arrived in Milan, William was in a position to
help his step-sister Betty Lou return safely to the U. S., which he
did. |
The following Krieg-Campbell Family Letters mention the situation with regard to Betty Lou's return from Germany in 1940:
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Beginning
in the summer of 1940, Betty Lou lived with her mother and
step-father at 197 Hudson Avenue, Newark. Janie had just graduated
from Dennison, and spent the summer at home. She and Melody often
went to Granville’s Spring Valley Pool together, and had the
opportunity to get to know each other pretty well. Janie describes
Betty Lou as being very artistic and talented, friendly, but somewhat
immature and “a bit different”. Her preference at that time was
to be called “Melody”.
Melody
went on to college at Dennison, where she met a young man, fell in
love, and married. They were happily married for several years, and
had four or five children. Every summer, they would spend their
vacation at the old family farm near Hanover, Ohio, where they
renewed their ties with Laurence and Sarah Krieg.
Unfortunately,
all did not go well with Melody. She apparently suffered some form of
mental illness, which led her to leave her husband and children and
live irresponsibly. She appealed to her step-father for money from
time to time, and received from him a measured amount of help. In the
early 1960s (when Janie had returned from Texas to Ohio with her
husband Norman Drake and her children Barbara, Laurence, and Robert)
Melody also returned for a brief visit to 197 Hudson Avenue. Janie
received a call from her father that “Melody is here” and could
she come and help. On arrival at the family home, Janie found Melody
in an agitated state, apparently on some form of drugs or medication.
Melody’s life ended unhappily in suicide shortly after this. She is
buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Newark.
During
the 1960s, Sarah developed Alzheimer’s Disease; she lived in a
nursing home in Newark until her death in 1966 or 1967. She is buried
next to her daughter in Cedar, Hill Cemetery, Newark. |
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