GUSCHKE GERMAN
GENEALOGY PAGE--FAMILY STORIES

LAST UPDATED: 4 March 2001. Thanks to Tom Guschke for his story material below.

In 1880 Joseph and Aloysis Guschke left Bochau, Germany for the United States. After clearing customs, they settled in the Chicago area. Joseph found work as a miller. Two years later, Joseph sent for his fiance, Johanna Pietzuch, to join him. They were married in Louisville Kentucky, and set up a home in Chicago. By 1897, they had six children. (The first died at an early age. ) Joseph was developing lung problems from the dust that he had to work in. He was advised to leave the mills and get out of the dust.

They applied for a homestead in Alabama, and suceeded in getting a small farm ten miles north of Athens Alabama. They built a log cabin on the farm. It had one large room with a large fireplace in it. The cooking was done over the open fire, and Joe and Johanna slept in the main room. The children all slept in the loft, which was reached by climbing a vertical ladder attached to the wall. Joseph had grown up on a farm in Germany and had no trouble adapting to a farming life. He raised vegatables, mainly cabbage, and the children all helped with the crops. While living at the homestead, three more children were born.

About 1912, Decatur was booming, and the market for vegetables was better there, so Joseph sold the homestead, and bought a nineteen acre farm on the outskirts of Decatur. They built a small home with a mansard roof and a porch on all four sides. There was a good well on the back porch. A covered trellis with grapes led to a barn where the horse and the farm implements were kept. There was a vegetable cellar under the house, with trenches between ledges for the storage of vegetables. Joseph raised an assortment of vegetables that he peddled from his one horse wagon each morning. A beautiful lawn with shrubs and flowers surrounded the house.

As the children grew up they went out on thier own, all leaving Decatur except for Henry, who remained and worked in the railroad shops, later operating a shoe shop. Henry visited Joseph and Johanna every week, helping out as they got older. When the depression hit, Henry lost his home and shop, and moved to a small farm on the Eastern side of Athens. Charlie lost his job up north, and came home to help Joseph and Johanna. When anyone visited them Johanna always had hot coffee and coffee cakes to serve them. She also had a music box (probably called a concertina) that was cranked up and drove a roll of perforated paper to produce music. She had lots of rolls for the machine. Joseph died in 1933, and Johanna died in 1936.

Henry Guschke was born in 1900 on the Guschke homestead north of Athen Alabama. He was the sixth of nine children. He was allowed to go to school for some six weeks, and was then put to work on the farm. Granddad was a truck gardener who peddeled his produce in nearby towns. Several of the other children got good educations, including Theodore, who was put in a seminary at age eight, because he was the youngest son. As soon as he became of age, however, he had his name changed to Bush, because he wanted to be anything but a priest. Henry worked for awhile in Cincinatti, Ohio. Then he worked at the L. and N. Railroad shops in Decatur Alabama. Astrike athe shops resulted in the closure of the shops. (They moved to Louisville Kentucky). Henry then served an apprenticeship with his brother John, who was a shoemaker. He opened his own shoeshop in Decatur, but the depression hit, and everything folded. During the depression, he worked as a shoemaker, a pants presser in a pants factory, and finally as the depression eased, he went back into the shoe repair business. I can remember him making shoes by hand during the depression). He finally retired when he was 75, and spent the remaining years of his life gardening and raising flowers. He died at 91, leaving 16 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren.