I didn't realize who its first owner was until recently, when my Dad told me that my brother and I were the 5th generation of Hendrichs to use the saw. With my family tree materializing before me, I could now attribute the scroll saw to Friedrich Anton Hendrich, better known as "Fritz."
I found a brief history of Fritz Hendrich in a small envelope tucked inside this larger envelope labeled "Re: Family Tree."
I am not sure who the author of this letter is, although the writing is similar to that of his son, Charles Hendrich.
It reads:
"Fritz Anton Hendrich 3rd son of Maria Wolff and Ludwig Hendrich (Dutch decent) was born Sep. 9th 1831 in Mannheim Germany. Ludwig Hendrich, enterprising and far sighted citizen, planned carefully the education of their five boys. Karl the oldest studied law. Jacob next learned the brewery business from the bottom up. The three other boys were destined to learn: Fritz the carpenter trade, Philip the Iron, and Emil the youngest the building trade to form a company now called corporation. But the sudden death of Ludwig Hendrich brought a change. Jacob volunteered to lead the Brewery. Fritz having returned from his (Wanderjahre)[migratory years] travels in the interest of his trade, with working stations/points in Paris and Weur. Ready to settle down, but with the impossibility in sight not to be able to do so for years to come on account of the terrible times of the country left Germany like many of his friends to seek their fortune in foreign countries. He arrived by sail vessel in South America where he found employment [in] Bridge work. [He] stayed until the climate became unbearable then returned to Germany to look over home conditions. But he returned to America again this time to Missouri in North America, where he and his brother Philip bought an interest in a projected saw mill, which they built up as a plaining mill and box factory, in a landing of the Missouri River called (South Point) 52 Miles West of St. Louis[,] the first railroad track had been laid there in 1856. Their main output was boxes for chewing tobacco made of hard lumber."
What this letter does not mention however, was Fritz's love life. He married his 1st wife, Rosine Catherine Detweiler (better known as "Katharin") in 1863 and born to them were four children: Marie Hendrich, Margarete Hendrich, Anna Hendrich, and Louis Hendrich. For whatever reason, I have been unable to uncover or identify a photo of Anna, but I have found plenty of Marie and Margarete, Fritz's two eldest daughters. Based on the number of photos I have found of the two of them, I can only assume that he must have adored them greatly.
Their mother Katharin died at 29 years old, the same year that her last child Louis was born, so I can't help but conclude that she possibly passed due to complications in childbirth. A year after Fritz was widowed, he decided to marry Katharin's older sister Marie Madelaine Datweiler, although she too died only a year after their marriage (complications due to pregnancy?) without leaving behind any children. The next year, in 1874, Fritz married a third and final time to Ida Johanna Pietavy - a woman 18 years his junior and healthy enough to bear 2 children and live to the incredible age of 95.
Ida is my biological great great grandmother, and mother to Charles Hendrich and his younger brother, Walter Hendrich. She was born in Germany in 1849 to Peter Franz Pietavy and Emilie Stefanie Rebekka Wolff (which makes her Fritz's step-cousin before she became his wife). I unfortunately have not uncovered much else that I can share about Ida, other than based on public census information, it seems as though she lived out her later years under the care of her youngest son Walter and his family who lived in New York.
Turning back to Fritz Hendrich and his business life, my Dad always had a favorite story to tell about my great great grandfather and how he had just barely missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime to become a beer baron. I'll let him tell you the story:
And based on this paragraph of type I found in that envelope marked "Re: Family Tree," I was surprised to see confirmation that Fritz Hendrich did indeed have business dealings with the Busch family, just not the one that turned out to be the most profitable!
The letter concludes by validating details in my dad's oral history of Fritz's life:
"In the year 1878 the whole [box factory] plant was [razed] by fire was built up again and closed for good in 1885 on account of scarcity of hard lumber. Friends in Washington Mo. where he had been interested with the Bank since 1877, wished [him] to locate there. So after a last visit to Germany to see his Mother and family, he located in Washington, but in the interest of his children he moved his family to St. Louis in 1889, where he lived a retired life in good health until a few months before his death in March 3rd 1907. [He] was seventy five years old. [He] was cremated in St Louis."
Besides Fritz's four brothers, he also had a younger sister (as well as three older step siblings, but we'll get to them later...) named Margarethe Hendrich who would become the mother of Freida Goetz Hendrich, my great grandmother.
Her story is next...