Friday's Faces From the Past - Farmer's Daughter - Saloon Keeper's Wife - Barbara Haskamp Baer

Barbara Haskamp Baer

A cabinet card portrait photocopied numerous times over the years was inspiration to find out more about Barbara Haskamp and her family of Cook County, Illinios.

Portraits of Barbara Haskamp along with portraits of her parents, Marie Lauremann and Anton Haskamp and two of her sisters initiated a further look into the Haskamp family.

The exact date of Barbara’s portrait is unknown, but it is evident by the stamp on the bottom of the portrait that John Kimball Stevens was the photographer.  Clearly stamped on the bottom of the cabinet card is Steven’s Studio at McVicker’s Theater Building. Steven’s Studio occupied McVicker’s Theater Building between the years 1886 and 1900, making Barbara between the ages of 31 and 45 at the time of her sitting. Barbara’s portrait portrays a rather restrained, reserved and unadorned woman, anything but extravagant. The portrait, somewhat like a picture diary, illustrates a time of contentment combined with struggle and sorrow for Barbara in the years leading up to 1886 and beyond.

Anton Haskamp

Barbara Haskamp was born in New Trier, Cook County, Illinois in 1852 to German immigrant parents, Anton (Anthony) and Maria (Mary) Lauremann.  Anton and Maria came from Lohne Oldenburg, Germany in 1847 and were among many immigrants who settled in Cook County, Illinois, a popular area in the middle nineteenth century for European immigrants seeking a better life. The fertile soil and vast amount of land in Cook County enticed many families with agricultural backgrounds, including the Haskamp family to settle there.

Maria Lauremann Haskamp

In 1850, 81.1% of Illinois’ foreign-born adult males came from three countries, Germany (35.9%), Ireland (27.2%), and England (17.9%).

Both Chicago and Cook County were diverse “foreign countries” with foreigners comprising 64.2% and 62.7% respectively of the total adult male population.

 niu.edu

Anton Haskamp first appears in the Illinois State Census in 1855 living in New Trier along with one male (10 years old and under), two males (30 years old and under 40), three females (10 years old and under), and two females (20 years old and under 30). Barbara Haskamp would have been three years old in 1855. By 1870, when Barbara was 18 years old, Anton Haskamp was a successful businessman, a butcher and landowner who owned real estate valued at $20,000.00.

The Evanston Directory, 1883

 

Barbara grew up on the family farm in Evanston, Ill along with her six siblings, including five sisters and one brother. She was the oldest child in the Haskamp family, which included her sisters Katherine (Katie), Mary, Margaret, Susan, Elizabeth (Lizzie), and her brother Nicholas.  

Before 1850, Evanston was part of the Gross Point district.  When the Township of Ridgeville was organized, Evanston became part of Ridgeville, until 1857 when Evanston Township was organized.

Anton Haskamp was one of the men assigned to divide Evanston into four road districts when annexed from Ridgeville in 1857.

This 1898 map shows A. Haskamp owned property at Ridge Avenue and Central Street.

cityofevanston.org

 Ridge Avenue and Central Street today

 Besides farming, another popular profession among German immigrants who settled in the Chicago area in the 1850’s was saloon-keeper.  Therefore, it is not so surprising that in 1875 at the age of 23, Barbara Haskamp, a farmer’s daughter married Lawrence Baer, the son of Franz Baer, a saloon-keeper in Lake View, Illinois.  When Franz and Dorethea Fleck Baer immigrated from Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany in July of 1851 along with their children Helene, age nine and Agnes, age six, Dorethea was about five months pregnant with her son, Lawrence. 

Although their occupational backgrounds were dissimilar, it is interesting to note that both Barbara’s father Anton, and Lawrence’s father, Franz both were active in their communities and served on their local school boards.  Barbara adapted to married life with her saloon-keeper husband, Lawrence with the help of her mother and  sisters, Mary, Katie, and Lizzie who lived in nearby Evanston.

Lawrence Baer

Frank A. Baer

By 1880, Lawrence and Barbara  had three children, Mary, age four, Anthony Joseph, age two, and Katie age one, and lived on North Clark Street at the junction of Ridge, in the rear of their saloon along with a boarder, Lawrence’s younger brother Frank, his business partner.

The Baer family continued to grow and in 1881, a son named Lawrence Nicholas was born to Barbara and Lawrence.  The joy that Barbara and Lawrence felt with the growth of their young family was sadly short-lived with the death of two-year-old Katie the next year. Three years later in 1885 another child Katherine was born, named in honor of her deceased and dearly missed sister, Katie.  

findagrave.com

The saloon on the corner of N. Clark and Ridge was a family business established by Franz Baer soon after he settled in Lake View. When Lawrence was eighteen, he began working with his father in the saloon until 1875 when he went into partnership with his brother Frank.  Lawrence and Frank continued their partnership until 1881 when Frank opened a greenhouse in Ravenswood and Lawrence went to work as a bookkeeper for William Seng & Co until 1883, when he opened a foundry.  By 1885, the year that their mother Dorethea died, the brothers were back operating the saloon at North Clark and Ridge Avenue. In 1892, Frank opened the Lake View Exchange, a popular resort he operated until his death in 1897.

 Lawrence continued to work as a saloon-keeper until his premature death in 1894 at the age of 42. After her husband’s untimely death, Barbara managed to keep the saloon in business for a while.

By the year 1900, the saloon business was a memory, but Barbara still lived near North Clark Ave. with her daughter Mary, 24 a dressmaker, her son Lawrence, 17 a tailor, and her youngest daughter Katherine who was 15.  The family continued to change as Barbara’s children grew up and moved out of the family home and Barbara eventually moved from their North Clark Avenue home to North Hermitage Avenue.

In the same year, Barbara’s widowed father was still living on Ridge Avenue with his unmarried daughters, Katie, Lizzie, and Margaret.  Anton Haskamp died in 1905 and Margaret died just three years after her father passed away, in 1908.

findagrave.com

In 1910 Barbara and her twenty-five year old daughter Katherine, a seamstress, were living on North Hermitage Avenue along with two boarders, Barbara’s two sisters, Katie and Lizzie Haskamp.

Katie Haskamp

Lizzie Haskamp

Barbara Haskamp Baer died in 1919 at the age of 67. Her unmarried sister’s Katie and Lizzie moved on to become employed as housekeepers for Monsignor John A. Newman, pastor of  St. Maurice parish in Chicago.  Katie Haskamp lived just two more years while Lizzie continued to work for Father Newman until her death in 1934. Their sister Susan Haskamp was a nun with the Order of St. Francis in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She died at St. Joseph’s Convent, in Milwaukee in 1932 at the age of 69.

Nicholas Anthony, Barbara’s brother, married Caroline Banworth in 1889 and continued to live on Ridge Avenue near the family farm. Nicholas Anthony died in 1921 at the age of 63.  Barbara’s sister, Mary Haskamp married Wendell Klein of Chicago in 1879.  Mary’s husband Wendell died in 1906 and Mary was 71 years old when she died twenty years later in 1926 in Evanston.

© 2013 by Charlene Baer