Eichof Sisters

My grandmother, Catherine Gilde Vogel, came to the United States with her mother in November 1907. Her mother, Catherine Eichof Gilde, was traveling with her sister Teresa Eichof Keipp, who also had two young children with her. Their husbands, Jacob Gilde and Anton Keipp, immigrated to Mansfield, Ohio together the previous July.

This photo of Teresa (left) and Catherine was probably taken in Setschan, Hungary before they were married. In spite of the formal clothes they look very young.

According to the Ellis Island record of their arrival, Catherine Eichof Gilde was 24, and her sister, Teresa, was 21. They each had two small children. My grandmother was three and her brother, John, was 10 months old. Teresa’s children were three-year-old Anton and three–month-old Elizabeth. In addition they appear to have been accompanying a 16-year-old neighbor, Joseph Subich. The ship manifest records listed the last address of the immigrants. Joseph’s father lived next door to Teresa and Catherine’s father in Setschan. It also appears that Joseph was a half-brother to Teresa’s husband Anton Keipp.

The record shows that their ship, the SS Main, departed from Bremen, Germany. They had to travel from Setschan in what was then in Hungary, across Hungary and Germany to reach the North Sea port of Bremen. The likely mode of transportation for that trip would have been by train. They sailed as second class passengers to New York, went through the immigration process at Ellis Island and then made their way to Mansfield, Ohio probably by train.

A first cousin of Grandma Vogel, Magdalene Keipp Goettl, passed along a memory of the day they arrived at New York. Her mother, Teresa Eichof Keipp, was carrying the baby Elizabeth and told her son, Anton, to hang on to her skirt. Magdalene said her brother, Anton, was a "nosey boy" and before they knew it, Anton was gone. They searched all over for him and finally found him walking up and down the docks with his hands in his pockets and not a care in the world. He was looking at the ships and the people passing by.

The passenger manifest of the SS Main listed the final destination of the Eichof sisters as 147 Lily St, Mansfield. The U.S. Census of 1910 found the Gilde family at that same address. Jacob Gilde was a section hand for the railroad, according to the census. The Keipp family was in Crestline at the time of the 1910 census, where Anton Keipp was also working for the railroad. The Gilde’s later moved to Crestline as well.