Friday's Faces From the Past: Military Memories - Dad in San Francisco with his 1C1X, 1952

Jack and Henrietta Gauer Strible with my dad, Fred Pape, September 1952, San Francisco.

I've written before about my dad Fred Pape's meeting with his brother Bob in San Francisco, as Dad was heading out to Korea and Uncle Bob was returning from Korea to the Pentagon, in September 1952.

They met at the home of Dad's first cousin once removed, his mother's first cousin Henrietta Wilhelmina Gauer Strible (1898-1961), and her husband Jack (John Joseph Strible Jr., 1895-1963).  Henrietta was the daughter of Paulina Dienes Gauer (1865-1935), the sister of my great-grandmother Elizabeth Dienes Massmann, and Paulina's husband Johann Heronomus "John" Gauer (1865-1913), a successful dry goods merchant in Chicago, who was killed when the car he was riding in was hit by a train in Riverton, Illinois, near Springfield.  Gauer was on his way to nearby Buffalo to visit his mother-in-law, my great-great-grandmother Rachel Matheis Dienes, who was visiting her sister, Catherine Matheis Vennemann.

Henrietta was only 15 when her father died, the third of his five surviving children.  Henrietta and her widowed mother appear in a 1917 Bakersfield, California, city directory, living together at 400 I, and Henrietta works as a clerk.  Her older sister Amelia Gauer Castro also lived in the city.  Amelia's husband Albert Hamilton Castro was paralyzed after he fell from a load of hay in the summer of 1916, and Amelia had a young son (John A.) born in April 1916, so perhaps Henrietta and Pauline moved out west to help Amelia.

Albert died in September 1917, and by the 1920 Census, Pauline, Henrietta, her two younger siblings (John Henry Gauer and Cecilia Gauer), Amelia, and John Castro were all living in Chicago.  Henrietta and Pauline apparently liked it in California, though, because by 1922 they were back (according to their voter registrations), but this time in La Brea precinct in Los Angeles County.  Henrietta is working as a saleslady, and she and her mother live at 7512 Fountain Ave.

Sometime between 1922 and 1929, Henrietta married Jack, who was born in Maryland and brought up in Baltimore.  They may have met in California, as Jack appears on the 1920 Census living in Los Angeles with his older sister and brother-in-law, but by 1929, he and Henrietta are listed in the Baltimore city directory (and they are still there on the 1930 Census).

I could not find them on the 1940 Census, but I did find them in the 1945 San Francisco city directory, living at 2435 Union, where, based on comparisons with Google Map street views, they were still living when the photo above was taken.  Page 1199 of 1954 Polk's San Francisco City Directory says they were living in Apartment 204 at this address.

Later Henrietta and Jack moved to 2290 Francisco St. #304 in San Francisco, which is where they were living when Henrietta died on June 9, 1961.  Jack passed away at the same address almost two years later.  They are both buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, San Mateo County, California.  They had no children.

© Amanda Pape - 2014 - click here to e-mail me.