COUNTDOWN TO 150 -- Family Life by Earl Shreckengast
After their wedding and honeymoon, Sylvia and Charles returned to Marysville in September 1876 to start their married life together. They had three children in five years—two girls, Tinnie and Jennie, and a boy, Charles J. D. They were not young parents; Charles was 36 and Sylvia was 29 when she gave birth to their firstborn, Tinnie. Their married life together was cut short, however, when Sylvia died of consumption (tuberculosis) after only seven years.
Sarah Morrison, a great granddaughter of Sylvia and Charles Koester, has written extensively about the Koesters drawing from the diaries that Charles kept starting in 1876, the year Sylvia and he were married. She shares her insights into their family life in her books, “Charles and Sylvia: A Tender Love—Profound and Abiding”, “The Little Folk”, and “Memoirs of the Charles F. Koester House”. This blog quotes extensively from her books. Her books are for sale at the museum’s shop.
“Charles and Sylvia adored their children and were loving and patient parents,” Morrison wrote in “The Little Folk.” “They delighted in the first words, the first steps, and other precious moments with the little folk (as Charles referred to his children). They dreamed about the future for their children and discussed how they hoped to raise them.” Charles encapsulated this when he wrote in his diary that they hoped to see “the children old enough for self governance and (to) leave them above all want, striving also to fit them as good people and usefulness for life’s calling.”
“Three children born in five years meant an active household for Sylvia to manage, feed, clothe, teach, and love,” Morrison wrote in “A Tender Love.” “The development of the house and gardens was an ongoing labor of love, but nonetheless, an arduous one. Especially in the early years, Charles did a lot of the work in the gardens after office hours and on Sundays. Sylvia and the children loved to spend time in the gardens with Charles as he worked in the evenings, the whole family frequently strolled amongst the flowers, shrubs, and trees after supper.”
“Other times they (walked) up the hill to the school where Sylvia taught or downtown and around the city to the railroad depot. Sometimes they went for carriage or sleigh rides that never failed to please the children,” recounted Morrison in “Memoirs.”
In the beginning of his married life, Charles made it a rule for him to be at home and take meals with the family. Charles often had dinner (the midday meal) and/or supper (a light repast in the early evening) with the family, but he frequently returned to the office and worked until late—sometimes even after midnight.
In the evenings at home, Charles wrote in his diary and read both German and English newspapers and periodicals. Sylvia and he shared a great love of books, and they read to the children. Charles gave Sylvia a number of leather-bound books on special occasions.
Morrison observed in “A Tender Love” that “Charles labored incessantly at his various business interests to become prosperous. Having experienced the destruction of his family’s home in Germany and the loss of his father’s ability to make a livelihood, Charles worried about security. He was intent on providing a secure future for his family even if something should happen to him.”
All these efforts took time away from Sylvia and the children. Remembering back, Charles wrote in his 1896 diary, “Sylvia in her lifetime often said, ‘Can you not stay at home with me today? Don’t stay in the office until midnight.’ And yet I did it and do so now. Then it was with a desire for prosperity, now from necessity to keep up expenses.”
In the early years of their marriage when there were fewer trees and only a white picket fence around the property, Sylvia loved to sit in the east bay window with Tinnie and watch the children walk up the hill to the schoolhouse where she had once taught. She often expressed her hopes to watch her daughters in their bonnets go up the hill to school. Sylvia also would sit in the upstairs window, which offered a good view of all going on. She sat there with Tinnie as a little baby watching and waiting for Charles’s coming home from the bank.
Charles and Sylvia loved Christmas. Charles wrote in 1877 about how he and Sylvia spent the morning hanging pictures and decorating the parlor with ivy. Charles loved to give presents, and he and Sylvia spent many happy times preparing Christmas gifts for the children and relatives.
Summing up, Morrison said in “Memoirs,” “Charles and Sylvia had a respect and depth of love for one another that was rare and seemed only to grow with time. They were patient parents devoted to their three children, they had a beautiful home and gardens that were their refuge—a veritable Eden—and, they had each other.”
Sylvia’s and Charles’ children are in the photo above. Sylvia took Tinnie (age 5), Charles J.D. (1), and Jennie (3) to Newcomb’s photo studio for a group photo with their pet iron dog on September 12, 1882.
