Unidentified Theatre Ephemera: a voyage of discovery in Iowa

 

What do you do when you find a delicious piece of C19th theatrical ephemera without a place, a date ...

One such turned up on my desk this week. 

German programme. $1.  Not anymore, dandruff. Although you might be pressed to find anyone but a lover of operatic curiosities willing to pay a whole dollar for it. And it is, obviously, not from Germany.

It is from German America. Witness the Mr and Mrs participants. I can do better than that, and posit that it is from Davenport, Iowa. How do I know that? Because the STIBOLT family were rife there in the C19th. And they married into the HASS and MARTENS families ...

Date? A little trickier. Their (amateur) performance doesn't seemm to have made the press.

Let's be cunning. The family, who emigrated with three 'Danish' babies, consisted of:

Father: Jens Pedr Stibolt. Born Schleswig-Holstein ie Denmark 24 December 1812. Died Davenport 12 July 1887. For years the editor of a German newspaper which promoted "demokratiche" politics.

Mother: Carolina Dorothea [Wulfhilde] née EHLERT (b Schleswig-Holstein 27 February 1816; d Davenport 8 October 1904)

Children: 

[Carolina] Emilie ('Amelia') Erasmine Stibolt b 24 June 1841-1925 (Mrs HOFFMANN)

Jens Peter Stibolt 1844-1880

Olga Louise Stibolt 1844-1927 (Mrs Louis C J MARTEN)

Caspar Henrik Stibolt 1848-1888

Erasmine ('Minna') 1855-1890 (Mrs F W [von] EGLOFFSTEIN)

Louisa Aurelia 1855-1905 (Mrs C W [von] EGLOFFSTEIN)

Albert Julius 1856-1919

Jessie Frimonde 1858-1918 (Mrs C E SCHOLING)

So. Date?

Before 1880, and the death of Jens jr.  And Lillie of the next generation (born 1871, daughter of said Jens jr) as a ballerina? Aged what?

Ancestry.com has delivered up this splendid photo of a part of the family.

We clearly have Jens sr, Carolina and .... is that Jens jr? Are the two ladies his sisters or is one his wife? The two little boys? Jens jr's two sons? Not if that is Jens jr. His younger son was born a week after his death.  Yet ... the photo is said to include Jens I, Jens II and Lillie. And only one of Jens's other siblings had children before his death ...  

Anyhow if Lillie (who seems to be source of the photo) is one of the little girls here, the photo must date from somewhere in the second half of the 1870s. Which is fine, but doesn't help in dating the programme any closer than we were already!

I'm not doing too well here. So. Clara [Josephine] Marten. Daughter of Olga. Born Davenport 25 April 1869. That's better.  Father: saloon keeper. In 1880, she is twelve years old. In 1870 she is 3. So, if she is the elder girl, and Lillie the younger ..  

The other thing that intrigues me about our playbill is its dramatic content. A family of amateurs performing Franz Lachner's 1841 opera Catharina Cornaro?  Only 'Miss L[ouise] Stibolt' had any pretension as a vocalist, being the possessor of a 'soprano voice of great volume and power'. 'Miss M' will be her sister Erasmine, known as Minna. Mr A is Albert whose wife was also known to sing. Mr C is Caspar, Miss J is youngest sister, Jessie ...

John Henry Schuett (1839-1919) was bachelor fond of theatre, who ran a grocery and china shop .. member of the Turner Society ...

Agnes Limprecht (1847-?) another Schleswig Holsteiner, married (eventually) P T Koch, banker ..they were members of the Turner Society ..

The German Turner Society of Davenport. Founded 1852. Gymnastic. Artistic. Democrat. Volubly supported by Mr Stibolt's paper .. Turners' Thespian Society .. Turner Hall ... balls, masquerades, excursions, fair and industrial exhibition ..

OK. This is where we are. 1876 August Ficke officer of the Davenport Turners 'attorney, financier, philanthropist' and a son b 1850? ... 1877 two hundred members .. the Gesang section of the Turner Society .. 1880 Flotte Bursche, Zehn Mädchen und kein Mann ... 

I don't think I shall discover much more ...  time to get on with indexing (groan!) the next book ...