More Cruising

657 passengers filed onto the ramp leading up to the deck of the SS Strassburg in the port of Bremen, Germany, in mid-June, 1878. They were anticipating a voyage of two to three weeks from Bremen to New York, from where they would head west to start a new life as residents of the United States.

Of those 657 individuals, 343 were adults, 265 were children under the age of fourteen, and 49 were considered infants—those under two years of age. More than seventy crew members were also on board the ship, bringing the number of people on board to somewhere between 730 and 750. Whatever that number was, two more were added after the ship left port, when their mothers gave birth on the high seas.

Every passenger on board that voyage was listed on the ship’s manifest as being from Russia. Many, if not all of them, were from the Molotschna Colonies about which Uncle Don wrote in recent contributions to this blog. They were not strangers to each other, which was probably a good thing. It’s one thing to listen to fifty-one crying and screaming babies when you know and love their parents. It’s something else to listen to fifty-one screaming and crying babies when their parents are completely unknown.

It could have been worse on this voyage. After all, the SS Strassburg was designed to carry up to 1080 passengers, so the ship was considered far from crowded for this journey. Had the ship been full, there could easily have been seventy-five infants adding to all the other noises and odors.

SS Strassburg

Interestingly, all 659 passengers who disembarked the SS Strassburg in New York on July 2, 1878, were listed as traveling in the steerage compartment. Evidently, no one was willing to pay extra to enjoy first class travel, for which there was accommodation for 60 passengers on this ship. Nor did anyone choose to take advantage of the benefits of traveling in second class, for which the ship was designed to take on 120 passengers.

The SS Strassburg was the flagship of the Strassburg class of passenger vessels owned by Norddeutscher Lloyd, consisting of 13 ships. It was only six years old as it took on these passengers in Bremen, having been built by Caird & Co., Greenock, and launched on May 24, 1872. Its maiden voyage was from Bremen to Southampton to New York in September of that year, and its first voyage for its intended use of transporting passengers from Bremen to New Orleans was undertaken in October.

One unusual voyage was part of the SS Strassburg’s history. Instead of its usual route to New Orleans carrying passengers, the ship steamed to Hankau, China, to take on a cargo of tea and bring it back to Europe. In the process of this voyage, the SS Strassburg became the first German steamship to pass through the Suez Canal.

Other than the many empty cabins, there wasn’t anything particularly unusual about the ship’s passage from Bremen to New York in June, 1878. Our interest in the ship is not so much because of the voyage, but rather because of two of the families who boarded the ship in Bremen and disembarked the ship in New York on July 2, 1878. One couple is listed on the manifest as Gerhard Lohrenz, age 54, and Helena Lohrenz, age 43. With them came their six living children, who are listed as Gerhard (23), David (15), Maria (12), Helena (10), Anna (7) and Peter (3).

The elder Gerhard and Helena are my great-great grandparents. Their daughter Helena who traveled with them is my great grandmother on Oma’s side of the family. When they boarded the SS Strassburg, they did so with six children. However, they had already lost three children in their 20-year marriage, each of whose names were given to children born later.

Their second son was born on April 9, 1856, and they named him David. He lived just over a year, dying on April 27, 1857. His namesake brother who traveled on the SS Strassburg was born on November 2, 1863, so he was not quite 15 years old during the trans-Atlantic voyage.

The first daughter born to Gerhard and Helena Lohrenz entered this world on March 7, 1858, when she was named after her mother. The younger Helena lived to be almost four years of age, leaving this world on January 13, 1862. Her namesake sister who rode the waves with her parents is my great-grandmother, born June 19, 1868. She would have turned ten years of age just after the voyage to the United States got underway.

Lohrenz Cousins
Daughter Helena is on the lower left,
near the time of her voyage to America

The first daughter born to Gerhard and Helena Lohrenz was joined in entering the world by her twin brother, whom their parents named Peter. Peter lived just over five months, passing from this life on June 21, 1862. His namesake brother was born on May 21, 1875, and was the youngest of the family to make the crossing from Europe to America.

Another family significant to us which made this journey on the SS Strassburg was that of Peter (46) and Anna Teichgro’b (40). That last name is not a misprint, but rather shows how their names were written on the ship’s manifest. As with so many other names during the nineteenth century, the spelling of their last name varies, sometimes written Teichroeb and other times written as Teichroew.

With Peter and Anna on board the SS Strassburg were their children Susanna (17), Peter (14), Anna (12), Katharina (10), Maria (8), Justina (7) and Abraham (5). Also on the ship was their oldest son, Abraham (18)! In other words, they had two sons named Abraham, born thirteen years apart. In all fairness, the fact that two of their sons used the same name may not be due to Peter and Anna. School records exist from the Molotschna Colonies, where they lived in South Russia before coming to America, which identify the elder son with the name Herrmann. One gets the idea that perhaps he didn’t like that moniker, so he may well have decided to use his middle name.

Whatever the case may be about his name, their oldest son clearly traveled to America with some sense of independence and eagerness to spread his wings. Rather than being designated in the ship’s manifest as the son of Peter and Anna, which was the usual and normal procedure for unmarried teenagers, he made sure he was identified as a farmer.

Why is this Teichroew family significant to us? Because four and a half years after arriving in New York, on January 21, 1883, daughter Susanna married Peter H. Franz in Mountain Lake, Minnesota. Thirteen years later she gave birth to their seventh child, Agatha, born on February 23, 1896. More than twenty-four years later, Agatha gave birth to her second child and first daughter, Marie Helen Toews, on December 28, 1920. Susanna is my great-grandmother, Agatha is my grandmother, and Marie is Oma!

Susanna Teichroew Franz
Many years after her voyage to America