History of the Bernitt Family by Ida Wilhelmina Kober 1-10-66 as told by Wilhelmina Bernitt Kober.

JOACHIM Bernitt and his wife SOPHIE JOERN BERNITT lived in Mecklenburh-Schwerin in the northern part of Germany. They were overseers of a flax plantation. They had eight children, five boys and three girls. One boy was buried in Germany. My mother's earliest recollection was when her sister Katie was born; she was four years old and next to the youngest child.

She recalled that both her parents worked hard in the fields during the day, and her mother taught her to knit at four and she would have to do so much each day by the time her mother returned from the work.

They underwent the European oppression and the father did all he could to keep the boys from entering military service, so steps were taken to leave Europe for America. Aunt Christena, the oldest child, left with an aunt for America years before and settled in Wisconsin.

When my mother was eight years old the entire family sailed from Hamburg, Germany, together with her mother's (Sophia Joern Bernitt) aunt, in a three mast sailing vessel which was then 50 years old. They sailed October 30, 1865 and landed in New York City, February 2, 1866. They had a very hard voyage - 3 winter months on the ocean and her mother's aunt was taken sick, died, and was buried at sea. This took place at night and she remembered that her mother wanted to go to the burial, but her father would not let her. They endured many hardships during their trip, much sickness on board ship, and would have starved if it had not been for Uncle Fred Bernitt, the oldest son woo became acquainted with the crew and thereby was given food for the family. Uncle Fred loved the ship and wanted to stay on it when it landed in New York but that was its last voyage. My mother's mother (Sophia J. Bernitt) was quite sick as a result of the voyage. When they landed in New York her father bought the railroad tickets for Chicago, since they were going to meet Aunt Christena in Wisconsin. After he had the tickets, he felt for his pocket-book and found that he was robbed of every cent he had. This was at Castle Garden in New York, now the Battery. They had only passage to Chicago While sitting in the Railway Station some kind soul heard their story and paid their way to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and 1 weeks' board with American money. Three days after their arrival in Wisconsin, my mother's mother (Sophia J. Bernitt) died. Her father, Joachim, owed lots of money at that time but was a real religious man who read the Bible every night before retiring and by the grace of God broughtup his family. My mother (Wilhelmina Bernitt Kober) often told us about the lonely days they had without a mother.

They settled on a farm in Allenton, Wisconsin, somewhere near where Uncle David later lived. At the age of 17 my mother (Wilhemina Bernitt Kober) and her sister, Katie (Aunt Kate Pohley), four years younger, left the farm for Chicago. Ky mother worked there for ten years when she met my father (Kober) at a christening and later came to New York where they were married. My father went on ahead to get employment, wages were higher here.

You asked about the genealogy of the Bernitt family - I am writing what I know from what my mother (Wilhelmina Bernitt Kober), and from what I learned from Rena Marx after my mother passed away. Their mother's maiden name was Joern and not Yearn. She was always taken to be a Swede, had high cheek bones, was very blonde, and had blue eyes. Joern is not a German name, but a Scandinavian one. Rena Marx also sent me (?) a Picture of my mother's uncle and aunt, and she resembles her uncle. Her father's name was JOACHIM Bernitt, pronounced just as it isspelled.

(Eleanor Spindler asked Ida Kober in New York for this information.)

[Transcriber note: What I copied had been typed. On the next line, "Looking backward," lower case 'b', perhaps a column title, was underlined. I did not add "(72"; it may have been a typo. Below the item, hyphens were typed across the page. RDJ)

Looking backward Nov. 13 = Through our Files 1944 (72

FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY

Some three weeks ago Henry Bernitt, one of Rozellville's wealthy farmers, came to the city to visit and to do some trading. There are two things Henry always prided himself on: his whiskers and his loyalty to the Democratic Party. Before leaving town in the day above mentioned, he got tangled up in a debate with John Therolf, the barber, on the probable outcome of the governor question. He was sure Peck would win and bet his belief by betting his whiskers against a key of barley water. Of course, he lost, and last Tuesday he came to town and the first thing he did was to walk to the barbershop and there sacrificed a growth of whiskers that had not seen a razor for 25 years.
From the Marshfield paper.
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Continued from above - the original was broken up, too.)

(This parenthetical line was in the copy that I copied. I did not know that there HAD BEEN an original! Except for the statement at the end. RDJ)

On September 1, 1874, my mother's father died. He came in from the fields the night before, threw his cane across the room, and said that he was going to harvest grain the next day. AuntKatie found him dead in bed. My mother was 16, and the following Dec. 25, she was 17. That fall, my mother and a girl friend, Mary Schelling, went to Oshkosh to work, and Aunt Katie and Uncle Fred remained on the farm. In the spring of 1875 my mother returned home to the farm and remained there until fall when she and Mary Shelling packed up and went to Chicago. Aunt Katie lived with an aunt in Mayville, Wisconsin, where she learned how to sew. Later on, she joined my mother in Chicago. They decided to work for English people in order to learn the English language. My mother was in Chicago for ten years and worked for 2 families during that time, one of them for nine years up to the time she was married. She met my father, Charles Sober, at a Christening; one of my mother's girl friends and one of my father's boy friends were the parents. My father was a carpenter and had been traveling in the mid-west seeking work and then went on to Chicago. He decided wages were higher in New York City, so he went on ahead to get employment and get rooms. My father's two sisters, Barbara and Maggie, lived in New York City. My father lived with my Aunt Maggie. My mother then came to New York and lived with Aunt Maggie until they were married July 29, 1885. They were married by Pastor Hass of the Lutheran Church whose Sunday School excursion met disaster when the steamship "General Slocum" burned in the East River in 1903.

They lived in the Yorkville section of New York City where my sister, Mertie, was born. My father was a carpenter and builder and built a house in 32nd Street, Astoria, directly in back of the Second Reformed Church of Astoria, where my sister, Florence, was born. About 2 years later he built the present house in Crescent Street, where I was born, also my brother. My parents were married 61 years when my mother died, October 30, 1946.

(Copied by Florenow Pohley Ritz, granddaughter of Katie Bernitt.)

(Copied by Richard David Johnson, great grandson of Joachim Bernitt and Sophia Joern. August 11, 1996)