An immigrant from Berlin

While Melva Rose Schrader and sisters Mary Russell and Helen Coerver Fox (featured in last week's blog) were pedaling across Europe in the summer of 1949, Cape Girardeau received a new resident from Berlin, Germany.

But it wasn't the fact that Ruth Stoehr was here as a guest of her distant cousin, Norma Blattner of Sunny Hill Farm, that caught my attention. It was Ruth's surname. Stoehr is the original German spelling of my mother's maiden name. But Mom's people came from the Hessen region of Germany, not Berlin. Still, the shared last name is interesting and may send me into a deep dive of online genealogy websites to see if I can find a connection.

Published Monday, Aug. 8, 1949, in the Southeast Missourian:

Girl here from Germany likes Cape, the States

If Miss Ruth Stoehr, 24, who arrived last month from Berlin, Germany, to make her home home with Mr. and Mrs. Louis Blattner of Sunny Hill Farm, shows as much determination in pursuing an artistic career as she did in coming to America, her success is a sure thing. A distant cousin of Mrs. Blattner, the native German girl has corresponded with the Cape Girardeau family for several years, and last September secured Mrs. Blattner's permission to apply for immigration to the States and Cape Girardeau.

But it was a long drawn out process for the petite, blue-eyed brunette girl who was determined to come to America. After 20 trips to the consulate, three examinations, numerous interviews, and several disappointments, Miss Stoehr reaped results last month. It was on July 4, 1949, that this young lady gained her release from Germany and sailed for America under the auspices of the Wise Travel Bureau, New York.

After a 10-day journey on the Marine Shark, a former troop transport, the immigrant arrived in New York City alone, but deliriously happy.

With $10 spending money and her train tickets to Cape Girardeau, Ruth felt she was about the luckiest young lady alive. That is she felt happy until she was required to pay $2.50 customs duties on some gift she was bringing her American relatives, a $2.50 tax on a trunk containing her portfolios and art materials, and missed the train at Chicago for St. Louis. In Chicago, where she waited seven hours for the next train, Miss Stoehr had with her for company: "50 cents and a big appetite," as she expressed it.

Many restrictions

The chief reason for Miss Stoehr's decision to come to America to live was to escape the restrictions of Berlin, where the chances of her to advance in her chosen field, art, were very limited. Here in the States Ruth hopes for the opportunities she has long dreamed about, and is more than willing to work her way toward the top.

Very apt with pen and brush, Miss Stoehr attended an art school in Berlin for nearly four years, where she took instruction courses in dress designing and illustrating. Today Ruth has enough illustrations and sketches for several books, and might have had some of her works published by this time had it not been for the restrictions on papers and other publishing materials in Berlin.

In addition to being artistic, Miss Stoehr is a lover of sports, music, especially the works of the Italian composers, and even composes German poetry to go with some of her sketches. In Germany Ruth once worked designing and painting stage scenery in miniature for a color movie, but more recently she was a draftsman in an airplane factory in Berlin during the war.

Was not hurt

Miss Stoehr told of the memorable day Feb. 3, 1945, when the factory was bombed, and how she walked along the railroad ties for 20 miles until she reached the family suburban home near Eggersdorf. Upon her arrival there, Ruth's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Otto (Elli Umbeck) Stoehr, and her sister, Anita, 13, were overjoyed to see her alive. They all feared she had perished in the bombing that took the lives of 62 employees.

Ruth spoke also of the homes of her friends that were demolished, but said that neither their house in Berlin nor their home in the country were badly damaged. Rebuilding in Berlin is slow according to Ruth, but she believes that since the airlift more building is being done. During the blockade when only food and coal could come into Berlin, there were no materials with which to build, and the only process made was clearing the streets so traffic could be resumed.

Trouble with chili

In an effort to become Americanized, Ruth is helping out at Sunny Hill Milk Bar waiting on customers, and experimenting with the English language which she studied in the German schools. For five days Ruth studied a menu in an effort to familiarize herself with American dishes.

The hardest thing for her to understand was what hot chili is. Thinking the food was both hot and cold, Ruth decided hot chili was pie with ice cream. She says she likes the Mexican-American dish very much.

Since Ruth's arrival here, she has seen several movies, attended church with the Blattners, and has gone shopping several times. When in the Kroger store here recently with Mrs. Blattner, Ruth was heard to remark several times, "So much food I haven't seen in all my life."

Ruth is discovering every day the differences between American and German customs. For example, she was shocked that the ushers at church here do not wear long black gowns, and another oddity to Ruth were the fans in church that have a picture representing Christ on one side, and a commercial ad printed on the opposite side.

Life a fairyland

But Ruth is not complaining -- she is very happy in America. She told a reporter "Cape Girardeau is wonderful – it is like a fairyland." And she is here to stay – providing her fiance, who is a reporter and photographer on a Berlin newspaper, comes to America also. In fact, Miss Stoehr is looking forward to the time when her parents and sister come here to live and is anxious to do all she can toward getting them here.

Ruth's father is a metal worker and has a factory in the Russian zone, but the family home is located in the American zone, Ruth said. This works a hardship on the family, since Mr. Stoehr gets paid in Russian money, which has about one-sixth the value of American money.

Letter sent over

The Stoehrs and the Blattners have corresponded a number of years, and only last Christmas the latter family received as a gift from Ruth's family a small handmade metal box containing the oldest manuscript in possession of the Stoehr family. This manuscript, a letter written in 1830 by the late Frederick William Umbeck, great-grandfather of Mrs. Blattner, to the late Carl Umbeck, and ancestor of the Stoehrs, is filled with interesting information of that time.

The day after the tornado hit Cape Girardeau, the Stoehrs read about the disaster in the German newspapers. Shortly after, Mrs. Blattner received a number of letters from relatives in Germany inquiring of her safety, and also received clippings of the account from German newspapers which reported that "Cape Girardeau was a special target" of the tornado. Ruth, upon her arrival at the station here, looked around expecting to see destruction everywhere, and seeing none nearby, inquired where the tornado had hit.

Right now Ruth is not planning to continue her education in any college or university. Her goal is to get into some phase of art work where she can put her talents to use and begin making definite preparations toward getting her family to America.

• • •

Ruth Stoehr and Marvin W. "Bill" Anderson, a native of Cape Girardeau, were married here on May 9, 1951. After Bill completed his military service in Korea, the couple moved to Syracuse, New York, about 1956.

Bill worked for 34 years for Crouse-Hinds Co., which manufactured high-grade electrical items, such as traffic signals and controllers. He retired in 1990 and died seven years later.

Ruth was the owner of Ruthina Bridal Boutique in Syracuse and co-owner of Wool-Silk and Cotton Interiors with her sister, Anita Stoehr. Ruth died in 2007.

Sharon Sanders is the librarian at the Southeast Missourian.