Johan and Evelyn Wubben Family

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Johan and Martha Evelyn Wubben Family

Wubben Family
Johan and Martha Evelyn, and sons
(l-r), John Hubert, Eugene Paul, and Horace Jay
Colorado City, CO (Colorado Springs)

The following two texts, "Your Paternal Grandparents as I Knew Them" and "My Father-- Johan Wubben" are from typewritten memoirs (c. 1974) by Johan and Martha Evelyn's daughter-in-law, Neola H. Wubben, and by their son, John Hubert Wubben. All typos and handwritten corrections are reproduced. [This editor's notes are in red.]

Neola H. Wubben
for HHW & PDW

YOUR PATERNAL GRANDPARENTS AS I KNEW THEM

I did not know your paternal grandparents until after your grandfather was retired. I write of them with a limited knowledge, but in an effort to point out similarities and dissimilarities between them and my parents as I observed them. your grandfather Wubben came to this counry alone from Germany when practically an adult, lived in non-German communities and married non-German women. He was converted from Catholicism to Protestantism by the silent influence of a Quaker family with whom he lived for a time. What type of life Grandfather Wubben and his first wife had together I don't know, whether or not he carried out the then prevalent German tradition of male dominance. Your grandmother Wubben had deaconness training as a nurse, whereas your grandfather had a very limited education. Here you see the opposite of what was truewith my parents. Also your grandmother was employed as a deaconness, lived in urban communities, principally Chicago, and was over thirty before she married; which was over twice as old as my mother wen she married. She had been making decisions for herself, felt capable of doing so, so did. Father Wubben was already retired when I met him, and his wife was definitely the one who was the dominate one. Both were devout Christians, strong fundamentalists, and deeply devoted to the church. Father Wubben's faith was the shouting, happy kind, which often embarrassed his wife when they were ina group. She was far more serious and matter of fact. Though, in the modern sense of the term their marriage would probably not have been classified as a happy one, it had their deep, religious devotion, and desire to be worthy parents as unifying forces. It was their common interest in the church that brought them together in the first place. Father Wubben could not resist the girl with the black deaconness bonnet and the white bow.

Your father has said his parnets were sometimes too rigidly strict, especially his mother, but he always respected their integrity of character. They lived true to what they believed, and were strictly honest. Unfortunately they did not realize many others did not live by this code, and had some [here, the word "unfortunate" is typed out] bad financial losses in late life.

My parents, having come to the U.S. when young, learned to speak English very well. Father Wubben's English was liberally sprinkled with German words. but, ironically, he could not carry on a conversation in German. He never said this, that, these, and those, but used "dis", "dat", "dese", and "dose". His Js were Ys, so in his regular morning family devotoions he read of Yacob, Yames, and Yesus. He was overjoyed when one of his sons became a minister, and would introduce him to strangers as, "Dis is my son. He's a fine boy." Mother Wubben was equally pleased, but not as exuberant. That Father Wubben could be a contractor for building homes with his limited education is truly amazing. What could he have done had he been trained in mathematics or other subjects needed in building trades! When in Chicago with your dad he was greatly interested in the structure of the tall buildings, and sometimes stopped to count the stories. Always Christ and the church was foremost in his mind. He couldn't understand why sometimes women turned their backs on him when he approached them on ther street and asked them about their faith. He didn't think he was being "fresh". Mother Wubben could chide him saying, "Father, you ought to know better". My father had a strict Calvinistic faith, but I never knew of his speaking of it to strangers.

Yes, there were similarities betwee your maternal and paternal grandparents, but there were also great difference. Both went through many hardships and both lived true to what they believed was right. Father Wubben took his honesty so seriously that when a man for whom he ahd done some work accused him of dishonesty he had a nervous breakdown and couldn't work for a year. The move to Paonia from Colorado Springs when your dad and his two brothers were young was made to take the sons to what their parents felt was a more "wholesome" rural environment as opposed to the "wicked" city one. Financially this move was a fiasco, as fruit harvests, sometimes bad, on rented property could not be compared to steady carpenter work at good wages for the times.

My parents-in-law seemed to accept me well. However, I would have found it difficult to have them live with us for almost four years, as my parents did. Though my mother dominated my father then, she still had enough of her inferiority complex in her that she let me run my home as I wished. Father never mixed in my regime, and I don't believe Father Wubben would have. Mother Wubben was so wrapped up in her youngest son she would have found it difficult to remain in the background, having a more aggressive nature.

My Father-Johan Wubben

by John Hubert Wubben
Feb.20, 1974

The only written record of my father's early life is a baptismal certificate written in German and translated for me by Mr. Gus Guigas, Paul's father-in-law. The original certificate and the translation are attached hereto. By it we know that he father was born in Laup or Lonup, Germany, on Jan. 15, 1848, and was christened the next day. His father was probably an owner of a farm. The only other written source of information of his early life is a certificate of intention to become an American citizen dated Nov. 5, 1872. This states that he migrated from Bremen, Germany, and arrived in the United States on Aug.28, 1866. The document is from Marion County, Ind. I have in my possession, somewhere, a letter he wrote me while I was in Chicago (1919-20). It is the only letter he ever wrote to me or to my two brothers, for he could not write English very well. The rest of this account is from my memory.

He was brought up as a Catholic and attended Catholic schools in Germany. He told often of the severity of discipline meted out to offenders. Punishment included sitting on a hot stove, holding bricks out at arms length until from sheer exhaustion they were dropped. He was once knocked from his seat by a cuff on the ears that left him deaf for a while. His father threatened to thrash the teacher, but was convinced by the priest not to do so.

Probably he was quite mischievous, for he refused to do the penance prescribed by the priest for some sin; so he was not given absolution. This almost broke his mother's heart, for she took that to mean that he had done something very terrible. The penance he refused t do was to stay at home at night for three months. When he told me once that a nun suggested he become a priest, he replied that he liked the girls too well to do that. This may indicate why he couldn't bear to stay at home at night for three months. This must have been when he was under 18, for he migrated to the U.S. at that age.

One reason he left Germany was to avoid going into the Prussian army. Another was that he had an uncle here, which made the problem easier for him. He never returned to Germany, although he often wished he could. When World War I began, he couldn't understand all the horror stories that were printed about Germany, for hesaid that was not the Germany he knew as a boy. He did buy some Liberty Bonds under inner protest. He and mother toook Eugene's death in France during that war in a very sad and resigned spirit, believing the propaganda that the government put out.

Father was never against the Catholic people, but he had no use for anything that smacked of "Popery", as he called it. That included the forms and ritual of the Catholic church, and the authoritarianism of the church. "No Bishop or no Pope can tell me that I am not saved," he remarked often. Remember that he was 51 years old when I was born. And by the time I was old enough to know his spirit he had mellowed by his genuine religious experience, and was a very kind and tolerant man.

I very seldom saw him lose his temper. Once he hit Eugene by the side of his head because Eugene sassed mother. But mother flew to her son' s defense so sharply that I do not recall his ever laying a hand on any of us three boys after that. Mother's defense was because of the possible injury to Eugene's ears, and not because she was against bodily punishment for sins committed. After father was converted by the silent influence of a Quaker family with whom he lived when he was about 26 years old, he never smoked, drank or swore. I never heard him get into an argument, but I heard him tell of a sharp remark he made to a carpenter at the carpenter's union hall. That man had said that Jesus was a bastard, and Father replied, heatedly, "Well, what are you?"

After arriving in this country he eventually moved to Covington, Ky, where he became apprenticed to a carpenter (I think he said it took him 7 years to learn the trade). In 1920 he told me that when he was learning the trade a carpenter was expected to "hang" 9 doors in a day. But in 1920 the hanging of 5 doors was considered a day's work. In my early youth he was somewhat against the union, but in later years he realized that it was necessary. He was a demanding task master. I used to work with him at odd times while going to high school and college. No dawdling on the job was allowed. He used to reprimand me by saying , "Hubert, when you see that I am about to use a saw or some other tool, you be quick to hand it to me without my asking for it." He really taught me how to work, and to give a full day's work for a full day's pay. By the time he ws 70 and I was about to leave home, he had to give up the fine cabinet work and do repairing, such as re-roofing shingle roofs. I became fairly adept at it, but today that kind of roofing is rarely done. Even then, expert roofers were a wonder to behold. Father would be totally lost if he tried to do carpenter work today with modern electric tools and the scientific use of the square. When I was a sophomore, while father was figuring the hypotenuse of a right triangle by nailing boards together and measuring, I figured the distance by use of the Pythagorean theorem, and it amazed him beyond belief. Then he exclaimed, "If only I had your ability to figure.". He was an excellent craftsman, and he never did shoddy work. It really pained him to see the sloppy work done on houses, and he would point out the mistakes as we walked along the streets. He and mother visited me while I was working in Chicago (1919-20). He and I were walking in the center of the skyscrapers, when I missed him. I looked back, and there he was with one hand in his pocket, and the other counting the number of stories in one of the huge buildings. he could never get over the wonder of how they could be built.

Once while he was working on a buidling in Colorado Springs, a foreman swore at him. Father looked him in the eye and said, "I don't want you to use such language again at me. I am not used to it". The foreman walked away without saying another word. But father said that after that the foreman always gave him the best and the easiest jobs to do.

After Horace once remarked that if father had had any sense of bookkeeping he would have been a well-to-do carpenter. He kept books in a little vest pocket notebook, written in German, and with records of various jobs all mixed up. When I was about 5 he built a nice two story house at 1116 Washington Ave., now called Pikes Peak Ave. in Colorado Springs. Shortly thereafter, we (our family plus my step-sister Emma) all went to Littleton, Colo. to a Camp Meeting. We camped in the bottom of South Platte river and drank from a condemned well. We all got typhoid fever after we got home. My father didn't work for two years, and as a result he eventually lost the property by a sheriff's sale after we had moved to Paonia. In fact, we had to live in house. The last time I saw it, maybe 30 years ago, it was still in good repair.

When father got over the fever, he went to settle up a bill owed him. He had made a mistake in figuring, and the man he was dealing with swore at him. It gave him nervous prostration; so he had to go to California for several month's recuperation. That two years being out of work set him back financially so that he never regained any wealth, and mother said he never was as strong as before. Years later when I was about 21 I asked him who it was that swore at him and caused his nervous breakdown. He wouldn't tell me. But I have a suspicion that it was Charles P. Bennett, a very prominent real estate man whose wife and my half-brother Will got "indelicately" involved, a result of which Will left for California suddenly, leaving us a five section bookcase of classics which were bound beautifully but read little. I remember a set of Dickens' entire works, and also those of Frank R. Stockton. There were two books with perfectly beautiful leather bindings - poems by Burns and Tennyson.

Father was a carpenter before the days of the automobile. He used a bike to transport his tool box which was quite heavy. When he had a big job he hired a man with a horse and wagon to haul his big tool chest which must have weighed 100 lbs empty. He used the street cars often which served all of Colorado Springs quite well. He used the old wooden planes, sharpened his own tools and saws. It was the custom then, and I think now, that carpenters had to clean up their mess. Since we used wood and coal stoves, father had all the old shingles and scraps of wood hauled to our place, which, consequently, always looked like a junk yard in back. He never could destroy anything that might be of use, for which he was scolded by mother because the yard looked so trashy. But she was the same way in saving string, buttons, pieces of cloth and old clothes. I guess I inherited those traits, but from moving in the ministry we learned to get rid of useless things.

He was always in debt to lumber yards, hardware stores and grocers. He gave too much money to the church and to the People's Mission which served the down and outers with religious exhortations - but no food. That was his one ethical failing. I think his contributions built up his ego as well as did good to the recipients, but his creditors had to wait for their money. Eventually they got it.

Religion was meat and drink for father. Wherever and whenever he had an opportunity he talked religion. Once he came home with a very aggrieved look on his face. He said that while waiting for a street car a lady came up. He started to talk with her, but she indignantly turned her back on him without speaking. Mother said, exasperated, "Why, Father, don't you know better than to talk to a strange woman?" Father replied with surprise, "Why what's wrong with that"? He was quite naive concerning the proprieties of social intercourse. He would find out in a few minutes of conversation what church his listener belonged to, and what religious experience he had had. Often he told of a conversation he had had with Mr. Meservey, a prominent hardware man with whom Father did a lot of business. Mr. Meservey said one morning to father, "Well, how are you today?" My father banged his fist down on the counter, and with his face beaming, replied, "Fine. I have a clear title to heaven." Mr. Meservey soberly said, " John if I could say that I would give all the money I have." One day at church, Father said to Dorothy Graves, a young high school girl," Well, Dorothy, how is it with your soul today?" Dorothy replied, "Mr. Wubben, I've got just enough religion to make me miserable."

Father was very emotional. He loved camp meetings and altar calls where people were kneeling together, some praying out loud, others weeping, some even laughing hysterically. They were "getting religion" or had "gotten religion." And Father would be one of the personal workers helping them "to get through" (meaning "get saved"). He and mother always sat on the next to the front pew in church while we boys sat in the back (usually reading our Sunday School papers or snickering together). When the preacher got warmed up with some old fashioned religious cliches, father would come out with a "Praise the Lord", or "Hallelujah" or "That's so." I, on the back pew, would scrooch down so nobody would see me, hoping to avoid nudges and snickers from my friends. His religious emotion kept his spirits up in the toughest times. Only once did I see him cry. That was in Paonia after a winter in which he had made only 25 cents by sharpening a saw. Due to the goodness of the grocer, we were allowed to get food necessities on credit for several months. That was the winter of 1911. One Sunday noon he cautioned us to spread the butter thin and not work it into the bread. We boys got to fussing about our share of the food and who was taking too much, etc. Father suddenly began to sob and left the table. He would never say what made him cry, but I think it was the economic pressure of feeding some quarreling boys who couldn't appreciate his worries. One other time he came home from work tired out and lay down on the couch for a half hour's rest before supper. I was then home for the summer between my junior and senior years of college at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. I was planning to be an educational missionary in South America. In a moment of weary dejection, father said to me, "Hubert, don't you think it would be a good thing for you to stay home and take care of mother and me?" Eugene had died in France two years previously, and Horace had become alienated from home, while I, the youngest boy and probably the favorite because I wanted to go into religious work, was all that was left for them to lean on. I said, "Father, would you want me to give up my plans to be a missionary?" After a moment's thought, he replied, "No. You go ahead and do what God wants you to do." That devoted spirit of his revealed the genuineness of his religion, and the control he had over his emotional desires.

Often he would break into song. He could sing well, and his favorites when he was working, were:

"Will there be any stars in my crown," "There is power in the blood," "On Sunday I am happy, on Monday full of joy, etc." (If you want the full text of these songs, I will write them on the back of this sheet).

And if he didn't break into song he would begin quoting scripture. Here were his favorite quotes:

"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."
"If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed."
"Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord."
"I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me."
"Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost shall come upon you."
"I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He will keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."

Because of our differences in age (51 years) he was never a pal, nor able to talk intimately with me about things fathers and sons should talk about. I can remember only once when he tried to give me some advice about women. He said that one time he passed a storefront door. In it was a woman who beckoned to him enticingly (my word). I hid a smile and said, "What did you do?" Father replied, "I ran away from there as fast as I could." I say that's pretty good advice today.

Father's first wife was named Mary Elizabeth Hannah Johnson, a Civil War widow. I believe that he lieved with her on a farm near Waverly, Kansas. He told me when I was about 11 that his wife told him shortly after their marriage that she had made a mistake in marrying him. At any rate she lived long enough with him to bear two children, William Henry and Emma, When her mother died, young Emma was of high school age and Will a year or two older.

Emma and Will lived briefly with father and my mother. The step-children, however, never got along well with mother and soon left home. Emma, without much education, was forced to do housework for the rich in Colorado Springs. She doted on us boys, subscribing for Boys Life, and The American Boy for us, sending us loads of funny papers and giving us gifts from her slender earnings. She eventually moved to California, lived for awhile in Tacoma, and then returned to California to live until her death in the Los Angeles County Hospital. She married a George Giesy, but they lived together just a few years. Will married a girl in Colorado Springs who, I think, died at the birth of a daughter Ruth, who was a few months older than I. Will was the bookkeeper for the Bennett Realty Co, and as I have written, left suddenly for California. There he became head bookkeeper for an Insurance firm. He juggled the books to his own embezzlement, but gave himself up to the police before his crime had been discovered. He served time at San Quentin prison in the bookkeeping department there. Emma told me that his employer told her that if Will had come to him instead of going to the police, he could have rectified the mistake and kept Will out of prison. Will later married, had several sons who became fairly successful (one was supervisor of the L.A. Schools' swimming pools). I saw Will at my father's funeral in Anaheim, Cal. for the last time. When he died, he was buried beside his first wife in Colorado Springs. The Methodist minister, Ben Lehmberg had his funeral service.

When I was 6 months old, my parents moved back to the farm in Kansas. They lived there and then moved back to Colorado Springs within two years. There we lived until 1909 when we moved to Paonia, Colo. Our parents wanted to get us boys away from the wicked city life of Colo. Spgs. which then had about 30,000 people. So, when the opportunity came for father to manage a fruit farm in Paonia, owned by the Superintendent of Schools in Colo. Spgs (Dietrich, by name) he took it at a $50 a month salary plus food for one cow and garden space for our use. The owner treated my father cruelly and unethically so we moved to town the next winter. There we were so poor that father couldn't give Horace and Eugene even 10cents apiece for a half year's dues to the student association organization. This deprived them of using the association's athletic equipment. I had to wear hand me down clothing, a part of which was a pair of skin-tight green pants that came above my knwees. I remember them because a town bully spotted me at a fotball fame and yelled out, "Hey, Wubben, where did you get them green pants?" Instantly all eyes were turned on me and I slunk home in shame before the game ended. I remember Horace's kindness in trying to console me over the hurt.

The first Sunday in Paonia we hitched up the team to the farm wagon and went to church. That was our invariable rule unless the weather was too severe or the horses too tired.That was always our schedule on Sunday mornings as long as I can remember - going to church. No matter how poor we were, we always had "Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes." Eugene wore Horace's out-grown clothing and then handed them on to me when he couldn't get into them. When I was through with them, mother used them for mop rags. When we wore holes in our long stockings that came above the knees, mother would put on new heels which were very uncomfortable because of the ridge where the heels were attached to the rest of the foot.

We lived in five houses in seven years in Paonia as renters on shares of the crops. My parents were rolling stones, and moved often whether in city or country. I can remember living in 8 houses in Colorado Springs during our two periods of life there (one before going to Paonia and the other after we returned to Colorado Springs). I guess it was good training for me in preparation for becoming a Methodist minister.

After Eugene and Horace had gone to Colorado College, and my parents knew that I would never be a farmer, we moved back to Colorado Springs in the spring of my junior year in high school. Father resumed his carpenter work at the age of 68. When Eugene died two years later, the folks received a monthly pension from the government amounting to $55 a month, which was an economic life-saver for them. Later, after that ran out, a new law was passed which allowed them enough money (almost) to live in California. If mother hadn't made some foolish investments due to a slick real estate salesman, they might have lived self-supporting. But as it was I had to send the folks meny every month for several years when we needed it most. Horace refused to give his share, due in part to Irene's influence, and in part (he said) because mother would make other foolish investmanets if she had the money.

While living in Anaheim, father used to take a daily walk down to the center of town. He had a porch to rest on both going and coming from town, acquired, I presume by his unorthodox way of making friends. When I went with him on one of our visits, he took me up to the teller in the bank where he did business and said with great pride, "This is my boy. He is a fine boy."

He died at the age of 88 in the county hospital in Orange, Cal. of cancer of the stomach. He had always worn a beard, but that had been shaved at the hospital. I actually could scarcely recognize him when I saw him in the mortuary. I asked him once why he wore a beard. He said that he ahd heard a sermon once which convinced him that he should not cut his beard. I asked him why or what reason was given in the sermon. He couldn't remember the reason.

Every morning, after breakfast had been cooked, but before we ate, wh had family prayers. Father read the Bible lesson for the day as listed in our S.S. literature. Then we all got down on our knees and each prayed our stereotyped prayers aloud, after which we devoured breakfast with great relief. Mother usually cooked Cream of Wheat or Oatmeal the night before in a double boiler so that it only had to be heated in the morning for eating. Although we had a cow, we couldn't spare the milk to drink. It was put in tbowls to let the cream rise; then the cream was skimmed off with which to make butter, with which was traded for groceries. So the milk had to sour in order to get as much cream for bartering as possible. Once in awhile I would take a cookie or sweet muffin and dip it in the cream and eat it while mother wasn't looking.

I once heard Horace give a talk to some teachers on Orchard Mesa near Grand Junction. He told how ours was an argumentative family, saying that the discussions around the table as we ate were of great educative value. I did not remember them as such, but he being older, was better able to assess our family spirit than I was. I do remember hw often mother and father argued about money. Father had the typical German attitude that a mand was the head of the household and that finances were better handled by the man. More about this when I write about mother.

Our move to Paonia when I was 9 years old was a major event in our lives. It gave us boys experiences in farming, which were for me invaluable later in life, In Colo. Spgs. father chartered a boxcar on the railroad, put all our goods in, including a huge square piano that must have weighed a ton, and a cow. Horace to feed and water the cow on the journey to the western slope. A neighbor boy friend hid in the car and got transportation free while providing companionship for Horace. Such an undertaking was quite a feat in those days, and my parents undertook it for the good of us boys. No sacrifice was too great for them where we were concerned. It was always an accepted objective that we three boys would go to college, and not many parents had such plans for their children. So, it was just taken for granted that we would go to college. We all did, but Eugene died in World War II after only two years of college.

Father and mother lived for their children. Their sacrifices, genuine religion, and love for us boys gave us a heritage that very few had in that day. (Remember that only 5% of adults then ever went to college then). They always did what they thought was best for us. And for their whole-hearted life of devotion to God and us, I thank God.

----
Addenda

We bought the piano mentioned above for $15 in Colo. Spgs. After seven years in Paonia it brought at our sale (auction) $25.

At this sale we sold a beautiful young cow with a large bag. But she didn't give much milk. Father told the auctioneer that before the sale. Two farmers bid quite high. The auctioneer tried to close the sale for the one who was comparitively well-off, but the other poorer farmer, kept bidding and got the cow. He was so enraged at the small quantity of milk that she gave that he threatened to sue father, and even to have a church trial to put him out of the church. This distressed my father mostly. The auctioneer assured Father that a lawsuit would get nowhere because at an acution sale the auctioneer was allowed some lee-way in describing articles to be sold in somewhat superlative terms. The buyer had to beware at an auction sale. Incidentally, the auctioneer was the bank cashier and a very prominent Methodist, and the buyer of the cow and my father were likewise prominent Methodists in the same church.

When Horace came home from college one summer, my father asked him, "Horace, if someone should ask you 'How is it with your soul?' what would you say?" Horace replied instantly, "I would tell him that it was none of his business." Father almost keeled over as he replied, "Horace, I would rather see you a cowboy on the plains than to thave you say that." After Horace first went to college, he never wanted to stay at home even for one summer - probably because he didn't want to have to confront father and mother with his changing ideas and attitudes toward religion.

Once when father was reading the scheduled Bible reading as printed in our church school literature, he read this passage: "I will eat mine own dung and drink mine own piss with thee." He stopped, and in a startled voice, said, "Dats funny." Then he read the passage aloud for the second time, paused for a moment, and then went on reading more fastidious language. I think we were all about as startled as he was. (Eugene and Horace may have been in college at that time). In re-reading the passage above, II Kings 18:27, I see that I have misquoted it a bit, but the offensive words are there just the same.

A high-toned lady in north Colo. Spgs. wanted father to do some work on her kitchen. Father explained that what she wanted couldn't be done because the joists weren''t in the right place. She said, "I want that RIGHT THERE." He tried to explain again why he couldn't do it, but she demanded, "I want that RIGHT THERE." He just picked up his tools, started for the door, and said,"Well, you can just do it yourself." And then he walked off the job.

[signed]

J. Hubert Wubben

Also online:

by John Hubert Wubben
My Brother EUGENE PAUL WUBBEN (April 26, 1974)
My brother- Horace Jay Wubben (May 24, 1974)

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