When I began this family website some years ago now, I knew there were Hasselbacher relatives who had immigrated from my ancestral German Hasselbacher village of Diespeck to Cincinnati in 1872, but I could not find a single living relative. As I hoped would happen, one of them found me! Since then, I have fleshed out this branch of the family a little more, but confess that I have not updated the website as I would have wanted to. A recent communication has prompted me to do just that. After all, this American branch of the family is one of the closest to my own. Only the lost Hasselbachers of Red Cloud, Nebraska are closer.
The sparking event was an email from Karen H. (not a Hasselbacher) who as her habit would have it, rescued two oil paintings from an antique store/flea market in an attempt to restore them to someone who would care. She found this website and generously gave me the paintings to find them a good home. All she had to go on was the name on the back, Ernst Hasselbacher of Glenmore Ave. in Cincinnati. As it happens, I knew exactly who he was— the grandson of the barrel-maker Andreas Friedrich Hasselbacher of Diespeck, and son of Johann Konrad Hasselbacher who also became a cooper in that American city. Andreas Friedrich, his wife Katharina Popp, and 6 of their living children immigrated in 1872 through Baltimore to restart their life in Cincinnati. I have long known much about their lives in Diespeck. I present many of their church and one civil record elsewhere on this website.
The following is extracted from Ernst’s entry in the interactive family tree of this website. He was born in Cincinnati in Dec. 1887 and died there 23 April 1962 at the age of 74. He is buried in the Walnut Hills Cemetery with his family in Section 1, Grave 292, Row 44. (I badly need to make a field trip to that cemetery!) In the 1920 census, he is said to be a mail clerk for the railroad and by the time of his WWII registration was working at the US Post Office at Dalton & Liberty Sts. in Cincinnati. His next of kin at that time was his mother Henrietta with whom he was living on Glenmore Ave. (The Glenmore Ave address is the same as printed on the back of the two paintings of 1955.) On his death certificate (#28805) it is indicated that he was married, but a living relative tells me Ernst was never married and I have no evidence to prove that he was.
Both paintings are 9X12 inches, oil on a “canvas” board. They are signed Ernst Hasselbacher and appear to be numbers 2 and 3 of a series of winter scenes and are dated 1955. I cannot interpret the word(s) on the back of the painting of the children with a sled.
Who can tell us more about Ernst Hasselbacher and his family? While I am waiting for someone to find this, I will put this and additional material on the website. Help me accumulate more.
Peter Hasselbacher
Louisville, KY
March 16, 2015
