Jack Lawrence Mueller
Our line of the Mueller family immigrated to the United States in 1866. Friedrich "Fritz" Georg Wilhelm Mueller was born in 1822 and may have been from Bosenbuettel, Hannover, Niedersachsen, Germany. Frtiz was a land owner in Hannover near Bremen. He was, reportedly, a prosperous merchant and operated land as a small farm. Because of religious difference and his eldest son, William being of age where military service was obligatory, the property was sold and the entire family (nine children) sailed for the US on the vessel "Adler"" on August 16th, 1856. On October 1st or 2nd, 1865 he landed in New York and most likely came through either Castle Garden or Ellis Island with a plan to make his way to Indiana. His trade was listed as a farmer and he settled near Kendallville, Indiana in Noble County.
Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Mueller
Document from the port of New York showing 'Fritz' Mueller and his family coming to America. Note: The original spelling of Mueller was Muller with an umlaut over the U.
Sadly, Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Mueller died in May 1866 at age 44. He is buried in the Lake View Cemetery in Noble County, Indiana. It was passed down in the family that he contracted tetanus from a horse he valued. .. and died. He was just 44 years old and had been in Kendallville only six months.
Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Mueller's Grave in Kendallville, Noble County, Indiana. Lake View Cemetery. Can anyone decode what the stone says?
The eldest son, William, stayed with the remaining small farm, worked it and married and kept his mother who died there in the summer of 1880. When William left after his mother's death, the farm passed to the next brother, Fritz, with whose family it has remained.
One son, Enno Berthold Adolf Mueller, had been born in Germany in 1855. He was ten years old when the family immigrated to America and just eleven when his father died in 1866.
Enno Berthold Adolf Mueller
Enno became a Lutheran teacher, starting a small one-room country school in Michigan. He taught school in Chicago until he had a stroke in 1924 and died in Chicago on March 18, 1931. He is buried in St. Luke Cemetery in Chicago, IL.
Enno Berthold Adolf Mueller had a son named John Louis Mueller in 1884. John Louis Mueller who went by "Hans" married Adelaide "Addie" Kaepple. In 1908 they had a daughter, Vera, and then seven years later, Jack Lawrence Mueller was born on April 17, 1915. The 1930 and 40 Census shows them living here:
Present day 4008 Indiana Avenue, Ft. Wayne, Indiana.
The family has passed down several of Addie’s recipes. I am sharing them below:
Addie’s Ice Box Rolls
1 Cup Crisco
1 Cup Sugar
1 ½ t salt
1 Cup Boiling water
2 beaten eggs
2 cakes or 5 teaspoons of dry yeast
1 Cup cool water – ½ of this cup should be warm and sprinkled over yeast
6 Cups flour
Refrigerate overnight. Shape and bake as preferred. Kay Mueller would make ‘butter horns’. Roll, cut into triangles and then roll into a crescent.
Addie’s Frickadellen (German Hamburgers)
1lb of ground beef
½ cup gravy
1 egg
Chopped onion and green pepper
One slice of bread or a kaiser roll (run under water and crumble)
Dash of nutmeg
Shape into patties and fry in butter on low heat.
Addie’s Cream Waffles
1 Cup Flour
½ t baking soda
1 t baking powder
½ t salt
2 egg yokes beaten
1 C buttermilk
1 C sweet milk
Whip the 2 egg whites until soft, semi stiff and then fold into batter
*****
Jack grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana and was raised by Hans and Addie. He indicated there was a strong cultural influence related to his upbringing. Among Germanic people there was a belief that children should be heard and not seen and compelled, at a very early age, for absolute obedience to the parents. From the first time they cross the parent, and they are old enough to understand… if the parent strikes them hard enough and creates enough fear, they won’t have to keep doing it. From that point forward, all they will have to do is give a look. Needless to say, this did not promote a loving, open relationship between Jack and his parents.
Photograph of Jack from a grade school year book
Jack was raised during the depression, but he didn’t speak of lack. His father had investments, sold insurance for Lincoln Life. Perhaps they scrimped and saved but the fact that he always paid his debts was a point of pride for Hans Mueller. His grandson, Sand Mueller, has memories of him as fastidiously dressed with brown and white wing tips. He also remembers him teasing and playful with him, pretending to chase him with a butcher knife. He also remembers his grandmother, Addie, and visit the family took to Galveston. Sand got an inflatable dolphin "Dolphi" on the occasion. Hans and Addie lived into the early 1950's.
Grave in Ft Wayne, Allen County, Indiana. Lindenwood Cemetery.
Family tells that Hans always owned Packards. But Jack’s first car was a 1926 Hupmobile. He grew into an athlete and played basketball in high school. He also learned Golf. After high school, at the University of Indiana in Bloomington, he played on the Golf Team.
Image from flickr: 1926 Hupmobile
According his draft card (he registered in October 1940) Jack was 5’10” and 160 pounds. He had a strong build and good posture.
In college, Jack pursued writing and earned a degree in English Literature. He read the leading writers of the day F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemmingway and he liked Thomas Wolfe.
Jack graduated from college and was accepted to Harvard to work towards a Master’s degree. He got started at Harvard, but his graduate work was interrupted by appendicitis. He was very ill, became badly jaundiced was bed ridden for several months. His recovery was slow. Jack re-entered Harvard but when the US entered World War II in 1941, he volunteered for officer candidate school. In 1942 he joined the Army Air Corps at age 27.
During one of Jack’s training flights something going wrong. He had to make an emergency landing and crash landed the plane. The plane had to be towed and that was the end of Jack’s flight training.
While he was in training, he met his future wife, Kay, in Austin, Texas. They were married on November 6, 1942 in Memphis, Tennessee but were not together for the duration of the war.
After washing out as a pilot, Jack was assigned to the island of Puerto Rico. At that time there were squadrons of bombers and a central control station located there. This was due to the fact that German U-boats were swarming the American Gulf Coast and trade routes from South America and sinking many ships. The base in Puerto Rico served as a command center where planes could take off to attack the submarines. He was involved in routing the planes, taking care of details, ordering munitions, but it was not combat duty. Within a year, the U-boat threat had been eliminated, the Germans were somewhat in retreat. However, he was not reassigned to Europe or any other mission so he spent a great deal of time in Puerto Rico enjoying life and playing golf. Kay was living in Florida at that time so he was able to connect up and see her from time to time. Jack Mueller earned the rank of Captain during his service.
After the war Jack took a written exam given by Sears Roebuck and company. He scored very high (“That sort of test skill runs in our family...” Per Sand Mueller) and he took a job at the Sears headquarters in Dallas, Texas.
For a short period, he and Kay lived in Ft. Worth, with her mother. She lent them $4,000 and they bought their first house at 2448 Nicholson Drive, Dallas. The house had been built in 1946. Below is a picture today from the street side view from Google maps.
By 1949 Jack had worked as a Sears Roebuck management trainee and manager of a warehouse in Dallas. He crossed the bridge over the Trinity River near downtown Dallas on his daily commute. The young family had adventures in downtown Dallas, visiting the Neely Cabin, Dealey Plaza and matinees at the Texas Theatre. Jack dressed very professionally in suits and wingtip shoes. He took part in many events at Sears, family picnics and baseball games. Sand recalls him hitting a dramatic homerun at one of these games.
Jack played public courses but he joined the Oak Cliff Country Club where he played a lot of golf. One year the club hosted a PGA tournament that he helped arrange. Jack also won the club championship one year, his son, Sand remembers greeting him as he came up the 18th hole. There was a big trophy that was around for many years celebrating that victory.
Jack and Kay had a daughter, Ann, and bought a new home in a nice subdivision called Southern Hills. The new home cost $28,000 in 1957. They drove a 1955 Buick Century with round porthole windows. It was all white, two door hardtop, rather stylish and powerful.
Jack was promoted and became a store manager of the Sears in Baytown Texas. The family moved with baby Ann to Baytown where they rented a home. Jack continued to play golf in Baytown and did well at the store.
Within two years Jack was promoted to the manager of the store in Pasadena, Texas. Pasadena was a growing area where all the chemical plants were. Sand recalls that his mother often took him into his father’s Sears stores to buy clothes. “…To style me.. at age 14. I remember being with father, walking around with him and people seemed to adore him. I got the impression from my father’s personal friends and his employees that they always spoke highly of him. He was a very likable and loveable man.”
As a father he had a gentle manner. He would pitch the baseball to Sand as he learned to bat. There were only a few times he used corporal punishment with his oldest son.
Jack and Kay bought a smallish three bedroom home in Pasadena. The twins, John and Christopher, were born in 1960.
Jack did well in Pasadena, bought cars from local car dealers, served on the boards of local communities and banks and he was in the rotary club. He had connections with managers of the chemical plants where he was able secure lucrative summer jobs for Sand.
Jack’s Sears store did well and was the leader of the entire southwest territory for a time. However, there was a decline and profits fell. Jack’s supervisor, the Houston district manager, was reportedly bizarre and tyrannical. He targeted Jack, causing him to lose his job. Sears kept him on as a PR man but his salary was cut by two-thirds. Jack was 53 years old. It turned out later that the manager had a brain tumor. Jack was bitter, but he was able to take his money and invest in lake real-estate and other ventures so the family didn’t really suffer.
Jack continued to play golf. He flew twenty-five year old Sand down from Chicago (he hadn’t seen him much for the past three years) to play golf with him and his friends and attend the Masters tournament. Which was a big deal. Sand recounts:
“I was a shit. My usual tantrums on the golf course, which my father occasionally showed also. I’ve seen him get angry and throw clubs. But it was an interesting point of conflict between my father and I. If I was jealous of how good he was, and when I got pretty good, I could never beat him. But there were other times, when I was young, 12…I remember loving him and playing golf with him. We went on a long family trip when I was 13 and played Pebble Beach Golf Course. And I was not to good, but I had fun tagging along. It was beautiful. I saw my father hit one of the most beautiful golf shots on Pebble Beach for a wonderful birdie. So those memories of them are there, but close emotional memories, or him showing me anything or being involved I don’t remember. “
Jack and Kay moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in the early 1970’s. Sand was there with his wife, Marsha, they were staring a business and a family. Jack and Kay bought a beautiful, modern adobe home.
During this time raising the twins, John and Chris, took Jack's time and attention. According to Sand, “They were out of control, racing around the hills in little motorbikes, getting in trouble, low grades, expelled from school. It was becoming difficult for my parents to raise the boys, they moved away to California.”
Jack had a heart attack when he was 70. This led to an operation, stints and medication that kept him alive until his final stroke before his 79th birthday.
Sand further recalls:
As a father he was respected and loved but there are blockages, between a father and son. I love him and regret that I didn’t know him better. There was a marked divergence in values between my fathers generation and my generation. It changed things quickly. Mom thinking I was perfect, father’s not wanting to be a controlling parent like his parents, plus the many hours he spent with his career and his golf were big factors.
But in his old age he became a spiritual seeker. His parents were Lutheran but he didn’t speak much about that. For him the pathway lay in a course of miracles. I regret that I couldn’t speak with him more about these things. In the years before his death I was engaged heavily with family, many family concerns, and to find time away from those concerns to speak about his spiritual search. I remember that. I admired him for that.
In fact, Ann had loaned him Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda which he read. He was also practicing a daily morning meditation. One day, not long before he passed away, he told Ann, "I still haven't seen the lights." In reference to Yogananda's detail of seeing cosmic lights when one meditates. She also shared that he had his 'mahasamadhi (death) shortly after and she rested in the belief that he was now, seeing the light.
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