The Early Years

The Poltevecques

    The story of Louie and Louise begins in the area known as Alsace-Lorraine, between France and Germany. The document pictured at left is interesting for several reasons. Foremost, it is the birth certificate of Louis Poltevèque, Sr., Louie’s father, born April 28, 1863 to Jean Baptiste Poltevèque, 39, a day-worker, and his wife Marguarite Stanisière, in the town of Lièpore in the district Sainte Marie-aux-mines.
    A couple of other things are worth noting. One is the spelling of “Poltevèque,” written here without a “c” before the “q.” Somewhere along the line, perhaps when Louis, Sr., emigrated to the United States, the “c,” incorrect in French, was added, perhaps by an immigration official or by Louis himself, who probably had little formal education.

    Also, notice that the document is in both French and German. The rich, long-disputed mining district of Alsace-Lorraine was taken by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. This notarized copy, of which only a photocopy is known to exist, was obtained in 1896, around the time Louis, Sr., came to the U.S. and a year before his first son was born.

    This charcoal drawing, based on the only photograph we have of Louis, Sr., was perhaps done over a copy of the photo, drawn perhaps by Louise Poltevecque, who made several other charcoal drawings. This photo of the original drawing has been retouched; the original drawing, made on brittle cardboard and many decades old now, has fallen to pieces.
    “Grandpa told me the story of how his father ended up in the United States,” Tom recalled. “When he became a young man, he knew he would be drafted into the German army, something no self-respecting Frenchman wanted. So he decided to do something that has since become clichè: he joined the French Foreign Legion, probably serving in Algeria, a French colony at that time. In the service he learned to cook and decided, when his term was up, to move to Chicago and start a new life."

    He boarded this ship, the La Gascogne (pictured above), in La Havre, France, and arrived at Ellis Island near New York on March 9, 1896. Within about a year he was married to a young lady about his age, also from France, named Theresa Kaspermint. No one by that name was registered aboard La Gascogne, so it's unclear whether he brought her with him from France or met her in the United States.

    This distinguished dowager is Louise Michel Kaspermint, Theresa Kaspermint’s mother. The photo probably was taken around 1910. This photo, of the oldest person for whom we have a photograph, amounts to just about everything we know about the Kaspermint side of the family. The name Kaspermint sounds German, but her heritage is unknown, as is the location where the photograph was taken.

    “One treasured item I got from Grandma and Grandpa,” Tom said, “is this old glass. Grandma told me that Louie’s grandmother bought it at a fair in France, where she had her name engraved on it. In order to make the name more legible in the photograph, I filled it with sherry, something Louise Michel might have enjoyed.”

    This photograph, the only one of Louis, Sr., and of Louie as a boy, was taken around 1900, when Louie was three and his brother John was still an infant wearing dresses, according to the style back then. Taken at Chicago’s Schneider Studio and printed as a postcard, a common practice, the clothing styles reflect the formality of portraiture at that time; the family probably didn’t have such elegant, stylish clothing to wear everyday. Note Louis, Sr.’s cigar, straw boater, and the stick pin in the knot of his tie, as well as the ornate furniture the studio provided, including a leopard-skin rug. This is the earliest picture we have of Theresa Kaspermint Poltevecque, as well as the source of the charcoal drawing of Louis, Sr., shown above.
    Missing from the photo is a daughter, said to have lived her life in Canada estranged from the family after the death of Louis, Sr. John Poltevecque, who grew up to be larger than Louie, lived nearly as long his older brother. He married a woman named Hazel and they had a son named Kenny. They spent John's last years in Florida.
   Family legend has it that John weighed ten pounds more at birth than Louie. That could explain why Teresa's smile looks a bit strained here.

The Dunkers

    We know little of Louise’s heritage, other than that both of her parents immigrated from Germany. (There can be no greater evidence of the great American melting pot than that the eldest son of Louis Poltevèque, who had left France to escape the German draft, would marry a German girl.) Pictured here are Louise’s parents, Herman Dunker and Anna Schwesinger Dunker, with their two oldest children, Bertha and baby Herman, dressed, as John Poltevecque was, in girl’s clothing. Anna’s grandfather was said to be a Lutheran minister in Germany, and Louise and the other children spoke German as their first language, though Louise forgot it in later years.
    This photograph, taken at a photography studio in Louise’s home town of Manistique, Michigan, is the oldest in this collection, taken around 1895. Originally a very faded, damaged postcard, digital restoration revealed details completely hidden before, like the elaborate painted backdrop and the small tripod table to the right, as well as the textured floor.

    Herman Dunker, circled above, in a picture taken in approximately 1910 at age 60, obviously worked in the timber industry, then as now a big business in the heavily wooded Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where Manistique is located. Herman is sitting on a railroad flat-bed car loaded with the left-over bark slices from a sawmill, destined probably for a pulp factory to make cardboard. Note the other rough-looking characters in the picture. Herman died in 1922.

    This photo of Anna Schwesinger Dunker (1868-1942) wearing a high-collared, frilly dress, was a very small, very faint image. In addition to an increase in contrast, her nose, completely missing in the original, has been digitally (and probably inaccurately) reconstructed.

    Herman and Anna Dunker had six children, the first five pictured above left to right with the youngest in front: Bertha, Herman Jr., Alvina, Louise, and Emma. Herman Jr. (1895-1906) died as a child. The other children went on to marry and most had children of their own. Bertha (1891-1944) married Frank Kandlick and had four children. Alvina (1893-1976) married Harry Schroeder and had at least one child, Harry Warren. Emma, born in 1901, married Harry Londahl and had two children, Burt and Buddy.
   About the time this photo was taken (1904) Louise's left leg was injured in an accident in Manistique that affected her the rest of her life. For more information about the accident and to see both a historic and modern view of the town, click here.

    Anna later decided to have a portrait done with her youngest, Bill (1905-1978), unborn at the time of the other photo. Bill later married a woman named Lorraine; they had no children.

    Louise attended school in Manistique, where this class picture was taken. The school must have been more than a simple, one-room affair, judging from the size of Louise’s class. She and most of the other girls wear a large satin bow in their hair. Louise, like many other young women of the day, grew restless with small town life and decided to move to Chicago. There she attended business college and then worked for some time as a secretary.

    After she had spent some time living and working in Chicago, Louise attended a sixteenth birthday party for her friend Lillian, when Louise was 17.
    “Everyone kept saying, ‘Where’s Louie? Where’s Louie?’” Louise recalled years later. “So I asked Lillian, ‘Who’s Louie?’ Lillian said, ‘Oh, that’s John Poltevecque’s big brother.’ I expected to see a great, big guy, because John was pretty good sized. Louie turned out to be this small, wiry guy, but sure enough, when Louie came, the party started.”
    “Then all hell broke loose,” Louie added with a chuckle.