John Nefzger

     Our family took a two or three week summer vacation every year. We would take a 300 mile car trip to the Thousands Islands on the St Lawrence River. We rented the same cabin every year on the Lake of The Isles on Wellesley Island. We were a mile or so away from the Canadian border. The cabin was a fishing cabin with no insolation or hot running water. However, we loved it there and spent a lot of time running in the woods or swimming. I always preferred the country to the city, so I was in seventh heaven. Dad fished every day and Mom watched the kids and cooked. Although she still had to do mother type things, she also got to enjoy the outdoors. She especially enjoyed our day trips to Canada.                          Our home life was pretty much typical of those days. Dad went to work, Dorothy and I went to school and Mom stayed home. Briefly, Dorothy went to Holy Trinity Elementary School and later to Holy Trinity High School. I went to Our Lady Queen of Peace Elementary in Maywood, NJ. I later went to Hackensack High School. Queen of Peace was run by Filippini Nuns from Itay. They were very strict and able educators. I often say I look German, but think like an Italian! Holy Trinity High School was a failing institution when Dorothy went there, but she had many friends and enjoyed her time there. When she went to Immaculata College, she caught up with her education and successfully completed her Biology degree. My time at Hackensack High, “HHS”, was very rewarding. I grew about a foot and became involved as a soccer player and played in the NJ State Tournament! I did very well in my studies and got accepted at the University of Vermont. Our parents always emphasized academics and it paid off. Overall, we had a happy home life!                                 There is a difference of five years in age between Dorothy and myself, but we have always remained close. We both enjoyed our family during the holidays, especially Christmas. We enjoyed our gifts and the “grab bag” Dad would bring home from the Hoboken Chamber of Commerce. It was filled with logoed notebooks, pencils, pens, and other everyday items. Summers were hot in mosquito filled in NJ. We obviously had no air-conditioning at that time. Mom cooked great American, German and Italian food! The family was well fed! Dad worked hard and came home at 6:00. I was a typical 1950’s lifestyle.

     It is now time to talk about Mother. Bertha Raith was born near Kotzting Germany on January 1, 1912.  She was the daughter of Wolfgang and Anna Raith.  I know little about Mother’s parents. (Hereinafter referred to as “Mom”.  Wolfgang was a veteran of World War One. He served in the German Army.  I know nothing of his service record.  Anna was a housewife and mother.  Mom had several brothers and sisters. Mom was a small child during the war. She did remember the poverty and hunger the children suffered during the war. She had a brother named Thomas, who died at a young age, but I don’t know when. Mom only went to eight grades of schooling. She may have worked as a domestic for rich people as a teenager. At age seventeen Mom immigrated to the U.S. The year was 1929. she was probably sponsored by her sisters, Fanny and Marie. I know nothing of the time Mom spent in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where her sisters lived. Mom went to New York City, where she had friends. They were named Helen and Katie. I don’t know how she met them. She most likely met them on the ship when she came over. Mother spoke often about ow she liked NYC. She worked for Jewish people as a nanny for several years. She took their two boys to see many New York sights and shows etc. Mom’s employers liked her. They owned a laundry business and provided her free laundry service after she married.                                               Mom met Dad in the late 1930’s and they married in 1938. Mom had been introduced to Dad by my Aunt Theresa who knew Mom’s friend Katie. Theresa was married to Adolf’s half brother, Fred Wittmann. Mom and Dad honeymooned in Washington DC. After marriage the couple lived with Dad’s parents. My sister, Dorothy, was born January 22, 1940. Things got crowded and Dad bought a house in Hackensack, NJ in 1943 during World War II. Dad had a deferment while working in the war industry. His factory made bullet chains and a piece of the Atom Bomb! He said Generals would visit the factory. The Hackensack home, 448 Colonial Terrace was our only family home until Mom passed in 1970.                                    Grandma and Grandpa would visit on weekends. Grandpa planted several fruit trees on his visits. He loved the home, which at that time a county atmosphere. Mom liked to garden and can. The New Jersey soil was rich and black and everything grew well. Mom was very close to her two children and cared to us in every way. Mother was a voracious reader and could read a novel in no time! She had an accent but spoke good English. She said she learned English by going to the movies! Both my parents loved jokes and laughter. Our neighbor, Art Clark, was a great storyteller and would tell Dad jokes when he came home from work. Dad would be sitting on the porch and just roar with laughter. All the neighbors could hear him laugh.

    Grandma was from Hamburg, Germany. She was born in 1881. My only memory about her background was that she worked as a domestic for a public official. I don’t know how she met grandpa. I know she followed him to the U.S. She spoke very little English and suffered with arthritis. My mother told me she had difficulty adjusting to her new country. She was always kind to my sister and when we visited her and Grandpa in their Union City apartment in the 1950’s. She was a great cook of German food which my sister loved and I didn’t. The apartment was cramped and hot and I was always glad when our visit ended. Grandma passed away on around 1965. She had a  tremendous influence on my father as I will discuss next.

     Hans Nefzger, hereinafter referred to as “Dad”, was born on January 26, 1910 in Hoboken NJ. Since Grandpa was away on ships, Dad spent his infant years alone with Grandma. Dad grew up a happy child based on what he told me over the years.  He lived in the city and had many childhood friends. He suffered prejudice during World War One.  He told me that he was mocked by a teacher in his classroom and given soiled books. At that time, he was just seven or eight years old. It left a scar he never forgot. I know this, because he told me so many times. Over the years, I have come to realize what prejudice does to folks of every race, color and creed.                                                                          On a lighter note, Dad overcame the difficulties of growing up in an immigrant family.      Dad was able to see humor in everyday life.  He knew human nature well.  However, when it came to school, he was all business!  Evidently, Grandma and Grandpa valued education, because they paid for his college education. Grandpa had money at times but seemed to lose it on bad business deals.  Sometime in the 1920’s the Nefzgers went to visit relatives in Germany.  Dad mentioned the hyperinflation they had there.  At sometime Grandpa supposedly bought property in Germany jointly with a relative and later swindled out of it.

     Dad flourished in college and loved Engineering.  He commuted to the campus and studied at home.  It would get noisy in the apartment and Grandpa supposedly put a broom handle through the ceiling trying to get the neighbors above to shut up!  Dad played some soccer in college, but he stopped playing due to study demands. Dad graduated in 1932 high in his class. Unfortunately, the Depression had hit and Dad could not find a job.  He told me worked in his father’s deli sweeping floors.  Based on what Dad related to me, it was a time of humiliation.  Later on, Dad got his first job at American Machine and Foundry Company.  I don’t know what he did there, but evidently there was a machine with a conveyer with cigarettes on it.  Dad and other would help themselves!  Later in the Thirties.  Dad got an engineering job as Chief Engineer at New Jersey Machine Corporation. Dad became plant manager of the company.                                                                                  Dad was very intelligent. He spoke fluent German.  He learned the language as child, because his mother preferred her native language.  Dad learned German before he learned English.  However, Dad said English was always one of his favorite subjects in school. Dad never took risks, financial of otherwise. The Depression made him wary of putting money in anything but a savings account.  Dad was devoted to his job and held it until retirement. At work, Dad dealt with Union negotiations. As management, would wrangle over new contracts with the workers.  Then he would come home and tell how he liked Unions, because a new contract meant his salary would go up! Upper management would pressure Dad to ship machine orders quickly.  He always sought their acceptance, but never got it.  He worked in the trenches and was respected by the workers on the factory floor. There was only one strike during the many years he worked. If a worker was sick, he would personally bring them their check. Dad was a very honest man. He would mention vendors trying to bribe him with gifts, which he would refuse. However, Dad did buckle under one time. He got tired of workers playing the numbers game once a week when someone would some in the plant and take lottery chances for a fee. Dad closed it down, but was followed home by Mafia types! The numbers returned to the factory. Home and family life will be discussed later.

     Adolf and Dorothea Nefzger were born in the latter part of the nineteenth century. They immigrated from Germany to the United States in the early nineteen hundreds.  Adolf, my grandfather was born to an unwed mother in 1884. He took the name of his mother, which was Nefzger. The little known about his youth was related to me by my father. He evidently had to go out on his own early in life. I know he learned something about landscaping and joined the German Navy as a reservist around 1904. He was assigned to duty on the Kaiser Wilhelm’s yacht, the Hohenzollern. I am in possession of old photos, which depicts his class on the ship. My Dad indicated that Grandpa’s job on the ship involved dining room duties, such as setting and decorating tables. Dad also said that Adolf met the Czar of Russia when the Kaiser’s yacht met his ship at sea. The is that the crew had seamanship contests. Grandpa, the story goes received a commemorative medal from Czar Nicholas, which he later lost in a card game! 

  After serving in the Navy, Adolf went to on German passenger liners. I do not know what he did on those ships, but my guess is that be worked in the dining rooms. I do not know why he decided to immigrate to America, but he probably felt there was more economic opportunity here. Grandpa continued to work on ships for some time. My father, Hans, who was born in 1910, related to me that his early boyhood was spent alone with his mother while his father worked at sea.

   World War I was a traumatic time for the family.  Anti-German feelings ran high. Grandpa evidently could no longer work on German Liners and started working at home. I know he ran a delicatessen in Jersey City, NJ. Hans was active in the boy scouts when he was a teenager. He became an Eagle Scout and I still have a display of his badges. Evidently, education was important to my grandparents, because Hans enrolled in Stevens Institute of Technology after going to Dickinson High School in Jersey City. Grandpa passed away in 1963. I will return to Hans after a few brief notes about my grandmother Dorothea.

     It is important, in my estimation, that future generations be provided with some information about their ancestors.  Accordingly, I will attempt to provide a summary which will hopefully bring life to the folks upon whose shoulders we sit.  My sister Dorothy and I happen to be the last links on our side of the family who personally knew the first Nefzger arrivals to America.  So I will start with the Nefzger-Raith story first, to be followed by the Williams narrative, which goes back to the pioneers in Kentucky and the American Revolution.  Some of what is to be stated is factual and based on memory and some is based on anecdotal information which may bring these folks to life!  Hopefully this story will not get to boring.  Some things will be left out, because of the need for brevity. The high points will be hit.  So here we go!