Rosalia Marie Hoffman's Own Story

I was born Rosalia Marie Hoffman Dornach Mulhausen, Germany (now Mulhouse, France) December 2, 1898. My parents and I lived with my maternal grandmother Anna Marie Vogel (born Delandre) from when I was a baby. My mother and father both worked full time. Where I was born in Alsace there were great hillsides of beautiful vineyards. Back then they had a festival in the Fall called "Tasting Wine". They brought the red wine and they had the big long Spanish peanuts which they don't have here. People used to drink wine and have Spanish peanuts and pretzels and watch the puppets. And they would have dancing. My father August Hoffman was a great dancer and he was quite often the first dancer on the floor to dance in the polka. I also remember that I had wooden shoes.

In 1907 we came to the United States. My grandmother Louise Blind Hoffman came along with us. My father's sister and her husband and their little boy were here already.

We were supposed to get on the boat at Le Harvre. We saw lots of people. We were to get that boat, but the boat was over loaded, We had to stay a week in La Harvre. We heard later that that boat hit a big iceberg. But they were lucky they didn't drown. So a week later we got on a boat. And I never saw so many strange people. Some of them were Italian! Some of them were even barefooted. And all they had was a sack over their back. My father was over loaded with things we wanted to bring. We were second class, we had bunks. Third class was in the bottom. They had hammocks. I really don't know how those people got in and out of there it was so crowded. My Grandmother was so sick all the while. She couldn't eat. They had a doctor on the boat and he said, "Oh she's just sea sick". My father used to take me on the deck. The deck was wet and I started to slip. My father wasn't watching me and I slipped right to the railing. I was that near the edge but I got a hold of the railing. I could have slipped through and fallen in the ocean and drown. When my mother heard, she was very upset. She wouldn't let me go on deck no more. (She was sea sick all the time like my grandmother.)

The United States it was a sight to see land. Everybody was thrilled. But we had to stay two days on the boat. Then we got off at Ellis Isla nd. And we were all examined. I remember the doctor looked at me and said, "What a pretty little girl coming to America!" I had rosy cheeks and was healthy. But there were other people they sent back. One person had an eye disease and they told them they had to go back. They were crying. It was very sad. They wanted see how much money my father had, and if we had relatives here. At that time they didn't let people just come with no money. They had to have some one who would take them in until they got jobs.

I missed my grandmother. I had lived with my grandmother all my life. I missed her dearly. My life had changed. Coming to a strange country and learning English was quite a big problem to me. Course that put me back in grades which upset me a lot. My parents couldn't speak English. But my father and my Uncle Paul they both went to YMCA and started to learn to read and speak English. Which was very smart thing for them to do.

For a while we lived in Dayton, Ohio with my Aunt Emilie and Uncle Paul Guillaume. When I was ten years old my brother was born. When I was fourteen we moved to the country. I decided I didn't want to go to school anymore. It was a hassle to try to get back and forth to get to night school. I decided I didn't want to go so I took care of my brother while my mother went back to work. My Grandmother had been working for wealthy people taking care of their children. She helped me get a job taking care of a nine month old baby for the Platt's. They owned an iron company. (Where my future husband worked their in the machine shop.)

I met my husband when I was seventeen and a half [1916] through my friend Clara Bowser. I never thought he would be my boyfriend because I wasn't interested in him. But I noticed he always had his eyes on me. A week later he came to visit me. I was working for Huffmans at this time. And here he comes! I had forgotten completely about him! Well so he came and we set on the porch and talked and then he went home. But before he left he said, "When can I see you again, and take you to a show next time?" I hesitated but I finally said yes. But my parents were very strict. Then I went home next Sunday and I told my parents about him. They said well I should bring him home. Well they liked him. And Grandma Hoffman was there and she got to meet him. She liked him. Mom had fixed a big dinner and we all had dinner together. My Dad knew someone who worked with Charles and he questioned him about Charles...asked what kind of a guy he was. Well he said Charles was a very nice guy. Charles didn't go running around with the other fellows. He was more quite because he was raised in the country on a farm.

We went together about a year and a half. I was nineteen and he was twenty five. We got married. We had two children.

At the time my husband Charles wanted to get into some business, travel to see thing, and do things. He had seen in the parer advertised you could buy a thousand acres for ten thousand dollars. There were five families that were interested in that. We all went down to Mississippi. They thought the land was rich like in Ohio. It had been a virgin pine forest cut over by the saw mill. It was really more like a pioneer adventure. The people all came from different places in the United states to there in McNeil, Mississippi. It was a small town of 200 people. We lived there five years.

We thought we would grow crops and ship them to town. But it didn't work out. People didn't have enough money to carry it on through. The first way we made money was making charcoal. . My husband raised melons. We had a horse and wagon we used to plow. We had vegetables all the year that my husband Charles grew. We shipped peas. We sent some to Cincinnati. We had green beans. We had tomatoes until January. We covered them up. We had hogs that we fed and butchered. We made ham and sausages. pickles. Canned beans. We grew corn. And we would take it to the mill to be ground. That made the best corn bread. Our intention was to grow the crops a lot earlier down in the south and get them to the northern markets early before the crops would grow in the north to make good money, which my husband tried. My husband sent all our strawberries up to Cincinnati by train. But the train was delayed and all the strawberries spoiled and we lost all our money. Eventually we lost the land. We decided that wasn't the place for us. We went back to Ohio and got a start again.

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(This is an edited version of Rose telling the story of her early life. The full version is 14 pages and has many more details about farming in Mississippi in the 1920's.)

After WWII Rose and Charles followed their grown children out to California where they eventually retired. It was a tradition for their family to visit them every Sunday. Rose made delicious Sunday dinners, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green peas, and apple crisp for dessert. Rose was a hard worker and an excellent housekeeper. Cleanliness was important. She even scrubbed her grandchildren's necks when they stayed the night! She had lots of common sense, was sometimes gruff and assertive, but we knew she loved us. When she was in her nineties and no longer able to be very active, she still enjoyed keeping up on current events, and she had an opinion on everything! Also in her nineties she became much closer to God. Her prayer life became more important. She died at the age of 98 years old.

biography written and researched by Linda Rawles ©2002 Linda Rawles



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