I was introduced to Robert Thomas’ book Geschichte des Ortes und der Bügermeisterei Oedekoven: History of the Village and Borough of Oedekoven1in 1999, but it is only recently that I have been able to actually see the pages. And while the book answers many questions, it also raises so many more.
During a 1999 visit with Arthur Ellenbecker, grandson of Peter Joseph Hubert Fassbender, he stated that before his marriage, his great-grandfather, Johann Fasbender, had lived in an apartment behind the “third upper window from the right” of Tempelhof Manor.
Thomas states through Google Translate: “Several generations of the Faßbender family subsequently lived in the former Tempelhof, the part of the manor house with the chapel, while the part of the farm belonged to the Raes family. The merchant Bel, also known as Mair von Oedekoven in French times, still lived as a landowner on the Tempelhof in 1825, but may have given up his ownership of the former Tempelhof in Oedekoven shortly afterwards.”2
The paragraph previous to the one above tells of the French needing to sell land “due to great financial needs.” In 1804 they sold a house and a field to Th. Faßbender, and a house, garden, vineyard, and a meadow to P. Schmitz. In 1808 the French sold Tempelmühle, Tempelhof manor, the chapel, fields, vineyards, and meadows to Joseph Bel. [Blog post: Tempelhof Manor and Tempelmühle aka Belsmühle]
Writing about the Tempelmühle, Thomas writes of the sale of the mill to Joseph Bel, and states that the property “remained in the possession of the Bel family throughout the French administration and up to the present day [1978].”3 He even runs through the generations of ownership, ending with the fact that the last generation to run the mill was married in 1906 and that his daughter was the present [1978] owner, and the mill “is now used only as a residence.”4
Tennessen family legend states that Mathias Tönnessen worked for Joseph Bel as his chauffeur and “chief-hunter” in the years before Joseph’s death. Mathias was only 14 years old when Joseph passed away.5
To summarize without conclusion:
April 1808 – Joseph Bel purchases Tempelhof Manor including the chapel, fields, vineyards, meadows, and the Tempelmühle.
May 1808 – Joseph Bel marries Anna Maria Schweikart.
1814-1816 – Bel is the mayor of Oedekoven.
1825 – according to Thomas, this is the last time Bel is noted in documents as the owner of Tempelhof Manor and Chapel.
After 1825 – Speculation that Bel gave up his ownership of the Tempelhof.
1830 – Joseph and Anna Maria’s 4th born child, Carl Michael marries Maria Gertrud Löltgen and took over the role of Miller at Tempelmühle.
1837 – Joseph Bel dies in Oedekoven.
1838 – Johann Faßbender and Salome Barbara Bel marry in Oedekoven.
1838 – Peter Joseph Hubert Fassbender is born in Oedekoven.
1843 – Johann passes away in Oedekoven.
1848 – Salome Barbara Bel Faßbender marries Mathias Tönnessen in Oedekoven.
1856 – Mathias Tönnessen, Salome, Peter Fassbender, Henry and Philip Tönnessen emigrate to Wisconsin, United States.
1857 – Anna Maria Schweikart Bel passes away in Poppelsdorf.
1860 – Salome dies in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.
1864 – A fire at Tempelhof destroys the courtyard and damages the chapel.
1864 – The chapel is decommissioned, a “figure of Mary” and the altar is moved to the Oedekoven chapel, St. Mary’s Marriage.
January-March 1899 – Peter Fassbender returns to Oedekoven for a visit.
Did Joseph leave Tempelhof Manor and move his residence to Tempelmühle, hiring Mathias Tönnessen as his chauffeur and “chief-hunter?” Did the Fassbender family subsequently move into the manor, Johann’s room being behind the “third upper window from the right?
And then there is this image from the Robert Thomas book. The caption reads: “Owner family of the former Tempelhof around 1900.”6 The photo can be found elsewhere with this Google Translated caption: “Tempelhof, the family who owned it, turned to the photographer around 1900. In the background the former chapel of the Tempelhof. Photo from the private archive of Heinrich Arenz, Oedekoven.”7 I have cropped it to focus on just one figure. I am not saying that this is Peter Fassbender (who was home for three months in 1899), but it could be. But if not, the family resemblance is strong.
PS: I HATE how large these photos are, but for now I have to go with it.
1900 Tempelhof18821920ca1927ca1930
Sources
Robert Thomas, Geschichte des Ortes und der Bügermeisterei .Oedekoven: History of the Village and Borough of Oedkeoven (N.p.: Hrsg. von Gemeinde Alfter/Pfarrgemeinde St. Laurentius, Lessenich, 1978). ↩︎
Thomas, Geschichte des Ortes und der Bügermeisterei Oedekoven, p. 92. ↩︎
At the top of a hill in Oedekoven, Nordhrhein-Westfalen, Germany, sits a small chapel built by the townspeople in 1756. It was given the name of The Seven Pleasures of Mary when consecrated in 1757, but the name was later changed to St. Mary’s Marriage.
This small chapel, 20 feet long, and 13-14 feet wide, was too small to hold the townspeople for Mass, so was used for saying a communal rosary, and private prayer. For Mass and sacraments such as baptism, the people of Oedekoven traveled to the nearby town of Lessenich to St. Lawrence Catholic Church. Oedekoven did not have its own church until 1947 when St. Mary’s Ascension was constructed near the chapel.1
St. Mary’s Marriage, undated postcard
Why does this small chapel, included in the chalk drawing given to Peter Joseph Hubert Fassbender in 1904, hold a special meaning to the Fassbender family? It is the altarpiece.
This altarpiece graced the chapel at Tempelhof until the fire of 1864. The fire burned part of the farmyard to the outer walls, damaging the adjoining manor house and chapel. At this time, the chapel was decommissioned, and the altar and pictures were transferred to the Oedekoven chapel, St. Mary’s Marriage.2
The chapel at Tempelhof
Wikiwand’s translation describes the altar this way: “The rococo altarpiece (late baroque) and the figures were restored [in 1981]. The altarpiece and the figure of Mary above the entrance came to this chapel only in 1864, after the chapel in the temple courtyard, where they originally were, was destroyed in a fire. The altarpiece was probably originally colored. In the center is the image of the Holy Family adoringly looking at the newborn child. Above that the lamb lying on the book with the seven seals (Rev 5-8 EU). In the round arch of the altarpiece is the Christ monogram “IHS” in a halo, often translated as “Jesus, Savior, Blessed.”3
It is absolutely amazing to me to think that I could travel to Oedekoven, Germany, and enter the chapel that was part of the community when the Fassbender and Nettekoven families were living there, and stand before the altar that was first installed in the chapel in Tempelhof.
It was a warm July day 117 years ago this month, when an Appleton Evening Crescent reporter strolled through City Park accompanied by a staff photographer, Le Roy.
2330-Appelton Park, Appelton, Wis
They were looking for the men who, for the past ten years [1895], had been spending lazy afternoons in the park. The men, ranging in age from 58 to 85 lived within walking distance and on “sunshiny afternoon[s]” “when the park trees made oasis of shade, and the lawn mower hummed busily away over in some distant corner of the green square,” they would gather. The men were known as Appleton’s “Uncommon Council.”
It started simply. The retired men would “take long rambling walks about the city, and one after the other formed the habit of stopping for a moment at the city park.” Peter Fassbender was one of these men who after his move to Appleton in 1901, found his way to the park, to the northwest corner where there were high-backed red benches, “more comfortable than the usual family of park bench.” “One can’t imagine how comfortable and homelike three plain park benches can be made to look until one has seen those three benches occupied by a group of white-bearded, snow-haired old men, leaning on the cane that rests between their knees, their hats in the hands, their pipe, perhaps, held comfortably in the hollow of the left palm, and their faces full of the look of comfort, and companionship, and now and then wreathed in a smile that is followed by a chuckle, as one of their numbers breaks into a witticism.”
Park Ave. looking toward City Park, Appleton, Wis.
There was a green bandstand in the center of the park. In those days it contained four tables, shiny from years of coat sleeves and card paying, games such as seven-up or Schafskopf. The perfect spot to spend a rainy afternoon.
When they were not playing cards, you might hear them speak of the past. Of their days serving our country during the Civil War, or as they swatted a mosquito, recalling the pests of times past…”’Why, back in Oconto county we used to wear gloves on our hands and veils on our faces when we ploughed…’”
The reporter states that “old age means loneliness, sometimes” as wives pass away, and children marry and move away. But these men found friendship, companionship, and a way to spend a hot summer afternoon in the cool and shady park.1
Peter Fassbender is standing, far left.
Sources
“Appleton’s Uncommon Council.”’ Appleton Evening Crescent, 1 Jul 1905, Saturday, p. 1, col. 2; digital imges, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 31 Aug 2018). ↩︎
Many memories of Thanksgiving are tied to food. The big turkeys, the stuffing, the cranberries.
Yesterday I made a batch of cranberry sauce for Thursday’s feast, and as I do every year as I watch the sauce come to a boil and the berries start to pop as they heat up, my thoughts wander back to another Thanksgiving, either 2000 or 2001.
The computer was on in the library, connected to the internet, and email open. We designed the corner desk to be visible from the family room and kitchen with the intent that I could monitor the kid’s activity on the computer from the other rooms. The added benefit was that I could also monitor for incoming email – genealogy email.
As it was the week of Thanksgiving I was starting the cranberries while the kids were doing homework and just hanging out in the family room. Just as the berries were coming to a boil, I heard the tell-tale signal that I had just received an email. Forgetting to set a timer, and after one last glance at the pot, I hurried into the library to check my email. And that is where I got into trouble.
I had heard from Germany!! I had recently connected with a gentleman in Bonn who was helping me with my Fassbender line. He was retrieving birth, death, baptism, and marriage information for me from Schloß Augustusburg in Brühl. The best part is that he was also helping me with translating the documents, plus providing invaluable insight into the Rhineland in the late 1700s to early 1800s.
I got distracted. I was jolted out of my excitement by the kids yelling that the cranberries were spattering all over the stove. I had not yet burned them, just created a sticky mess on the cooktop.
So each year as I watch the cranberries bubble in the pot, I am taken back to the early days of “online” genealogy when there were real people at the other end of the discovery of a document. I love the ease of Ancestry, but miss the connection with people all over the world.
I make cranberry sauce the way my mother-in-law taught me many years ago. I shared this recipe last year, but it is worth sharing again.
Marie’s Cranberry Sauce
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 12 oz. package of fresh cranberries
Combine sugar and water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil; add cranberries, return to boil. Reduce heat and boil gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Pour sauce into a bowl. Cover and cool completely at room temperature. Refrigerate until serving time. Makes 2 1/4 cups
To make strained cranberry sauce:
Follow directions in step 1 as written. After boiling the cranberries for 10 minutes, remove pan from heat and strain. Return sauce back to the pan, adding an additional cup of sugar. Simmer for an additional 15 minutes.
Pour sauce into a bowl. Cover and cool completely at room temperature. Refrigerate until serving time.
Johann F. Faßbender was born February 2, 1811, the sixth of seven known children born to Johann and Maria Apollonia Stüsser. Then as now, the birth needed to be recorded with the government officials. The very next day Johann, “age fifty-four years farm-worker living at Oedecoven” trudged through the early morning chill with his newborn son (the average February temperature for Oedekoven is 37°F). He appeared before the mayor of Oedekoven to present the child, declaring his name as Johann. [1]
Very little is known about the life that Johann and Maria Apollonia led. We know that they were successful farmers who made sure their children received an education and served as needed in the German army. Johann was also a skilled artisan. A 1921 article published in Wisconsin newspapers, tells of a snuff-box, given to his grandson while on a visit home to Germany in 1901. [2] “The cover is inlaid with mosaic work which represents two robins on a bough tree. The stones are no larger than a point of a pin and a magnifying glass has to be used to distinguish them. [3] The snuff box remained in the family until sometime in the 1940s when it was sold. [4]
Born October 19, 1812, in Oedekoven, Salome Barbara Bel was the fifth of ten known children born to Joseph Guilleaume Bel and Anna Maria Schweikart.
Joseph passed away September 12, 1837, at age 66, [5] and so did not live to see his daughter Salome marry Johann F. Fassbender a few months later on Thursday, April 19, 1838. At 10:00 a.m. 27-year-old Johann and 25-year-old Salome appeared before the mayor of Oedekoven requesting to be married. They arrived with the required proof that they had posted the announcement of their wish to marry on the main door of the town hall on April 8, and again on April 15, 1838, and that no “contradiction against this marriage had been brought.” The mayor confirmed that Johann had been born on February 2, 1911, Salome on October 19, 1812, that the father of the groom had died on January 12, 18135, and the father of the bride on September 12, 1837. After the “co-present mothers of the bridal pair” agreed to the marriage, the mayor read aloud the vouchers, and “the sixth chapter of the marriage-title of the Civil Code.” He then asked Johann and Salome if they were willing to marry each other, and upon receiving an affirmative reply, he announced them “together legally married.”
The chapel at Behlsmühle
Joining them in the mayor’s office, and acting as witnesses, were Johann’s brothers, 28-year-old Adolph, and 31-year-old Theodor, both stating their profession as “farmers in Oedekoven,” and Salome’s brothers, 27-year-old carl, profession, farmer, and 29-year-old Joseph Ignatz, who was an innkeeper in Duisdorf. Signing the marriage document was the bridal couple, Salome’s mother, Anna Schweikart, and the four witnesses. “The mother of the new husband declared not able to read and write. [6] As was the custom, Salome and Johann had their marriage blessed by the Catholic Church. This blessing occurred in the family chapel at Tempelhof Manor. [7]
Johann and Salome started married life with great hope and promise. Their first child was born on December 22, 1838. [8] One can only imagine how cold it must have been, when two days later at 9:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve, Johann arrived at the office of the mayor of Oedekoven and “presented to [him] a child of male sex,” declaring they were giving him the first names: Peter Joseph Hubert. Acting as witnesses were his brother, Heinrich, and Johann Lommerzheim.
Over the next five years, two more children would be born to the couple, but neither survived to adulthood. Nothing is known about these children other than what was included in published biographies about their brother, Peter. “She [Salome] was the mother of three children, all of whom are dead save our subject Peter Fassbender…”[9] and “…[Peter] is the only survivor of three children born to John and Salome Fassbender, the former of whom died in 1843 in Germany, leaving three children, of whom Peter is the only survivor.” [10]
The day before Peter’s fifth birthday, December 21, 1843, Johann died. The civil record that records his death does not include any details as to the cause of death. Witnesses to the death record were Heinrich Faßbender, and Johann Lommerzheim, the same men to act as witnesses to the birth of Peter just five years earlier.
SOURCES:
Oedekoven, Administrative District Cologne, Germany, “Births,” 1811, No. 23, 12th Certificate of Birth, Johann Fasbender. Cit. Date: Apr 1999.
I believe that the trip referred to in this story was made in 1899, not 1901 as I have yet to find a trip made that year.
“Has Snuff Box More Than 100 Years Old,” The Capital Times, 10 Feb 1921, p. 3, col. 7; digital images, NewspaperARCHIVE (www.newspapersarchive.com : accessed 6 Nov 2002).
Interview with Arthur Ellenbecker, by Susan C. Fassbender, Appleton, Wisconsin, 6 Dec 2002.
Administrative District Cologne, Germany, Certificate of Marriage, “Fasbender to Bel, 1838, No. 7”. Cit. Date: 6 Oct 1999.
Administrative District Cologne, Germany, Certificate of Marriage, “Fasbender to Bel, 1838, No. 7”; Community Oedekoven, Circle Bonn; Schloß Augustusburg, Brühl. Cit. Date: 6 Oct 1999; translated by Karl Wüllenweber.
Interview with Arthur Ellenbecker by Susan C. Fassbender, 10 Aug 1999, Appleton, Wisconsin.
Oedekoven, Administrative District Cologne, Germany, “Births,” 1838, no: 139, Peter Joseph Hubert Fassbender; Schloß Augustusburg, Brühl. Cit. Date: 29 Sep 1999.
J. H. Beers & Co., editor, Commemorative Biographical Record of the Fox River Valley Counties of Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago, Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens, and of Many of the Early Settled Families., 2 (1895; reprint, Chicago, Illinois: J. H. Beers & Co., 2004), volume I: 570.
Thomas H. Ryan, History of Outagamie County Wisconsin (Chicago: Goodspeed Historical Association, 1911), 924.
This post was first written and published with the title “Behlsmühle,” on July 23, 2021 – just about two years ago. I published it knowing that there was a piece of the puzzle missing. I could not match the map showing the location of the mill with the chalk picture shown below. Where were the hills leading up to the chapel? But what was the answer? A few weeks ago I was contacted by a generous man who lives in Oedekoven, and he kindly assisted me in sorting it out. Setting me straight.
So let’s begin again.
“Peter Fassbender Received This Picture From his Cousin. 1904 From Germany”
I was introduced to Tempelhof Manor in 1999 while visiting with Arthur Ellenbecker, the grandson of the Fassbender patriarch and immigrating ancestor, Peter Joseph Hubert Fassbender. As we sat talking in his home – the very home his grandparents purchased when they “retired” in 1901 to Appleton, Outagamie, Wisconsin – he stood up to take a picture off his wall. We immediately offered to assist him, but he brushed off the help stating that it wasn’t heavy, as he had dropped it a while back and the glass had broken.
Handing the framed image to us, he continued with the story. We had been talking about his great-grandparents, Johann Faßbender and Salome Barbara Bel. The image he handed us was a chalk drawing of the property in Oedekoven, Germany, owned by his maternal great-great-grandfather, Joseph Bel. Arthur told us that before his marriage, his great-grandfather, Johann, had lived in an apartment behind the “third upper window from the right.”
The property was known as Tempelhof Manor.
The manor originally belonged to the Hospital of St. John and St. Cordula in Cologne run by the monks of the Johannites. The monks were descendants of the Tempel-Knights who operated many hospitals along the roads leading to the Holy Land and the Temple of Jerusalem. The history of this property is long and filled with land leases of the vineyards and farmland, the French conquering the Rhineland during the French Revolution [1789-1799], and confiscating the property of the churches and monasteries of the region.
But the house…
The two-story manor house is the oldest part of the building, being built with “field-fired bricks with window embrasures in house stones.” The chapel was added in 1755 and was consecrated that same year. In 1756 the farmyard with a large gateway was constructed. Using the same materials as the manor house, the two-story building had a cellar for the storage of wine and fruit. A keystone was placed on the basket arch gateway, showing the arms of the Knights of St. John, and included the date, 1752 [7?]1. The agricultural area surrounding the property was large, including 12 1/2 acres of “arable” land, four acres of vineyards, and one acre of meadow.2
The French held Tempelhof Manor and other properties as a veterans’ endowment until first in 1804 and then again in 1808 when the lands were sold at public auction. In 1808 on July 21st, Joseph Bel, a merchant from Bonn, purchased for the sum of 48,400 francs, Tempelhof Manor and the Chapel, and Tempelmuhle a seed oil mill a short distance away on the Hardtbach River. Included in his purchase were 22.17 hectares of field, 1.66 hectares of vineyards, and 2.85 hectares of meadows. One hectare equals 2.471 acres.3
In 1812, while the French were still in power, Joseph became “Mair von Oedekoven,” and was mayor of the 14 villages that comprised the Borough of Oedekoven. He held this position for two years.4
Joseph did not live to see his daughter Salome Barbara marry Johann Faßbender on April 19, 1838, as he died at age 66, six months before the marriage, on September 12, 1837.5 His later years had been spent as a Gutsbesitzer, or “Gentleman Farmer.”6
Tempelhof Manor and Chapel today. The gateway was to the right of the Chapel.
A fire in 1864 burned part of the farmyard to the outer walls, damaging the adjoining manor house. The courtyard was not rebuilt. It was at this time that the chapel was decommissioned, and the altar and pictures were transferred to the Oedekoven chapel, St. Mary’s Marriage. Following the fire, and until World War II, the chapel housed the wine press. At some point during the war, it was set on fire by children playing in the room.
Two sides of the chapel still existed in 1956 when a reconstruction of the building took place. The chapel door leading to the street was bricked over, and the coat of arms which was above the door was removed and embedded in the wall of the chapel. Today the manor house is a residential building.7
The oil mill, known as Tempelmühle is located a short distance away on the Hardtbach River. The mill had a long history in Oedekoven before Josef Bel purchased it in 1808. The mill, now known as Belsmuhle, was still in the Bel family in 1978. In 1984 the manor house was given Monument status. While the house and the mill’s wheel still stand, the rest of the property has been converted into a multi-family housing complex.
Images of Belsmühle taken 21 Apr 2008 for Susan Fassbender by Konrad Querbach
Sources:
The keystone still exists, and while the numbering looks to be 1752, the building was not begun until 1756, so is it a 7? Or was the manor house built in 1752?
Robert Thomas, Geschichte des Ortes und der Bügermeisterei Oedekoven: History of the Village and Borough of Oedkeoven (N.p.: Hrsg. von Gemeinde Alfter/Pfarrgemeinde St. Laurentius, Lessenich, 1978), p. 90.
Thomas, Geschichte des Ortes und der Bügermeisterei Oedekoven, p. 92.
Karl Wüllenweber, “Josef Bell,” email to Susan Sternitzky Fassbender, 23 Nov 1999.
Administrative District Cologne, Community Oedekoven, Germany, death certificate no. 68 (1837), Joseph Bel; Schloß Augustusburg, Brühl. Cit. Date: 27 May 2002.
Ibid.
Thomas, Geschichte des Ortes und der Bügermeisterei Oedekoven, p. 93.
Thomas, Geschichte des Ortes und der Bügermeisterei Oedekoven, p. 234.
Rheinisches Amt für Denkmalpflege, Central Monuments Archive, 23, Rhein-Sieg-Kreis, Alfter, KZ.
