{"id":1749,"date":"2014-08-01T06:13:46","date_gmt":"2014-08-01T11:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/?p=1749"},"modified":"2014-08-01T06:13:46","modified_gmt":"2014-08-01T11:13:46","slug":"my-journey-to-america-august-1-1914","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/my-journey-to-america-august-1-1914\/","title":{"rendered":"My Journey To America: August 1, 1914"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exactly 100 years ago today, my 18 year old grandfather, Kurt William Leucht, wrote the following entry into his journal:<\/p>\n

\u00a0At 1:45am, we finally arrived in Chicago<\/a>. Those of us who were to continue on received a piece of paper, which was pinned on.\u00a0 At the train station, buses were waiting.\u00a0 Everyone was placed on the appropriate bus.\u00a0 Now, I was all alone.\u00a0 The bus I was on went to another train station.\u00a0 I had a four and a half hour layover before my train left for Peoria.\u00a0 While waiting, I ventured out to look at the city of Chicago for a little bit.<\/p>\n

At 9:00am, the train left.\u00a0 I arrived in Peoria just before 2:00pm.<\/p>\n

I took a taxi to my Uncle Gustav [Degenkolb\u2019s]<\/i> home, according to the address on my paper [822 Griswold Street near Humboldt]<\/i>.\u00a0 When I got there, I rang the doorbell; but no one was home. \u00a0It wasn\u2019t long before my Aunt [Alice]<\/i> came.\u00a0 My uncle was out of town and was to be back home on Tuesday.\u00a0 My aunt and I spoke German with each other.\u00a0 She could not speak much, but it was sufficient.\u00a0 I washed myself thoroughly and laid down for awhile, since I was quite tired from the trip.<\/p>\n

[On this very day, Germany was declaring war against Russia. \u00a0Kurt had no idea this was even happening.]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cUncle\u201d Gustav is not an uncle, nephew, nor cousin to Kurt even though he referred to him as Uncle Gustav throughout his journal. According to genealogical research Kurt\u2019s father, Julius, had a sister named Alma who married a Degenkolb. This Degenkolb, Julius’ brother-in-law, had a brother named Gustav who came to America. So \u201cUncle\u201d Gustav is related only by marriage to Kurt\u2019s Aunt Alma.<\/p>\n

Reverend Gustav J Degenkolb was born in the province of Saxony, Germany in 1876. He was twenty years older than Kurt. He came to the United States in 1896. He married his wife, Alice, in America. He was the first minister, from 1911-1915, of Grace Evangelical Church, located on the NW corner of 605 Stanley Street at Humboldt in Peoria.<\/p>\n

Kurt and Verna were married in this church in 1920. The church built a new building diagonally across the street in 1925 which still stands there today. Kurt\u2019s third son, Bill, married Gail in the 1925 building in 1966. It became Grace Evangelcal United Brethren Church in 1946, then Grace United Methodist Church in 1968 ending its affiliation in 2002 and was sold.<\/p>\n

You can read my grandfather’s entire journal and see vintage photos of Chicago and Peoria by clicking below. \u00a0It’s quite interesting! \u00a0Of course, I’m biased! \u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/history\/My_Journey_To_America-Journal_of_Kurt_William_Leucht-1914_to_1920.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks for your interest!
\nKurt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exactly 100 years ago today, my 18 year old grandfather, Kurt William Leucht, wrote the following entry into his journal: \u00a0At 1:45am, we finally arrived in Chicago. Those of us who were to continue on received a piece of paper, which was pinned on.\u00a0 At the train station, buses were waiting.\u00a0 Everyone was placed on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[112],"tags":[497,499,496,498],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1749"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1785,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749\/revisions\/1785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leucht.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}