Chapter 12.1 – From Prussia with Love

On 5th Oct 1910, Joseph Henry (Harry) Dangerfield, son of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother Joseph and Margaret Dangerfield (Thoday), married Emma Emielia Laube, daughter of Joahann Friedrich Laube and Pauline Wilhelmina Laube (Zucht) and granddaughter of Johann Friedrich and Dorothea Laube. 

In 1854 Johann Friedrich Laube and Dorothea Elisabeth Laube (Teichert) were among 48 Prussian immigrants who arrived in South Australia amongst the 171 colonists who arrived aboard the Steinwaerder.

They were helped by George Fife Angus, a director of the South Australian Company established to develop the new settlement in South Australia. He was a Baptist dissenter and philanthropist willing to help those, like himself, who had difficulties with the established church. He financially supported the first wave of Old Lutherans (who emigrated as a congregation with Pastor Kavel in 1838) from which chain migration ensued. In fact, by 1860, the majority of the nearly 6000 Germans living in South Australia were from the ‘Old Lutheran’ districts of Silesia, Brandenburg and Posen.

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One branch of my family tree came from far off Silesia, a province of Prussia now located in southwest Poland. It was here that Johann Friedrich Laube and Dorothea Elisabeth Teichert were born somewhere between 1811 and 1813.

Johann Friedrich and Dorothea married, had children and emigrated to Australia. It was in Australia that the Laube’s became linked to the Dangerfield family when, on 5th Oct 1910, Joseph Henry (Harry) Dangerfield, son of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother Joseph and Margaret Dangerfield (Thoday), married Emma Emielia Laube, daughter of Joahann Friedrich Laube and Pauline Wilhelmina Laube (Zucht) and granddaughter of Johann Friedrich and Dorothea Laube.

To learn about the Laube’s story first hand, I am going to go back in time to the year 1922 to visit Emma Emielia Dangerfield (Laube) at her home at 5 Blanche Street, Gawler where she and her husband Harry Dangerfield are currently living.

They have recently sold their farm because their son Geoff has had a serious accident having fallen off his horse whilst bringing in the cows on the family dairy. Since I was not alive in 1922 I am visiting as a day nurse who is assigned to help Emma care for her son Geoff while he lies in bed recovering from his accident.

“Good morning Fay. Thanks for coming. Geoff has been very disturbed during the night so I can certainly do with a break.” Emma brushed a strand of hair from her eyes and sighed.

“Why don’t you go and lie down and sleep and I will take care of things here?” I suggested and Emma gratefully left the room and went to her bedroom to catch a couple of hours sleep. In the meantime I bathed Geoff and changed his sheets and then sat quietly beside his bed as he slept. It was 1.00 pm before Emma returned. She looked rested and a lot more cheerful than she had when I first saw her this morning. I was glad.

“Is everything okay?” Emma asked.

“Yes, I have changed the sheets and I have bathed Geoff and he will probably sleep for quite a while now.”

“Would you like some lunch then? I will make us some sandwiches.”

“Yes, that would be nice,” I replied. I was hoping that I would now have the opportunity to ask Emma about her life and her family’s history. We sat down together at the kitchen table and began to eat the sandwiches Emma had made.

“Emma I am interested in the story about the Laube family, how they came to Australia, how you met and married Harry Dangerfield. That is if you don’t mind talking to me about it? ”

“That would be be fine. It will help pass the time. I feel sure Geoff likes me to sit with him.

“Well, my full name is Emma Emelia Dangerfield (Laube) and I was born on 11th Apr 1884 at Mannanarie which is a place north of Jamestown, on a farm at Mount Lock, and I am the second youngest of the Laube children.

“Is your name Emelia or Emielie. I noticed it is written as Emielie on the back of that photo on the mantelpiece?”

“Emielie is the German way of spelling my name, but when my parents came to Australia they could never seem to make up their minds whether to use the old German spelling from the old country or the more usual English spelling of Emelia as is common in Australia. In our old family Bible it is recorded as Emielie. At any rate, I was baptized in the Lutheran Church in Katowice on 8th June 1884 by Pastor Thiessen and my godparents were Gottfried Lehmann and Johanna Haeusler my aunt and Martha Haeusler, my cousin. I was confirmed in the Lutheran Church on 27th Mar 1899. I was two years old in 1886 when my parents moved to a farm south of Appila which is also north of Jamestown and then it was back to the Mannanarie area for a few years before we moved to Caltowie when my parents bought a house in 1889.

“What school did you attend?”

“I first attended school in Caltowie when I was 6 years and 8 months old where I was enrolled on 26th Jan 1891. In 1898, after I had completed my schooling, I worked for a tailor in Caltowie and gained considerable experience as a dressmaker.

Then in 1903 as a young woman, I moved to my brothers’ farm, Fred and Charlie Laube, at Marble View where I helped Lottie, Fred’s wife, take care of her young family. It was also my job to prepare meals for the local farmers who brought their horses, wagons and machinery to Charlie’s blacksmith shop to be fixed. It was there, through necessity, that I learned to be such a good cook.

“Yes, I’ve heard that you were quite famous for your good German cooking” I commented. Emma laughed, thinking I’m sure of all the cakes, puddings and pies she had cooked over the years.

“Here’s the romantic bit. Across the road from the Laube farm lived the Dangerfield family who owned the farm next to ours. Harry Dangerfield and his father Joseph and brother Charles had taken up a crown lease over Sections 182, 183 and 184, Hundred of Koppio on the western slopes of the range which runs from Port Lincoln to Lipson.

The farm was 19 miles (30 Kms) from Tumby Bay, which was the nearest port to which all their produce had to be carted before the railway came. Their farm overlooked the flats where Cummins now stands and you could see the Marble Range to westward. It was about 59 or so miles west of Lunda Flat village.

The Dangerfield’s land adjoined the southern side of the land taken up by my parents, Friedrich and Pauline Laube at Marble view. Our family became not only neighbors but friends of the Dangerfield’s. I was the second youngest of the Laube children and would have been 26 years of age at the time and so Harry and I met and fell in love.

“How long did the Dangerfield’s stay on the farm at Marble View. They moved around quite a lot didn’t they?”

“Yes, they did. It was only a few years before they relinquished their lease at Marble View. It would probably have been around the same time that Harry purchased Section 113, Hundred of Pinnaroo which was around the year 1909. This land was an area of 917 acres at Parilla Well about 20 kilometers north-west of Pinnaroo in the South Australian Mallee.

At any rate, this is where Harry was living and farming when we got married on 5th Oct 1910. We were married at my parents home at Caltowie. My sister Susie was in the wedding and Howard Dangerfield Harry’s brother was groomsman. Howard was also farming with Harry at Pinnaroo at the time. Harry as you know was one of Joseph and Margaret Dangerfield (Thoday)’s eight children and was born on 10th Apr 1881 at Clare. This was when the Dangerfield’s were farming at Angle Grove a few kilometres northeast of Brinkworth and 25 kilometres northwest of Clare.

“So by the accident of taking up leases on adjoining farms at Koppio, the two families, the Laube’s from Silesia and the Dangerfield’s from England became united by the marriage of their daughter and son. Amazing!”

“Yes, it either happened by chance or by Providence. I choose to think that it was Providence.” Emma smiled.

“I’m sure Harry thought it was Providence to have snared the best German cook in the world for his wife! Not only a good cook but diligent and hard-working as well.”

“You flatter me!”

“ It’s true!

Emma, do you know much about your grandparents’ life in Silesia and when and why they came to Australia?”

“Yes, I do. I know quite a lot actually. My grandparents, Johann Friedrich Laube and Dorothea Elisabeth Teichert were born somewhere between 1811 and 1813 in Silesia, which is a province of Prussia now located in southwest Poland.

“Until the time of their immigration in 1854, two kings ruled over Prussia. Friedrich Wilhelm III ruled from 1797 to 1840 and son Friedrich Wilhelm IV ruled from 1840 to 1861. The events of 1812 to 1821 had a great effect on the lives of the Laube’s.

In 1812 Napoleon retreated from Moscow, in 1814 he abdicated the French throne, in 1815 he escaped from Elba and in 1821 he died on St Helena. There were political forces at work in these years which became the catalyst for so many Prussian people moving to Australia.

“Friedrich and Dorothea Laube married during the reign of Friedrich Wilhelm III in the mid 1830s in a Lutheran Church in one of the small villages in Silesia. They were living in Glaesen or Glaesendorf in southern Silesia when their first child was born on 14th Jan 1837. They named her Johanna Rosina Laube.

Then in 1845 during the rule of Friedrich Wilhelm IV, the Laube family moved to the village of Lippen and this is where their son Friedrich was born on 15th Oct 1845 and their son Wilhelm was born on 19th Aug 1850.

Friedrich and Dorothea Laube had another two children who were most likely born at either Glaesen or Glaesendorf or Lippen but nothing else is known about them – their gender, date of birth and their order among the other three children. These two children left Hamburg with the other five in the family aboard the ‘Steinwaerder’ but they died on the voyage.

The Laube children at this time were Johanna Rosina (b. 1st Jan 1837); Johann Friedrich (b. 15th Oct 1845 – 12th Mar 1917); Friedrich Wilhelm (b. 19th Aug 1850 – 5th May 1876) and the twins who died on the ‘Steinwaerder’ in 1854.

“What was the reason for the first exodus from Silesia to Australia in 1838? People don’t usually leave their homeland without good reason.” I wondered.

“There was a very good reason for the first immigration which occurred in 1838 from Prussia to Australia. After Napoleon’s demise in 1821, Prussia was rewarded for its part in France’s defeat with the return of its lost lands; in fact new territories were added to the realms of the Prussian King, Frederick William III.

With increased territories the King set about reorganizing his kingdom into ten provinces most of which then became part of a new German confederation of 39 sovereign states, replacing the defunct Holy Roman Empire.

Frederick William III having completed reorganizing his government turned his attention to his subjects’ religion. He passionately wanted his kingdom to have one and only one national religion. To achieve such unification he knew that the Lutheran and Reformed churches must be formed into one entity with only one Liturgy and one ritual.

He set his scholars to work comparing and collating the individual Liturgies into one all-encompassing Liturgy. On its completion in 1830 he commanded his new Liturgy to be received in every congregation in his kingdom.

“Was his vision well-received!”

“No, it was not! The enforcement of the king’s new Liturgy caused a revolution within the two religious groups. None were really happy about the new form of worship, but there were those who categorically refused its introduction. The new pattern of worship involved giving up formulas which had been in use in the Lutheran church for upwards of three centuries.

Eminent Professors in universities and a considerable number of the Lutheran clergy became opponents of the new Liturgy and in consequence they were removed from office. Deprived of their pastors the rite of baptism could no longer be duly administered. When fathers of families privately performed the rite their actions brought persecution, swift and fast. They were sent to prison.

To break the impasse, the King finally gave permission to the non-conformists to leave the country and thus rid the realm of dissention. A new “Promised Land” was sought where the devout Lutheran’s of the old religion might worship unfettered in the faith of their fathers.

“Prussia’s loss was definitely Australia’s gain. The early German settlers brought with them such good character, work habits and skills. Who became the organizers of the exodus to Australia?”

“The Reverend Augustus Kavel was asked by several congregations of Lutheran Silesians to make arrangements for their immigration. George Fife Angus, a Baptist dissenter and philanthropist and a director of the South Australian Company which was established to develop the new settlement in South Australia proved willing to help those, who like himself, had difficulties with the established church. He personally and financially supported the first wave of Old Lutherans immigrants and was highly revered by them.

After the first wave arrived, further chain migration ensued. In fact, by 1860, the majority of the nearly 6,000 Germans living in South Australia were from the ‘Old Lutheran’ districts of Silesia, Brandenburg and Posen.

“The Laube’s were not amongst these first immigrants in 1838 were they?” I queried.

“No, they came out some years later and not as a result of religious persecution did the first groups because with a new king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, the persecution ceased.

In 1838 the ‘Prince George’ sailed from Plymouth with about 200 refugees on board. Seventeen persons, for whom the ‘Prince George’ could not afford accommodation, arrived a little later in the ‘Bemgalee’ and the third vessel to sail was the ‘Zebra,’ with 197 Lutheran immigrants, followed in succeeding months with hundreds more.

During the first decade of settlement, Pastor Kavel’s authority was as strong as law in South Australia, so revered was he by his flock. When the Prussian settlers arrived in Australia, they repaid Kavel and Angas’s confidence in them by their industry not only in their excellence in agriculture but a heritage of musical appreciation passed down to following generations. The Germanic solidity and thoroughness of character was also evident in their scientific and medical achievements.

“The flow of Prussians and Silesians continued year by year reaching a peak of more than a thousand in 1849, 1850, 1854 and 1855, while the total immigration between 1846 and 1860 exceeded 10,000.

“What year did Johann Friedrich Laube and Dorothea Elisabeth Laube (Eichert) emigrate to Australia?”

“The Laube’s came out on the ‘Steinwaerder’ in 1854.”

“I wonder what route they took on their way out to Australia?”

“They departed from Lippen in 1854 and probably took a similar route to that taken by the original immigrants in 1838, they would have left their homelands boarding barges at Tschicherzig, travelling via the River Oder, the Friedrich-Wilhelm Canal and the River Spree in Hamburg, though in the 1850s there were other possibilities – a railway network was spreading across Prussia or they could have travelled by road.

“What an adventure it must have been for them.”

“A great adventure indeed. They left Hamburg on 11th July 1854 as part of a group of 171 Lutheran immigrants who arrived at Port Adelaide, South Australia on Sunday 5th Nov 1854. The ship’s passenger list is held in the State Archives in Hamburg. Friedrich is named on the list as a farmer from Lippen but the names of Dorothea and their five children are not recorded, only the ages of the children, from 4 to 17 years.

“The ‘Steinwaerder’ was under the command of Captain HE Arens. Captain Arens would have followed the normal route to Australia – along the coast of northern Europe, through the English Channel, past France, across the Bay of Biscay, leaving behind the European continent as Spain and Portugal were passed. “From there Captain Arens probably steered a course well out to sea away from the northwest African coast, past the island of Madeira, the Canary Islands and Cape Verde Island before heading across the Atlantic towards the eastern tip of South America looking for favorable winds to take the ship to Cape town around the southern tip of Africa and eastwards in the westerly wind belt to Australia.

“The ‘Steinwaerder’ took 117 days to reach Port Adelaide arriving on Saturday 4th Nov 1854 at the anchorage off Port Adelaide. The following item appeared in the Adelaide Register on Monday 6th Nov 1854.

“The Steinwaerder barque from Hamburg arrived yesterday at the Lightship anchorage bringing 171 emigrants principally German, many of whom arrived in a most sickly state. During the voyage 7 deaths and 1 birth had occurred.  3 women, 4 children died.  Storms and heavy seas meant that many passengers could not escape recurring bouts of seasickness. Conditions were cramped, damp and smelly and toilet and washing facilities were crude.

“Food on board was usually quite different from what most were accustomed to in the homes they had left behind and its quality deteriorated markedly as the voyage progressed. In such circumstances it is no wonder diseases such as dysentery, cholera and typhoid often spread like wildfire on emigrant ships and could not be fully overcome until passengers disembarked. Women and children were often the worst affected by sickness.”

“Although the ‘Steinwaerder’ arrived at the Lightship off Semaphore on Saturday 4th Nov 1854 it was not reported at Port Adelaide until the following day. Captain Arens may have anchored at the Lightship overnight awaiting a high tide and perhaps favorable winds on Sunday morning to take the ship up the Port River to the wharf and landings at Port Adelaide.”

“I wonder what the Laube’s were feeling when they came into Port Adelaide? Their first view of their new land.”

“Yes, I have often wondered what they would have felt as they stood on the deck as the ship slowly passed the swamps and mangroves along the Port River. There were almost no facilities or services to assist them when they disembarked at Port Adelaide. The rich would have been well able to afford and arrange transport to take them to their destinations.”

“I know that many of the assisted immigrants were welcomed by sponsors or agents but others, after disembarking with their possessions on the wharf had to make their own way as best they could and I have been led to understand that this is what the Laube’s had to do.”

I left Amelia there sitting beside her son Geoff and went back to my own time to ponder what I had learned from her about the Laubes of Silesia.