Celebration of Life: early family life: Joseph N. Ermer

America was and remains a shining beacon for those young and old who seek a fresh start in life. So was true for Joseph Ermer, Sr. and  his wife, Christine (Karstens) Ermer. The two would making a loving family for their two children, Joseph "Joe" N. Ermer and Robert "Bob" Ermer.


"My mother was quite proud of her family. Her father apparently started off quite well-to-do I guess he didn't inherit too much business ability and gradually lost most of what he inherited.

Her mother conducted a school for streamstresses in their home. It was a fairly large house. I think it backed onto the Elbe river.

My mother had four brothers: Heinrich, Johannes, Karl (Kalli) and Max; there was another sister,

Marga. Marge came to America first. She got a job as a governess with a family in Bloomfield, New Jersey. After a while, she sent for my mother, who became a governess for the Horn's in Glen Ridge.

By one of those unbelievable coincidences, the job I got after discharge from the Navy was with Horn, Ogilvie & Co. Inc. H. Schuyler Horn, owner of this insurance agency and brokerage was the same Horn my mother worked for. I didn't find out until a year later, when I came across three pictures he had of his three children -- they were the same pictures my mother had of the children she took care of. It's a small world.

My father was orphaned at the age of nine. He was brought up in an orphanage. His stories, while not like the stuff in the news today, explained why he left.  As a small child, he lived on a farm and did such tasks as bringing in bread, beer and cheese out to farm workers for their lunch. He also brought prepared loaves to the village baker, once a week, to be backed in the big oven. My father used a wooden wheelbarrow for both jobs.

It was a large family and the children were separate when their parents died. My father emigrated to America several years before WWI. Before he left Germany, he looked up all his brothers and sisters.

My father had a friend in America, Henry Daut, who preceded him and got Dad his first jobs: one of them was installing metal roofing. It was done differently in those days -- all the seams were hand-soldered.

My Dad's training in Germany was as a machinist and eventually that is what he worked as. Dad lived in Brooklyn with various families as a boarder. He met my mother when a friend of his, Frank Neckerman, took him to Glen Ridge. Frank was going with Horn's cook, Viola. She was a transplanted southerner, from Virginia. The Neckerman's remained friends for many years after both they and my parents were married."


Joseph "Joe" N. Ermer Memoirs (click links below to view/hear):
Celebration of Life: Joseph N. Ermer
Celebration of life: early childhood: Joseph N. Ermer
Celebration of Life: sports in the early years: Joseph N. Ermer
Celebration of Life: early years: Boy Scouts: Joseph N. Ermer
Celebration of Life: WWII part one: Joseph N. Ermer
Celebration of Life: WWII part two: Joseph N. Ermer
Celebration of Life: WWII part three: Joseph N. Ermer
Celebration of Life: WWII part four: Joseph N. Ermer