The Man At 1104 North 26th
Emil J. Schaefer was born on a farm near Plymouth, Wisconsin, a week after the Civil War ended in 1865. His father worked in town as a cooper or a person who made or repaired wooden barrels, casks, or tubs. His parents had emigrated from Mecklenburg, Germany, the year before right after they married.
Besides learning to become a cooper Emil also worked at L. K. Howe's print shop and learned all about the trade. So, when Mr. Howe moved to much larger nearby Sheboygan to start the Sun & Herald newspaper 17 year old Emil went with him.
Schaefer boarded at a hotel where he printed the dining room menus in exchange for his $4 a week rent and meals. He also created a four page newspaper with local stories and local advertisers.
But, Emil was a strong German Lutheran and wanted more. So later that year, 1882, he traveled to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and joined the Concordia Seminary to become a teacher. Unfortunately after his first year he began very ill and had to return home and returned to his printing vocation.
Schaefer boarded at a hotel where he printed the dining room menus in exchange for his $4 a week rent and meals. He also created a four page newspaper with local stories and local advertisers.
But, Emil was a strong German Lutheran and wanted more. So later that year, 1882, he traveled to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and joined the Concordia Seminary to become a teacher. Unfortunately after his first year he began very ill and had to return home and returned to his printing vocation.
Fort Wayne, Indiana, Concordia Seminary
But, Emil still wanted to pursue his dream to become a teacher. This time he applied to the Addison, Illinois, Teachers Seminary. This school was founded in 1864 by German immigrants for Lutheran teacher training with strong ties to its faith-based heritage. It was a spin-off of the school in Fort Wayne and would eventually move to Chicago and become today's Concordia University.
This time Emil completed his teacher's schooling and headed out into the world to cultivate young Lutheran minds. But, first he married his sweetheart Margaret Schaffner from Milwaukee. Then right after the wedding they headed to Los Angeles, California, for his first teaching job. There he was a teacher and principal of the Evangelical Lutheran Trinity School.
The Los Angeles Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church and School
After a short time there Schaefer moved on to a school in New Orleans and then back to Wisconsin where he taught in Milwaukee which would become his home.
After the turn of the century, Emil changed occupations. Weather it was economically or from other opportunities we don't know. He now turned to music. Especially pianos. He was then into wholesale and retail piano sales and also musical instruments.
His business must have been very good because in 1907 this article appeared in the local newspaper...
"The E. J. Schaefer Piano Co., who recently opened up a retail piano store at 298 Third street, Milwaukee, Wis., is a partnership and not a corporation, although, according to Mr. Schuette, the name of the firm has been adopted with the ultimate intention of incorporating. Neither are they manufacturing pianos, although they may do so eventually. They intend to handle two good pianos of Eastern and Western manufacture, and pianos bearing the name of "Schaefer" and "Ferndale," and on these they intend to work up a mail order business."
The Piano and Organ Workers' Official Journal
May 1907 Issue
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is shortly to have another piano factory added to its multitude of busy industries. E. J. Schaefer, well known among piano manufacturers and dealers here, has organized the E. J. Schaefer Piano Company at 298 Third St. with a capital of $500,000 to enter into the manufacture of pianos. (That would be $16 million today)
In 1910 they incorporate as the Piano Circle Company. By 1912 the business is owned by his partner (Henry F. Schuette) and Emil returns to teaching. For the next fifteen years he works as a school principal and a music teacher. By the 1930s Schaeffer retires, but still lectures locally about music. He also became a widower.
In his retirement, he started a new hobby as reported by this 1938 Milwaukee newspaper article....
Emil was apparently part of a trend for mailing requests to Hell. The Wikipedia page for Hell. Michigan states:
In the early 1930s, Pinckney, Michigan, postmaster W. C. Miller began to receive requests from stamp and postmark collectors for cancellations: Hell had no post office, instead being served by the one for Pinckney, three miles away. On July 15, 1961, a postal substation was established at Hell, operating from May 1 through September 30. It remains at the back of the general store, although the United States Postal Service does not recognize Hell as a town; it instead uses the name of nearby Pinckney as the mailing address.
Since the 1930s this unincorporated community has grown from a handful of people to 72.
Apparently Hell has frozen over
Schaefer did not only collect postmarks on the envelopes he also collect them on playing cards. Here are a few;
Joker, West Virginia (Western Playing Card Co.)
Ace, Texas
King, Arkansas (Standard Playing Card Co.)
A Second One From King, Arkansas
Queen, Montana (or New Mexico)
Jack, Missouri
Jack, Alabama
Ten Mile, Oregon
Nine Point, Pennsylvania
Eight, West Virginia
Seven Oaks, California
Six, West Virginia
Five Points, Alabama
Four Mile, Kentucky
Three (Unreadable)
Two Dot, Montana
From the design of the court cards, there could have been four decks he could have mailed out. Then again, he may have just used loose cards from multiple decks.
Emil didn't get a chance to grow this hobby much. He passed away almost two years after the article appeared.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 3,1940
Special thanks to fellow collector Joe Pierson for the playing card photos.