The First Joos

At first, we only knew of Martin Joos, the husband of Sophie Lowenguth and father of Alice, Charles, and Martin A. Joos.

In August of 2007 I started to think about this more. I wrote in my notebook,

"That mid-19th century cook book I have has written in the cover "Aunt Josephine", then "Alice V. Joos", then "Rowena Winkler". So- this Alice married one of Martin and Sophie's sons, leaving the "Aunt" part to be either a sister of Martin or Sophie. Since then, I've found a few more Loewenguths and Joos, especially JOSEPHINE JOOS LOEWENGUTH. I think we have a match."
The 1910 census has Martin and Sophie living near the Heglins (coincidence) and one census citation says he was naturalized and came to the US in 1880, age 17, then, since he was born in 1863? Sophie Loewenguth came to the US in 1884, age 20 since she was born February 1864.
I found a Phillip Loewenguth born about 1840 in France (1910 census has him as a lodger on Vermont Street, occupation Gardener doing odd jobs) and he could be an Uncle?
I found Henry and Caroline Loewenguth living at 975 Lombard Street in the 1910 and 1880 censuses...

And this isn't even the hard part.

Remember at Olivet I turned around and saw Charles and Josephine Loewenguth in the same room as some of our other family. I'm glad I made a note of them, because the California Death Index put me hot on the trail of Josephine, revealing her maiden name was JOOS, making her our "Aunt Josephine". She was a Joos, sister (?) of Martin, and was Charles related to Sophie? CADI also said Josephine's mother's name was OBER, another hot lead, but I tabled it until today.

Today I spent about an hour and a half at the San Francisco main library and found three more obituaries. Caroline Loewenguth who died October 15, 1909 at age 61, Henry (or Henri) Loewenguth who died March 17, 1913 at age 71, and Martin Joos who died April 15, 1936 at age 73. To my credit, I did first look for a death notice of sorts for Frank Ambrose's first wife, Annie, who died September 22, 1898 according to his memoir. We don't know for sure her maiden name or where she was buried and this has bothered me for years. Petty, huh? Oh well. It could be in another paper??? or not.

Well if you haven't already cross referenced yourself to Martin's post, do it now and you'll read the full text of his obituary from the SF Examiner. This cites not one sister (Josephine), but THREE. No brothers, but he may have uncles or cousins to account for all the other Joos families...

So we know now for sure:

Mr. Joos and Miss Ober in Alsace- Lorraine had at least

Martin Joos in 1863 who married Sophie Lowenguth.

Josephine Joos born May 5, 1869, came to the US in 1883?, married Charles Loewenguth who was born around 1868, lived in San Francisco... They were in the 1930 census together, he was a moulder and came to the US in 1884- same year as Sophie Lowenguth. He died July 6, 1932 and she died July 11, 1948 in Alameda county. They were both cremated and are at Olivet.

Emilie Joos born October 2, 1871, had a son I can only imagine, Adolph E. Koechlin who was born January 7, 1898 in California and appeared with Emilie in a couple censuses. Emilie died in Alameda county July 2, 1952, age 80. Adolph died July 3, 1965, age 67. The age difference is too great to believe them espoused, but stranger things have happened.

Philomena Joos, "Mrs. Charles Fritz" was born March 2, 1874 and died in San Francisco December 23, 1954, age 80. They appear in the 1910 census together in San Francisco. Charles, and only one Charles, is in the 1933 San Francisco phone book available through Vitalsearch, and his occupation is Butcher, address 3208 Mission.

There must be some alternate spellings the census takers recorded. The same may be the case with any of their children, unless they were all done having children before 1905.

Sigh. I haven't searched the death index using the maiden name/ mother's name thing yet, though. My brain is a little fried as it is right now.