CHAPTER 1

The Mueller, Rosenthal, Schuster,and Schueler Families in Westphalia

My maternal grandfather, Louis Rosenthal, died in 1912. He left hiswife, Emilie Schuster Rosenthal, with a great deal of property, a hugebusiness, and six teenagers, three boys and three girls. He was only fifty-fiveyears old, and he loved his family and his business and enjoyed agood life. His father, Abraham Rosenthal, had settled in the Paderbornarea from Erwitte, where he had grown up as one of the sons of LeviRosenthal, a prosperous merchant and farmer in the early nineteenthcentury, a period when the Jewish people in Germany were battlingfor freedom and citizenship. At that time, Jews had barely obtained theright to move from one place to another, and Paderborn especially wasstill frowning on having more Jews settle there. Very few were able toobtain that permission from the authorities. Abraham and his brotherwere among those few. At first they started a feed and grain businessin Paderborn; this led to Abraham acquiring a small flour mill close tothe main road leading out of town toward Neuhaus, a nearby village,the onetime residence of the local bishop who ruled there from a four-sidedcastle fortress with a moat as protection from the local peasantry.That castle had been turned into the garrison of a Prussian-mountedHusaren regiment during the nineteenth century.

Abraham was able to acquire a large, water-driven flour mill situatedalong the road leading to that castle. This became the firm A. Rosenthal& Son, a successful enterprise producing flour for civilian and militaryHis son Louis, my grandfather, continued in that business and expandedit by building a modern, larger, seven-story mill at the edge of thevillage. Across from that mill he was able to acquire a wonderful siteto build a beautiful mansion surrounded by a large flower garden withstables, outbuildings, and even a tennis court.

Many of the people in Neuhaus were employed at his mills. Because mygrandfather was rich, affable, and a good horseman, he enjoyed verygood relations with the commander of that regiment. At the beginningof the First World War, his sons, Charles and Heinrich, served in thatregiment. Charles volunteered at age sixteen, received a battlefieldcommission, and was discharged as a decorated lieutenant at the endof the First World War.

My grandmother Emilie's maiden name was Schuster, the Germanword for shoemaker, and she was one of ten siblings from an equallyprosperous family in Luegde, another Westphalian rural community.This family also lived in that town for centuries. She was one of tensiblings, and she was related to the Staabs and Nordhauses in NewMexico. One of her brothers, Bernard, lived in El Paso, Texas.

Since the eighteenth century, my paternal grandfather's grandfather,whose name was Calmon Mueller, the same as my grandfather, lived inthe Westphalian village Stoermede. My great-grandfather Isaac Muellerstill lived there in the nineteenth century but later moved to anotherlittle town, Geseke, where my grandfather was born into a large family.My grandfather Calmon Mueller established himself in the feed andgrain business in Paderborn in the nineteenth century and marriedPaula, maiden name Schueler, whose father was a banker in Geseke.The Schueler family was one of the oldest Jewish families in thatregion. They were related to a famous rabbi who was instrumentalin legislative proceedings to improve the living conditions for Jewishfamilies in Germany in the ginning of the nineteenth century. Noneof these families exist in that area, as their descendants either fled toother countries or were slaughtered by the Nazis.

A brief explanation of these family names: It was only at the beginningof the nineteenth century that Jews were permitted to have surnamesrecorded at the courthouses. Mueller and Schuster are unusual names forJews, as at that time it was prohibited to assume names that conflictedwith the guilds. A few people were able to avoid that regulation becausetheir names had been used prior to the promulgation of those rules.In my case, the first Mueller went to the village priest to have his sons'name recorded, and when asked what his name was, he must haveresponded "Mueller" because that was his nickname at the time. Inthe case of the Schusters, it must have been similar. Rosenthal wasa typical name chosen by folks who availed themselves of the newrules to choose surnames. Schueler, meaning student or scholar, wasnormal for a family who had emerged from the ghetto and probablywas also in use prior to the new rules. When Jews had their own civiladministration, the babies were always named with biblical Hebrewnames in their synagogues.

I also want to mention that Jews in Germany did not hold full Germancitizenship until 1870; however, they were granted new...