three sisters

Every picture tells a story No. 38

Let's move on from Peter Eberle's three daughters to his three sisters. They were Anna Barbara, Barbara Katharina (Babette) and Elisabeth Christina (Dina), born 1893, 1895, and 1897 respectively. Peter, born 1900 was the last of the children of the bakery family at Lorsch.

I don't have a picture with all children (UPDATE 26.11.2022 I just found one, will share it in a new episode in season 2), so this portrait of Babette and Dina will have to do.

There's one child in the photo of the family house and bakery, which may or may not be Anna. All children had to work for the business at one point, eg making deliveries. The baker died in 1938, his wife in 1934, but the three daughters kept the house in Lorsch for another four decades, so it stayed in the family for more than 80 years.

In her adult life, Anna worked as a nurse at a hospital in Hanau, and when that hospital became Nazi-fied, she moved closer to home to work as a Gemeindeschwester (kind of a peripatetic nurse / health visitor) at Bensheim.

Dina did an apprenticeship complete with Gesellenprüfung as a seamstress / tailor.

I think Babette ran the household. All three of them shared a reputation as the fiercest penny-pinchers that ever lived.

Various reasons have been cited for their persistent singledom. As protestants in the very catholic town of Lorsch, they were facing a barrier (although not an insurmountable one); lack of funds for a dowry; as well as the fact that the young men of their generation were the cannon fodder of WW1, so they would have had to put in some extra effort. Not sure how hard they tried and how much ambition they had in that direction.

And for comparison, let's throw 16-year-old Peter in the mix too.

This photo is also on flickr.

Every picture tells a story series so far:

1. string quartet Wuppertal Elberfeld 1927
2. greetings from Adamsweiler
3. Gastwirthschaft Ferd. Weirich
4. quartet times three
5. Neumühl 1923
6. Tangermünde railway station 1889
7. a singing lesson
8. bei Wilhelm Geppert
9. a bakery at Lorsch 1900
10. Consumgeschäft von Julius Düsselmann
11. Hanna and Ruth
12. a young chemist
13. school's out at Reichenstein, 1886
14. a patchwork family in East Prussia
15. the case of the missing grandmother
16. checkpoint Glaner Brücke 1929(ish)
17. finding Mimi
18. five sisters, five decades
19. happy at home
20. gone milking
21. steel workers
22. field work
23. what to wear at Porta Westfalica
24. a classic convertible
25. at the bottom of the steps
26. a forester's family
27. the Kaiser visits Allenburg
28. teaching the 'deaf-mute'
29. a guard dog called Schluck
30. party like it's 1956
31. the case of the mysterious uncle
32. three Hedwigs and a baby
33. a lost generation
34. lost illusions
35. pursued by a bear
36. three daughters
37. happy 240th birthday
38. three sisters

Alternatively, you can use this twitter thread as an illustrated table of contents.

In a somewhat roundabout way, this series relates to my research for the family history music memoir I have now completed in a first version.