Dennis S. Kloepfer
1852-1944

The following is from"Kloepfer-Klöpfer Genealogy & More" by William Wesley Kloepfer and Bill Kloepfer, 1993. William Wesley Kloepfer is the great great grandson of Dionys Klöpfer, a descendant of Jorg Klopfer (Family # 5, Klöpfer, Kloepfer, and Kleopfer). Bill is his son. For more information contact Wes Kloepfer, 142 N. Angeleno Avenue, Azusa, California 91702.

DENNIS S. KLOEPFER AND LAURA WILHELM

Dennis S. Kloepfer (1852-1944)/92 yrs - he had no middle name, the "S" was assumed; was born on the 18th of May, 1852 in a log cabin on a farm in New Trier Township, Cook County, Illinois. He was the first child of Bernard and Mary Harrer Klöpfer, and was named after his grandfather, Dionys, who, with his wife and seven sons, had emigrated to the United States in 1840 from a small town in the state of Baden, Germany, named Moos um Bühl.

Dennis chronicled his own early life in a Winnetka Talk 60th Anniversary article published in March 8,1930 entitled "Marketing Farm Produce Big Job-Dennis Kloepfer Recalls Difficulties in Getting Products to Chicago". The article is reproduced in full herewith:

"The traditional log house was the birthplace of Dennis Kloepfer of 953 Spruce street, one day in May, 1852. He was grandson of Dionysius Kloepfer who came from Germany and bought land southwest of Winnetka from the Alles family and began, with his seven sons, to farm it. Bernard Kloepfer was the father of Dennis Kloepfer.

At the time the family settled here there were two other old families farming the country, the Alles family and the McDaniel family in Wilmette. Soon after that Nick Wilhelm came from Germany to settle as neighbor to the Alles and Kloepfer families. Dennis Kloepfer married the third oldest daughter in 1874.

Earning a living in those days was hard work, Mr. Kloepfer remembers. The boys had little chance to play as neighbors were scarce. Baseball and marbles were there only amusements. Mr. Kloepfer had no chance to go to school until he was nearly eight years old. In 1859 the first school in Winnetka was started with eight or nine scholars.

As a boy, Dennis worked on his father's farm along with his five brothers and three sisters until the time of the great Chicago Fire in 1871, after which he worked as a carpenter in Chicago, helping to rebuild the many structures lost in that disaster. He was so employed for three years.

Until the land was cleared and planted all of the flour had to be brought from Chicago with the other provisions for in 1850 there were no stores nearer than Chicago. Niles center and Evanston both had stores after awhile. Then the housewives would take their extra butter to Niles Center, balanced on the top of there heads, to trade for groceries which were brought back by the same method.

There were precious few ways to earn hard cash while preparing the ground for cultivation. When the Chicago docks were built, rafts of logs were floated down the lake from Winnetka. A cord of firewood hauled in oxcarts to Chicago, a trip requiring two days to town and two days back, brought only a handful of groceries in return. When the wood burning trains came as far as Winnetka a market for wood was found nearer to home. Charcoal burning was a dirty but profitable way of disposing of wood cleared from fields.

Ice skates were a tremendous luxury Mr. Kloepfer remembers the first pair of skates he had when he was twenty years old. They were fastened onto wooden blocks and the blades curved up around the toes in a regular Hans Brinker style.

Threshing was done with a hand flail. The hand flail looks like an elongated hockey stick hinged at the elbow and the threshing was done by flinging the bottom of the stick from left to right. Dennis is shown demonstrating the old grain flail formerly owned by his grandfather Dionesyus. The wheat was carted to the Chicago flour mill for many years until one was built at Wheaton. Most of the farming implements were made by hand until the blacksmith was started, first in Gross Point and then in Winnetka.

The house in which Dennis Kloepfer was born and in which he spent much of his childhood was one of the early log houses with a hand-hewn shingle roof. The house was approximately twenty by twenty-four feet with three rooms downstairs and the attic in which the boys slept. Many mornings they awoke to find snow drifted on the bed covers. Water was obtained from dug wells and they used candles for light. Their fruit came from the apple, pear, peach and plum trees planted on the farm. Their flour came from their own wheat, ground in Chicago. The cows grazed out in the Skokie swamp. The men folk rode their horses bareback out into the marsh to drive the cattle home. Often, too, in the springtime it was a case of swimming the cattle home. for the water became so deep that both the horses and cattle would have to swim through a stretch to reach dry land.

The second home in which Dennis Kloepfer lived was made of brick and frame. The brickyards were producing red brick by that time and a sawmill in Glenview was producing the lumber for the rest of the house. The new house was lit with kerosene."

The Great Chicago Fire Of 1871

On October 8,1871 a fire began, its origin said to have been in Mrs. O'Leary's barn when her cow kicked over a kerosene lantern. The fire burned until the following evening. Most of the city's buildings were of wood construction and with a high hot wind blowing 18,000 buildings were destroyed. Some 300 people lost their lives and 90,000 were homeless. The roaring fire crossed the river and blew north to the prairie. People sought refuge on the shore and even in Lake Michigan. On the south the fire was finally checked by the use of gunpowder. Mayor Roswell B. Mason acted swiftly to safeguard the community. He closed saloons, created a volunteer police force, opened public buildings as places of refuge, and used the U S Army, under General Philip H. Sheridan to assist in patrolling to prevent looting. It took almost a year to rebuild the business district, the retail district moving south to State Street, where Marshall Field reestablished his dry goods business. Manufacturing plants moved from the north bank of the river to the south branch around 22nd Street. The banks moved to the area of Washington and LaSalle Streets. In some areas wood was prohibited in the construction of new buildings. By 1873 much of Chicago had been rebuilt. Dennis Kloepfer worked there as a carpenter.

Following from a news article in the Winnetka Talk:

"During the Chicago fire Mr. Kloepfer says that it was light enough in the sky to read a newspaper at night. Shown is the fire's devastation at the corner of Clark & Washington streets. Although the population of Winnetka had increased slowly up to that time and there were few houses on the lake shore, the fire brought many refugees to the north shore, and many of these people stayed or built summer homes out here. In one thing Winnetka has been fortunate, according to Mr. Kloepfer, that there always has been a good class of people moving into the town. There has never been a rowdy class of residents.

Immediately after the fire Mr. Kloepfer went to Chicago to work as a carpenter in the rebuilding of the city. Shown is the first building erected after the fire. Although the fire was a misfortune to Chicago it enabled the young farmers to earn hard money, and in this case determined the business of a young man. After working as a carpenter Mr. Kloepfer returned to the township to establish himself in his trade and later went into the contracting business.

(Ed. note - Building and in many cases designing some fifty homes and commercial buildings in Winnetka and Wilmette. The homes were large beautiful plain substantial and gave a secure feeling) .

Though most of his education was obtained through reading, the school in those days being scarcely more than elementary, he became tax collector, justice of the peace, a member of the school board, and road commissioner. As road commissioner he saw the first gravel put on the main roads in the township. When he first voted there were eighty registered voters in the township."

At the age of 22, on 26th November, 1874, Dennis was married to Laura Wilhelm in St. Joseph's Catholic Church by Rev. William Neutstrater. Laura was the daughter of Nikolaus and Maria Paulus Wilhelm, who had emigrated from the area west of Trier, Germany in 1850. Laura was born May 1,1857 in New Trier Township, where her father operated a brick manufacturing business, said to be the only one in the area.

DENNIS S. KLOEPFER AND LAURA WILHELM

Biography of Grandparents
By W Wesley Kloepfer

Having been born in 1910 this writer had little knowledge of those early days, but can remember Grandfather Kloepfer working on our house at 325 Linden St., Winnetka, IL., painting and hanging wall-paper. Grandpa Kloepfer was a carpenter-contractor by trade, but was an excellent painter and paper hanger as well. He and my father, with help from Albert, had built the house before my father's marriage in 1908 to Atta Virginia Cole, daughter of Charles W. Cole, a conductor on the Chicago Northwestern Railroad. I do remember going to Grandmother's house for dinners and other family get-togethers. Their living room was furnished with furniture, part of which my father had purchased as a gift to his parents, walnut chairs and sofa with velvet upholstery. I can recall seeing the dining room table set with silver and cut glass, with many varieties of condiments such as dill and crab apple pickles, jams and jellies, all homemade by Grandma.

Uncle Ray bought the original house after grandfather had built a new one several lots north on Provident. Aunt Pauline lived one block west on Spruce street in another Kloepfer-built home. She had married one George Scully, Jr. who later deserted her and was never located, although my father hired private detectives to find his whereabouts. It was rumored that Scully ran a restaurant in the Los Angeles, California area, but never proved. Pauline worked as book-keeper and cashier for Peterson's Market in Winnetka and raised her three children, Eleanor, Stanley and Bernice. I believe she later worked in the office of the Village of Winnetka.

Grandfather Dennis loved to play cards, Whist and later Auction Bridge being his favorite games, particularly with his boys. Not a drinking man, he was not averse to an occasional glass of beer or wine. His one vice, according to grandmother Laura, was his addiction to his odorous pipes. He had many, some of the curved kind, but usually he could be seen with an old corncob, smoking the harsh Prince Albert tobacco. I can remember him sitting at the table on the sun porch in their last house at 953 Spruce street, his face wreathed in pipe smoke, rapping his knuckles on the table as he threw down a card. Both Grandma and Grandpa spoke very good English, but when excited he reverted to the German, one of his expressions was "Dunder Vetter" which I think meant "thunder and lightning". He had a back garden and the bane of his life were the gophers and squirrels that dug up his vegetables. He bought an air rifle and used to sit patiently for hours waiting for one of the varmints to stick his head out of a hole then pot away at "those varmints".

Grandma Laura Kloepfer (1857-1940)/83 yrs-was a very loving and lovable person, a good housekeeper, mother and manager. During the early days when Grandpa had the store, she ran the farm, with Pauline to help with the housekeeping, and the boys doing the farm work. Later, when the family was more affluent, she kept busy with her home, and raised two orphan girls from Rumania, Mary and Malava Parkovitch. Mary became a dietitian, I believe, and Malava a doctor's assistant. Grandma always spoke with a slight German accent - the whole family, including some of the grandchildren spoke German at the grandparents' home before World War I, when they all changed over to English. I do remember how delighted she was when our son, Bunny, now Bill, was born. She once told me that her family had come across country in a covered wagon, that being before she was born.

Later Life of Dennis and Laura

In 1873, a year before his marriage Dennis had purchased a plot of ground at the north-east corner of Locust and Avoca roads, opposite of what is now the Indian Hill section of west Wilmette. Here he built and operated a general store and saloon until 1893 (shown on this page).

Uncle Bill (William J.) writes about a murder that was committed in Winnetka. A Mr. and Mrs. Wilson were murdered and a fellow by the name of Neil McKay was in father's store the evening of the murder. While there he made the remark that "someone was deader than a doornail". It later developed that McKay was the murderer. In front of the store was a weight scale and the local farmers would stop to have their produce weighed on the way to market in Chicago, and to have a beer in the saloon. Beer then sold for two glasses for a nickel, and a Plowboy pail, holding about eight ten ounce glasses, was a dime.

In 1893 he traded the general store for fifteen acres of farm land. Dennis and Laura's last child, Raymond Nicholas, was born on this farm in 1896. Until 1902 the family lived on the farm, although Dennis worked at the carpentry trade, leaving the farm management and work to his wife and the older boys. Laura Kloepfer was an excellent manager and with the help of the one daughter, Pauline, handled the household duties as well. The farm house and the Dennis Kloepfer family is shown.

Uncle Bill writes that his father, Dennis, was a jack-of-all-trades, an excellent carpenter, bricklayer and painter, also a self-taught architect, who drew many plans for residential and commercial structures in Winnetka and Wilmette. Other activities included farmer, tax collector, Justice of the Peace, a little law and administrator of estates. He also was Township Highway Commissioner for nine years, and was school board member for a time. In 1902 Dennis sold the farm for $600.00 an acre to a Chicagoan, who in turn sold it to the Woodley Road Syndicate, of which A. W Shaw of Winnetka was president. The Syndicate also obtained the entire section of land bounded by Locust Road on the east, Illinois Road on the south, Hibbard Road on the west and Hill Road on the north which was the tract of land originally owned by Dionys Klöpfer. The property was sub-divided into one acre lots, selling for $35,000 a lot just before World War I.

After selling the land and the store, Dennis Kloepfer became a general contractor, building his own home on the corner of Provident and Spruce streets (583 Provident) in Winnetka. A photo in Chapter IX entitled "Children of Bernhardt Kloepfer and Mary Harrer" shows Laura Wilhelm, Dennis Kloepfer, Maria Paulus and two boys (photo about 1910) in one of Dennis's homes. During the following years Dennis built over fifty residences and several commercial buildings until he retired in 1920. Peggy, Uncle Ray's daughter inherited all Dennis's and Laura's home furnishings, including the dining room set, a very ornate hand made living room chair, a wooden chest, end tables and crystal brought over from Europe by the Wilhelms and a jewelry box made and brought over from Europe by Dionys Klöpfer. Luckily, Peggy has the Kloepfer collecting instincts along with a drive for historical preservation, therefore she is keeping these treasures intact. She intends to pass these articles down to her daughters.

In retrospect, the grandparents Kloepfer were some of the most family-oriented people I have ever known. They were always ready with help, and when needed, a loan, to assist their children. At one time or another almost all the boys went to dad for assistance in one way or another. They were pious Catholics, had their own pew at Sacred Heart Church, which we shared. As I remember, Aunt Pauline's pew was just ahead of Grandpa's. My father was a long-time usher there.

Although Dennis' formal education was limited to that obtained at the parochial school at St. Joseph Church, he amassed a great deal of learning by reading. He was elected Justice of the Peace, District School Director and Highway Commissioner. In the latter capacity he was instrumental in getting the first gravel roads in New Trier Township. In 1894 he was elected to the office of Township Collector of Taxes and held that office until 1900.

Dennis Kloepfer, as he was known to this writer, his grandson, was a warm, humorous man, very alert to all things around him, particularly political matters, being an avid Democrat. He much enjoyed family get-togethers, of which there were many. He was deeply religious, a life-long member of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Hubbard Woods, where he and the family attended Mass faithfully. He liked nothing more than to have his grandchildren with him in the family pew.

In speaking to his grandchildren about boyhood memories he would recall times when Indians would pass by the farm, and remembered the excitement surrounding the disaster on Lake Michigan, the sinking of the "Lady Elgin" on September 8,1860, following a collision with the lumber ship "Augusta" off the coast of Winnetka. News of the catastrophe was brought by runner to Grosse Pointe where Dennis' family was attending Mass at St. Joseph Church. His father, Bernard, went with other farmers and helped in the rescue of many of the survivors.

On Sunday, November 28,1937, Dennis and Laura Kloepfer held open house for their family and friends, celebrating their 63rd wedding anniversary. Attending were nine sons, one daughter, nineteen grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren.

Laura Kloepfer lived to see two more anniversaries, passing away on May 19,1940 at the age of eighty three. After her death Dennis sold the Spruce Street home and moved back to his first Winnetka house at 582 Provident Avenue, which had been bought by his son, Raymond. He lived there with Ray until his death on October 1,1944, at the age of ninety two. Both he and Laura are interred in Sacred Heart Cemetery in Northfield.

CHILDREN OF DENNIS KLOEPFER AND LAURA WILHELM

In addition to Arthur M. Kloepfer, (see Chapter XII) Dennis' family consisted of:

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