family,links:
census
family photos
memorial card
father: Johann Trefzger
mother: Maria Buecke
spouse: Frank Meyer
siblings:
Louisa, Deanie, John, Mary,
Sophi, Barbara, Ella & Lee
siblings:
Leo, Clayton, Alice, Herman & Claara
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Albertina or Deanie as she was known was born on April 21, 1880 in Wehr, Baden. Her father had left for Dayton, OH, USA to find work to support his growing family before she was born. About a year later in 1881 her mother Maria, her 2 year old sister Louisa and Deanie emmigrated to Dayton, OH.
We beleive that they immigrated with Johann's brother Joseph, arriving in New York from LaHarve on 6/16/1881.
In 1903 Deanie married Frank Meyer.
"My grandfather (Frank Meyer) was born across the river from Cincinnatti in Newport Kentucky and had six brothers and two sisters, most of whom wound up in the Dayton area, so it's a big bunch."*
I asked Gary Collier when his Trefzger family moved to California. He replied:
"Johann and Maria came first, in about 1903, just for a vacation, and they loved it so much they decided to stay. They started writing back to everyone in Ohio about what a paradise California was, trying to talk them into coming out too. Eventually, my grandparents (Deanie & Frank Meyer) came. I know it was after 1904 (because my uncle Leo was born in Dayton that year) and before 1910 (because my mother was born in Los Angeles that year). It wasn't long before the entire Johann Trefzger family was living in the L.A. area, though. They brought the Brutshés, Daums, and Workmans with them."*
" I do remember my grandmother telling me that her father was a very traditional German man. She told me once that he had a rule: "In diesem Haus wird nur Deutsch gesprochen!" ("We only speak German in this house!") So my grandmother was fairly fluent in German. In fact, after my grandfather died and she started getting senile (Alzheimer's?), she reverted to her childhood and would only speak German. I was the only one in the family who could understand her. (By this time I had just gotten back from a two-year tour in Germany where I'd been a German linguist -- they taught it to me in the Army Language School -- So I was almost as fluent as she was. Interestingly, she sounded to me like she spoke German with an American accent!! But this could have been the Swabian or Allemanic accent of Baden. I was never there, so I don't know what that dialect sounds like.) My grandfather also spoke German (his father immigrated from Germany as well, and never learned to speak English), and my mother and her siblings grew up speaking German at home. But during WWI, the younger boys came home one day and told their parents, "We have to stop speaking German when people come over. They are starting to throw rocks at us!" And so they did stop. And, although I would occasionally hear my uncles rattle off something funny in German with my grandparents, English had become the lingua franca in the family. My mother forgot everything. When she came to visit me in Germany in 1961, she couldn't understand a word that was spoken by the Germans. I only learned a very few phrases from Grandma while I was growing up."*
Comment and Thanks
Gary Collier filled us in on ‘Deanie” Albertina Trefzger Meyer’s family. In 2009 Gary Collier Sent us wonderful photos, the information above and info about his grandparents and great grandparents.
*quotes by Gary Collier.
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