At some time before June 1, 1915, the date of the next census, the family has moved to a three family house in Brooklyn at 381 First Street. Charles is now a bronze finisher. Two of the places he worked, as per my mother, his daughter Aileen, were a company called “Jackson’s” in Astoria on Jackson Avenue which she said had made the bronze doors for the Empire State Building. He worked here with his father. Charles also worked at Superb Bronze, at Berriman Street and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn. Christina is a book keeper, Laura is a __ press machinist, Henry is a driver’s helper and George and Helen are in school. Also living with them is his Uncle George Eberhardt, a blacksmith. Father Conrad is a brass polisher and mother Anna is keeping house.
On June 19, 1916, according to Charles’ Discharge Abstract, he enlisted in the NY National Guard. This information is not in the enlistment papers that I have. His son, Charles Conrad Jr. said that his father had told him that he fought Pancho Villa with Black Jack Pershing at the Mexican border in 1916 when he was part of the National Guard. (The Mexican Punitive Campaign) We do know that he was in Oklahoma on July 6, 1916 from a post card with a picture of a street scene of Purcell he sent to Barbara, with whom he had reconnected after she had moved to New Jersey and then to the Bronx. He complained that the temperature was “105 in the shade”. The town still had lots of horses and wagons at the time, with dirt roads.
Charles married his childhood sweetheart, Barbara Urig, on 21 June, 1917 at St. George’s and Calvary Church, at 209 East 16th Street, NYC, Barbara’s family church. The church was on Stuyvesant Square. Family stories had said that they were married in the Chapel and not the church proper as Charles was Catholic. However, as per the Episcopal Diocese records, all of Charles family were members of that faith. Witnesses to the marriage were Barbara’s sister Louise and Charles’ brother Henry (it was probably this Henry, no other information on the register except his name).
I don’t know when Barbara and Charles started dating, whether they had kept in touch even though they had both left the old neighborhood (Both the Knatz and Urig families had summer bungalows in the beach community of Roxbury, in Queens New York.) or if they met again later. Perhaps they reconnected at Lutheran Cemetery where both families had graves, just steps from each other. Both families often visited the cemetery on Sundays and on holidays.
Barbara Urig was born on February 24, 1893, the same day as Charles at 33 Attorney Street, New York City. She was the fourth daughter and the fifth child of Philipp (1854-1901) and Anna Katherine Knoedler (1857-1910) Urig. Her father had been a tailor as per census records from 1860 until 1892. Both he and Anna were first generation Americans as their parents had been born in Germany, as had Charles’ Grandparents. The Urig family was almost as much fun to research, being indexed as Uriz, Arrig, Borig, Nerg, etc.
We cannot document where they spent their first years of marriage, but Barbara must have stayed at her previous home while Charles was in the National Guard. The address given on Charles’ U.S. Army Transport Service list on February 18, 1919, the day he departed to Le Havre, France, was this address. Also, they will be living there as per the next census in 1920.
When the United States entered into World War I Charles was called up with the National Guard and was in Co B of the 102 Engineers. The 102 Engineers was part of the New York 27th Division of the Army, one of only three divisions that were formed up entirely from a single state National Guard. They trained in Camp Wadsworth in Spartanburg, South Carolina and I think this may be where he got some cotton bolls that his daughter remembered him having when she was a child. They broke the Hindenburg line during the Battle of the Somme and forced a German retreat. The 102 Engineers also fought in the Battles of Dickebusche Lake and Bierstratt Ridge and The Selle River, all in 1918. Charles served overseas from May 17, 1918 to February 28, 1919, putting up and cutting down barbed wire in France. His son Charlie said he may have breathed in poison gas as he was wounded in battle in Europe and received Disability Benefits and Aunt Laura said she visited him in a hospital with a leg wound but as per his Abstract of WW I Military Service, 1917-1919 he received no wounds during his service and no disability payments. She may have confused him with one of her cousins. Charles was again honorably discharged April 3, 1919, having achieved the rank of Sergeant. He later praised the YMCA (and/or the Salvation Army), but that the Red Cross was terrible as they made you pay for your donuts. He also had great respect for the Australian soldiers ANZAC’s. They had come back from a battle, heard that US troops were trapped and went back out and rescued them. He also said that they could not be chased out of a bar. Most of this information is also from my Uncle Charlie. My mother also said that he told her that he had served with the poet Joyce Kilmer (Trees) and Kilmer was indeed part of the NYS National Guard.
While Charles was away in the National Guard, Barbara could not let anyone know she was married. Married women did not typically work at this time, but she worked for a woman named Bertha, a hat maker who owned a shop on East 68th Street, and Barbara did not tell her. Among the customers Barbara delivered to and fitted hats for, were the Jacob Astors.
On January 8, 1920, Charles now back from the war and Barbara are together at 595 East 135th Street. Her sister Louise who is still single at 35, is living with them. Charles is a bronze fitter at a bronze factory or forge. Barbara is a dressmaker and Louise works as an operator and what looks like a children’s hospital. They are all salaried workers.
Charles and Barbara’s first child, Charles Conrad Knatz Jr. was born on February 22, 1921. Charles would marry Margelia Wilson on October 21, 1944 and have 3 children: Irene, Mark and Janet. Marge died in 2001 and he died in 2009.
Aileen Barbara Knatz was born at home on August 7, 1923. This is my mother. She said her name was supposed to be Alene but it was written down incorrectly. Charles had been in the New York National Guard as had the poet Joyce Kilmer. Joyce’s wife’s name was Alene and I wonder if Charles either knew him or her, or if he just liked the name and the spelling. Aileen would marry Raymond Eugene Taylor on November 17, 1945. They had 5 children: Barbara, Carol, Gary, Diane and Joan. I am the fourth child. Ray died in 1999 Aileen would die in 2017
In 1925 Charles and Barbara are living at 595 East 135th Street in the Bronx with 7 other families. Interesting, since in 1915, only 2 families lived at this address. Charles, 32, is a brass finisher, Barbara is listed as a 28 year old housewife, Charles is now 4 years old and Aileen is one. The actual date the census taker came by is not noted. I just took the information on those “whose usual place of abode on June 1, 1925, was in this family”. The family is also in the 1925 census of Rockaway Point in Queens with Charles designated as Sr. and young Charles as Jr. Here the family lives at #3 State Road and Charles Sr.is a bronze, not brass, finisher and both he and Barbara are 32. Nearby is Charles’ aunt and uncle, Charles and Christina Eberhardt Unkel. This area known as Roxbury was mostly a summer / vacation community and Charles and Barbara must have been there on the day the census was taken.
On November 8, 1925, third child Edwin Robert joined the family. He would marry Madeline Genevieve Mertz in 1947 and have four children: Robert, Kenneth, Katherine and Christopher. Madeline died in 2006 and Edwin died in 2017.
On April 1, 1930 the family has moved to Brooklyn, about 3 blocks from Charles’ parents. They are renting a house at 70 Doscher Street for $40.00 a month. Charles is a fitter at a bronze company and was working the day before. He is noted to be a veteran of the World War. He and Barbara are now 37 years old. Barbara does not have an occupation, but during the depression, she cleaned and did laundry for other families. With them are children Charles 9 “Aleen” 6 years and seven months and Edwin at 4 years and two months. They own a radio, as do the other families on the page.
On March 18, 1933, Charles’ mother Anna Marie Eberhardt Knatz died at her home on Crystal Street. She was buried in the Knatz family plot on March 21.
On April 13, 1940, the last census record I have access to, Charles and Barbara are living at 181 Crystal Street, his father’s home and had been living there in 1935. He is renting, for $25 a month, probably from his father. Charles is listed as Head of household and his father lives with him, Barbara and their three children. Charles is an iron worker for the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, noted as GW – government work. This was a program designed in 1935 to provide relief for the unemployed by giving jobs and income to those without them. The census does not say how long Charles was working for the WPA but it seems this may be a recent position. One of the questions on the form asks if Charles was at work for pay in private or non-emergency government work during the week of March 24-30, three weeks earlier. The answer was “yes”. The WPA was described as public emergency work in the next column. He had worked 40 hours that week. Charles had worked either 20 or 26 (the number is on the line) weeks in 1939 and made $520 for that year so maybe he had just lost a job. Also, as per family stories he had also dug ditches for the WPA. The highest grade completed for Charles and Barbara was eighth grade. Barbara is listed as not working with no income, but she made money cleaning three or four houses, besides taking care of her children and her father-in-law. Charles Jr.is 19 years old and had graduated High School. He was working as stock boy in a department store and had worked 48 hours from March 24-30. He had worked 36 hours in 1939 and had made $45. Conrad, is 70 years old and had graduated from 6th grade. He had worked 40 hours March 24-30, worked 52 weeks in 1939 in private work and made $1300. He is still working as a polisher in a bronze company. Aileen is 16 and in her third year of High School and had shared a room with her Aunt Helen Knatz until Helen married in 1935. Edwin is 14 and in 7th grade. Conrad and the boys shared the third bedroom in the house.
On April 26, 1942, Charles registered for the draft. He was noted to be 5’ 3”, approximately 124 pounds with blue eyes and brown hair. At the time he was working as a metal worker at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. This was part of the “old man’s” draft, for those born between April 28, 1877 and February 16, 1897. Son Charles Jr registered on February 15th. His son Edwin enlisted in the Navy on April 1, 1944. Daughter Aileen was working for an insurance company in downtown Brooklyn and met a shipmate of her cousin Rita Connelly’s husband, John Dunleavy. John and Raymond Eugene Taylor were members of the Merchant Marine and when their ship docked at the Brooklyn Navy yard and Ray would often stay with Charles and Barbara.
By 1948, Charles and Barbara were living with only Conrad as all of their children had married and left home. Aileen and Ray had lived with them for a while after they married and had twins, but they had moved to Colorado where Ray had found a job working with his brother.
On June 30, 1957, Charles’ father Conrad died at their home.
Charles had a green thumb and had quite a garden in his backyard on Crystal Street. He was a Mason and also a sexton in his church, St Lydia’s Episcopal Church in Brooklyn where the family was members. After the war, Charles must have returned to his job at William H Jackson, a bronze or brass company. He retired from Jackson’s in 1958. His father Conrad had also worked there and in later years returned as a security guard. Barbara was also active in St. Lydia’s and was often found in the kitchen at church functions.
Barbara and Charles celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary in June 1967 with their children, grandchildren and even a great grandchild along with their siblings and friends.
On February 18, 1969, Charles died At St. Mary’s Hospital in Brooklyn following surgery for a brain tumor. He died a week before his 76th birthday. As a veteran, Charles could be buried at Pinelawn National Cemetery in Farmingdale, New York.
After living alone in their Crystal Street home, Barbara moved to Clearwater Florida and lived with her younger sister Alice, after someone broke into her home at night and she shouted down to them to get out.
Barbara returned to New York years later and lived with Aileen and her family. We spent many breakfasts together. While we ate, she told me many stories about her and Charles’ families.
On January 3, 1981, Barbara died of congestive heart failure not long before her 88th birthday. Charles and Barbara are buried together in Pinelawn National Cemetery. I wonder if they chose the National Cemetery so that they would not have to choose between the Knatz and Urig plots, just feet away from each other. They were both very close to their families and maybe they just couldn’t decide which family plot to spend eternity with, so they chose a separate one.
The next generations of my Knatz ancestors descended from Charles and Barbara Urig Knatz’ daughter, Aileen Barbara Knatz. She was born on August 7, 1923 in her home in the Bronx, New York, and was the second of three children. Charles Conrad Jr. was two years older and Edwin was two years younger than she was. Sometime after 1942, when he joined the Merchant Marines, she met Raymond Eugene Taylor, a shipmate of her cousin Rita’s husband. Ray was the last of five children born to Edmund Lawrence Taylor and Minnie Lucretia Miller Burch Taylor. He was born on November 13, 1918 in Ashland Kansas. His siblings were half-sister Nellie Burch born in 1896, Warren Frederick born 1910, Mildred Uretha born 1911, Lawrence Edmund born 1913 and Celia Irene born 1917. During WWII, Ray’s ship would come into the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and while on leave, he often stayed with Aileen and her family in Brooklyn. Aileen and Ray married on November 18, 1945, after the war’s end. Soon after, they had twin daughters, Barbara Gail and Carol Jane on September 5, 1946. They moved to Rifle, Colorado, where Ray got a job at a shale oil company, and had two more children. Gary Raymond was born on July 27, 1952 and Diane Marie (the author of this history) was born on October 27, 1954. The family moved back to New York in time to welcome Joan Susan on February 21, 1956.
These five children had twelve children and two step children.
The fourteen grandchildren had fifteen children and more step children.
This next generation has (as of June 2020) two children, the great great grandchildren of Aileen Barbara Knatz and Raymond Eugene Taylor.
Ray died in 1999 and Aileen died in 2017. Their ashes are together in the Fresh Pond Columbarium in Queens.
I will write a revision of the 2009 story I wrote about my parents sometime in the future. Meantime, if anyone has any questions about any family members, please contact me and I will tell you anything I can.
Diane M. Taylor
914 830-7040 cell
914 830-7040 home
47 Seneca Avenue, White Plains, NY 10603
DMTTMT@optimum.net