Before Hansen there was... Herman Vollmer

 Herman Vollmer was born in Baden, Germany on June 18, 1861 the son of Joseph and Walburga Mauer Vollmer. In 1879 he attended what we would call college in England.  He came to the United States in 1882 through Boston and moved to Princeton.  He worked for Uel Mathes Caudell (b.1854,d.1943) until early 1883. Mr Caudell was a watchmaker with a jewelry store on the Kidd block.   Did you ever get the idea that Princeton was some kind of hotbed for jewelry and clocks??  Vollmer went into business for himself in early 1883 opening the Pfohl shoe store. This must have been short-lived as I can't find much about this.  Instead, I find an advertisement for Vollmer as a watch, clock, and jewelry dealer in the Clarion on April 5, 1883. The ad says that he is operating out of "Keimer's Grocery Store" on the east side of the square.  The ad states "I have had five years' experience in Germany, and three years' experience in England in watch-making and repairing."  He moved into his own store in May 1883 at 103 West Broadway called Devin's corner back then.  Known today as Susan Bobe's dining room.

On September 1, 1885, Herman married Mary C. Keimer.  She was the sister of John Keimer owner of Keimer's Grocery Store mentioned earlier.  Together they had 6 children.

In 1898, Vollmer hired Julius Hansen.  An article in the April 21, 1898 edition of the Clarion mentioned Julius as an employee.  There was another article talking about a project that Vollmer's was hired to do.  It stated that he assigned the job to Julius and spoke highly about the quality of his work.

I was going to write a separate article about this incident, but since it happened at Vollmer's store, I will include it here. In the July 6, 1899 edition of the Clarion, there is a story about Julius Hansen while working for Vollmer.  It turns out that Vollmer was responsible for the clock in the tower of the courthouse at the time.  A service contract perhaps?  According to the article, Mr Vollmer was out of town and left instructions for Julius to wind the clock, but he put it off too long.

I learned that back then, the bells in the courthouse, in addition to time, were also used to notify the fire department of the address of a fire.  Kind of like Morse code, only with bells.  Julius put off winding the clock and the bells started ringing in an abnormal way that started to confuse the fire department.   The article says "The noon strokes were slow and painful and indicated the striking mechanism had that tired feeling."  It goes on to say that Julius fixed it and "how tempus is fugiting as they did before."  I had never heard the phrase "tempus fugit" before, but it is Latin for "time flies."

In May of 1900, Julius left Vollmer's to go work for Bachner Timepiece.  More on that in the next article.

On December 5, 1901, Herman's wife Mary passed away.  He remarried the following September to Catherine Wagner.

Herman Vollmer passed away on March 6, 1937.  He is buried in Saint Joseph Catholic Cemetery in Princeton. His obituary points out how he was a very long-term business man in the community and was well respected. 

As for his part in Hansen's history, he gave Julius his start in the Princeton community.  Julius probably learned a lot of the ins and outs of running your own business.  And even though Julius had plenty of his own training, I'm sure he learned a lot about jewelry making and watch repair from Herman Vollmer.

Here is a photo of Vollmer's store

Before Hansen there was... Rudolph Jaegermann

At first I thought I had this article all sorted out, but then I found some new information and had to rethink it.  As previously stated, Julius came to the United States in 1881 at the age of 14.  He lived in Cincinnati, OH and later moved to St. Louis.  I found in a St. Louis city directory from 1882 Julius listed as a "laborer" living at 1021 Allen Ave. The building is still there:

In the 1883 directory, it listed Julius as a "watchmaker" at 3205 Easton Ave.  Today there is a senior living center at that address.  All of that I still think is correct.  Previously I stated that Julius attended the St. Louis Watchmaking School at 5815 Easton Ave (today it is known as Dr Martin Luther King Drive).  I think I have found this to only be partially true.  The school was ran by a man named Rudolph Jaegermann.  I just like saying his name... Rudolph Jaegermann.  In a German accent it would be Rudolf Jägermann.

Rudolph Jaegermann drawing
from St. Louis newspaper

He was born in 1849 in Hamburg, Germany (what a coincidence!).   He first came to St. Louis and married Marie Holst in 1874. They had a son named Otto and three daughters Matilda, Maria, and Ester.  

Prior to running the school, Mr. Jaegermann ran a jewelry store in St. Louis for 10 years.  It was located at 415 Pine St. The building has long since been tore down and was located about 2 blocks from where the arch is now.  This is where I believe that Julius actually worked for Mr. Jaegermann and may have been considered an apprentice.  Julius could have attended Mr. Jaegermann's school during it's first year.  Julius may have even given Mr. Jaegermann the idea of starting it in the first place.  From what I can find, the jewelry store went out of business owing a lot of money to a bank... and to his mother-in-law.  He had a couple court rulings against him in 1885 and the store and assets were auctioned off.  This gave Mr. Jaegermann the opportunity to focus entirely on his school.

Mr Jaegermann was an inventor in his own right.  I have included a couple of his patents in the photos at the end. One is a clock with a pendulum above the clock face.  The other is some sort of winding mechanism for a pocket watch. Here are some advertisements for the school:

I guess daughters need not apply.  The address given at 622 Locust St, was the Jaegermann home at the time.  Later advertisements had the Easton Ave address.  There were many examples, mostly in newspapers, some in magazines.  Looking at other advertisements at the time, it seems that St. Louis was a hotbed for various specialty schools.   

Their house was also the school.  After Rudolph died, I do not think that Otto kept the watchmaking school going.  The last advertisement for the watchmaking school I could find was from 1922.

I have also included a photo from a few years ago of the watchmaking school and Jaegermann home known as "Capstick Hall".  It is still there today, but I am not sure what it is used for at this point.  At one time the local diocese owned it.  On September 9, 1947 it was the site of what is now considered a historical event for the St Louis area. You can read about it here.

 

I wonder if Julius kept in touch with Mr Jaegermann?  If he did, I'm sure Mr Jaegermann was very proud of the accomplishments of what was surely one of his star pupils.  It is worth noting another student of Mr. Jaegermann's named Joseph B. Vandever.  He ran a jewelry store in West Salem, Il, which is north-west of Mt. Carmel.

Rudolph Jaegermann died in St. Louis in 1934 and has no living descendants.  His son Otto never married or had children. His daughter, Matlida, had two daughters Lois and Esta Jane and neither had children.  Esta Jane was married to Vernon W. Meyer who was a circuit court judge in St. Louis.  Ester married but had no children. Maria married, but her husband died young.  She moved back to Capstick Hall with Otto and never re-married.

As for his part in Hansen's history, he educated Julius on jewelry, watch and clock making, and how to file for patents.  Who knows, maybe without Mr Jaegermann, Julius would have never invented the programmable clock.