7

HEYDAY

When the Tiedemann family moved into their new Franklin Avenue house, they tried as best as they could to get on with their lives and put the grief of losing Emma and Mr. Tiedemann’s mother behind them. Dora Tiedemann was hit especially hard by the passing of her sister. The two girls would’ve confided much in each other, and a sibling like that could never be replaced. Dora would, however, be blessed with the arrival of a new friend around this time. Moving into the house just to the east, at 279 Franklin Avenue, was a man named Frank Weischel, a local pharmacist. He had a family that included a daughter, who was Dora’s age, named Frances. Dora and Frances became lifelong friends.

On April 6, 1882, a twenty-three-year-old man named Heinrich Bühning departed a vessel in New York Harbor and from there boarded a train for Cleveland. Bühning had been invited to come to the United States by Hannes Tiedemann to work in his house. Hannes enjoyed being surrounded by other Germans, as their presence evoked fond memories of home. Bühning was very mechanically inclined, and Hannes Tiedemann felt that he could use someone of his skill at both the Franklin Avenue residence and the one in East Rockport. Heinrich became the Tiedemanns’ gardener and all-around handyman. Both properties were equipped with natural gas wells, and these needed regular maintenance. Heinrich Bühning was just the person for the job. After arriving at the Franklin Avenue house, he moved into the bedroom located in the servants’ quarters on the first floor. Louise Pollitz, meanwhile, occupied the guest bedroom on the third.

On January 10, 1883, Hannes Tiedemann requested and was granted a voluntary withdrawal from the Masonic order. This allowed him to pursue other activities.

Shortly after, Mr. Tiedemann decided that some extra help was needed around the house. With that decision came the arrival of yet another individual from Germany, a seventeen-year-old girl named Anna M. Juergens. Her duties included cooking and cleaning. Anna was housed in the fourth-floor bedroom.

The year 1883 saw some major changes in the life of Hannes Tiedemann. First and foremost was his decision to take the money he made from his real estate investments, as well as what he had accrued from the sale of his part in the Weideman Company, and became involved in the banking industry in Cleveland. This began in the spring of that year with his appointment to the board of directors of the West Side Banking Company. He’d follow this up on May 8 by playing a major role in the formation of the Savings and Trust Company at 42 and 44 Euclid Avenue and would become its vice president. Joining Hannes in this venture was his longtime friend John C. Weideman, who aside from having recently served as Cleveland’s police commissioner also served on the board of directors of this bank.

Thirteen days later, Hannes Tiedemann joined the board of directors of the Cleveland National Bank, serving as vice president there as well. Throughout all of this, he never spread himself too thin, and by becoming one of Cleveland’s foremost financiers, Hannes Tiedemann’s fortunes soared.

Just around this time, a twenty-three-year-old man named Edward Johannes Louis Wiebenson first arrived in Cleveland. Edward Wiebenson was born in Hemmingstedt, Holstein, Prussia, on August 19, 1859, to parents Jakob and Anna Reimers Wiebenson. In 1865, he traveled with his parents and younger sister, Amanda, to the United States, settling in Davenport, Iowa, a popular destination among many German immigrants.

Edward was educated in Davenport and studied in Germany between 1874 and 1876, after which he went to Traer, Iowa, to work as a drugstore clerk. After this, he moved to Chicago and took an apprenticeship with another drugstore and enrolled in chemistry courses at Rush Medical College. Upon completion, he returned to Iowa to open his own drugstore in Gladbrook. After a short time, Edward’s health began to fail. He was forced to sell his store and return to Davenport.

An undated postcard for the United Banking and Savings Company, formerly the West Side Banking Company, where Hannes Tiedemann served as president for twenty years. Collection of William G. Krejci.

As Edward’s health improved, his father suggested he take a trip to Cleveland and stay for a time with a family friend from the old country, Hannes Tiedemann. He took his father’s advice and arrived in Cleveland in the spring of 1883. Edward seemed at once interested in the banking industry, and Hannes was more than happy to mentor him. Enamored by what he’d learned in Cleveland, Edward Wiebenson returned west, settled in Dodge City, Kansas, and there helped organize a bank.

Edward, as it turned out, found another interest besides banking in Cleveland. That interest was in Hannes and Louise Tiedemann’s twelve-year-old daughter, Dora. The two took up a friendship almost at once and continued to write to each other over the next few years.

The third great event in Hannes’s life that year occurred on August 15, 1883, when a man named John Jungclas, a friend and neighbor of Gaston and Catharina Allen, passed away. Jungclas was survived by a widow named Josephina, who purchased a portion of Gaston Allen’s plot at Monroe Street Cemetery for John’s burial.

Edward Johannes Louis Wiebenson with his sister Amanda, late 1860s. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

Shortly after, Josephina Jungclas realized she might want to be buried beside her husband. The only problem was that the spot beside him was already taken. Wilhelmine, Ernst and Albert Tiedemann had been buried there when their lives were tragically cut short at early ages. Seeing how Hannes Tiedemann had purchased a family plot at Riverside Cemetery, a request was put forth, and Hannes granted Mrs. Jungclas’s wish. She would be buried beside her husband.

Jungclas family marker at Monroe Street Cemetery. Photo by William G. Krejci.

Edward Johannes Louis Wiebenson, circa 1890. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

On August 29, 1883, the remains of the three infant children of Hannes and Louise Tiedemann were exhumed and reburied at Riverside Cemetery in a section behind the family monument. A small concrete planter box was placed on the site marking the location of their tiny graves, and their names were added to the back of the large marble obelisk that graces the plot. Now the entire family could take their repose together.

Interestingly enough, it was this event that spawned many of the stories that paint Hannes Tiedemann as a monstrous human being. Most who have done research on the Franklin Castle seem to end up at some point at Riverside Cemetery and find themselves going through the Tiedemann family burial records. It’s when they see that three infant children were all buried on the same day that thoughts of them dying by some sinister means first come to mind. Most of these speculations accuse Hannes Tiedemann of foul play. In fact, it was an act of kindness that brought about this reburial. Hannes just wanted to reunite his family and allow a widow the right to be interred beside her beloved husband.

In 1884, Hannes’s son, August, decided to leave his position at the Weideman Company to take a job as a clerk with the Ohio Varnish and Oil Company. He remained there for a year before entering the same field as his father. In early 1885, August Tiedemann became a teller at the Savings and Trust Company on Euclid Avenue.

Marker for the infant Tiedemann children at Riverside Cemetery. Photo by William G. Krejci.

November 12, 1885, saw the arrival of a blond-haired and mustachioed thirty-year-old man named Ludwig Tiedemann to New York. Ludwig, a merchant by trade, was born in 1855 to parents Heinrich Tiedemann and Anna Hass and was raised in Hannes Tiedemann’s home village of Süderau. Within the month, Ludwig Tiedemann was living in a boardinghouse on Academy Street in Cleveland. Unbeknownst to him, his distant relative Hannes also resided in Cleveland and had for many years. Had Ludwig known this, he’d certainly have looked up his cousin upon arrival. As it was, he hadn’t.

Tragically, Ludwig Tiedemann went out on the night of Saturday, January 9, 1886, and got caught in a severe snowstorm. Being new to the area and knowing limited English, Ludwig lost his way in the storm and was missing for more than four days. When he was finally located, he was brought to the Cleveland City Infirmary. Unfortunately, he’d suffered such a severe case of frostbite that his feet had to be amputated. Ludwig remained at the infirmary for the next few months and there contracted meningitis. He died on July 6, 1886, at the age of thirty-one. Not knowing what to do with the remains, a doctor at the infirmary took a chance and contacted Hannes Tiedemann. Tiedemann was surprised to discover that a relative of his had been in Cleveland and hadn’t contacted him. At this, he claimed the remains and had them buried two days later in his family plot at Riverside Cemetery. There’s no epitaph to tell us anything about him, only a small limestone marker with the name “Ludwig” engraved on it. Today, the stone is extremely worn and almost completely illegible.

The day after his burial, a letter was received at the infirmary that was addressed to Ludwig from his parents. This letter was passed along to Hannes Tiedemann, who replied, informing Heinrich and Anna of their son’s death.

By late 1886, one of Hannes Tiedemann’s financial ventures, the West Side Banking Company, was doing exceedingly well. Ten years later, it would be reformed into the United Banking and Savings Company. In early 1887, Hannes was named president, a position he held for the next twenty years.

In August 1886, a group of west side German women proposed an idea for building a home for aged Germans. Starting out with only a few hundred dollars to spend, this group sought backing from some of Cleveland’s more well-off German families. Financial contributors to the Altenheim included Hannes Tiedemann, John C. Weideman. Charles Rauch, Louis Schlather, brewers Isaac Leisy and George V. Muth, John Meckes and many others. Eventually, a home was erected at 7719 Detroit Avenue, with Frank Cuddell as the architect. Construction began in September 1891 and was concluded a year later. The chairman of the building committee was none other than Hannes Tiedemann.

The faded headstone of Ludwig Tiedemann at Riverside Cemetery. Photo by William G. Krejci.

February 1888 saw the return of Edward Wiebenson, who moved into a house just a few blocks east of the Tiedemanns. He’d disposed of his interests in his banking venture in Dodge City, Kansas, to accept a position as a bank teller, working alongside August Tiedemann and under the direction of Hannes. He’d written to Dora many times over the past five years, and now the two were able to see each other more often. A romance was blossoming between them, and on the twenty-fifth of that month, the two were engaged. They kept this a secret, of course, as Dora was only sixteen and Edward twenty-eight.

Love had struck the Tiedemanns’ servants as well. Heinrich Bühning and Anna Juergens had grown close over the past few years and formed a deep attachment to each other. They were wed that spring.

August Tiedemann was also finding love. He’d been courting a young woman named Ella. Helena “Ella” Elizabeth Rauch was born in Cleveland on June 4, 1868, to parents Charles and Mary Anna Strebel Rauch. Ella’s father, Charles Rauch, was the son of Jacob Rauch, a co-founder of what would become the Rauch and Lang Carriage Company. Ella’s mother, Mary, was a daughter of Bavarian immigrants Johann and Magdelena Christophel Strebel. The Christophels were a very old family dating as far back in the Netherlands as 1642.

Ella was born a child of privilege, in the same social class as August. They attended school together on Kentucky Street, and it’s likely that Ella was a friend of Emma and Dora Tiedemann. The courtship went on for some time, and a happy engagement soon followed.

Around this time came the arrival of two men, Henry Elert and Louise Pollitz’s youngest brother, Adolph. Both came to Cleveland in search of work and were set up with decent jobs by Hannes as clerks at the Weideman Company. They were also welcomed into the Franklin Avenue house, occupying the bedroom on the second floor across from August.

August and Ella were married on June 20, 1889, at Ella’s parents’ house, with only the most intimate friends and relatives present. Reverend William Angelberger, pastor of the United German Evangelical Protestant Church at Bridge Avenue and Kentucky Street, officiated. Following the wedding, they took their honeymoon in Europe and returned to the United States aboard the Augusta Victoria on October 12. Upon reaching Cleveland, they moved in with Ella’s parents. August left his job at the bank to take a position as a clerk at the Rauch and Lang Carriage Company.

Ella Rauch Tiedemann, circa 1888. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

In 1890 came the announcement from Dora Tiedemann that she and Edward Wiebenson were also to marry. Word of the happy occasion spread quickly, and even Frances Weischel, Dora’s longtime friend—who had moved to Texas—was filled with joy for the happy couple. Upon receiving word of the engagement, Frances wrote a letter of congratulations to Dora. On June 28, 1890, while out at the Tiedemanns’ country estate of Steinburg in East Rockport, now being referred to as the Hamlet of Lakewood, Dora replied with a letter addressed to Frances:

My Dear Frances:

If you get a real cross letter, don’t be surprised, because I say a certain room smells of camphor balls & Mama says it does not—so I am mad—foolish isn’t it. First of all I must thank you for your kind congratulations for both birthday and engagement. I should have acknowledged your letter sooner but it was all a pair of pillow sham’s fault—they were so much work. Frances, Ed & I will not marry until my next birthday when I am 20. It was in Feb. 1888 that I was engaged to Ed, when I was still 16 and still went to school. Of course we kept it secret until now. Papa & Mama are very much pleased with my choice & there is a happy future before me. Oh I have all my underwear done & pillowcases & am now going to embroider initials in table linen. Of course it is a great deal of enjoyment to get things ready for keeping house your self. August & Ella are going to start housekeeping this fall. Wasn’t it sad about Mrs. Karl Schmidt’s death? How very sorry I am for the girls. Elizabeth did not cry for several days & was sick in bed when her mother was brought to the cemetery. The oldest son did not arrive until after his mother was buried.

Tomorrow some of the gentlemen are going to rent buckboards & go to the “Entre Nous” Club out to Silverthorns or Wishmeyers. The nine O’clock train has just passed & I must go & fix up a little down stairs.

My regards to all.

Answer soon—Your friend Dora

Late that December, a blessing came into the family in the form of a little boy born to August and Ella Tiedemann. They named him Carl Hans. Like his father, little Carl had blue eyes but dark brown hair and the delicate facial features of his mother.

Dora continued to correspond with Frances Weichsel in Texas. Just before her wedding, Dora wrote another letter.

My dear Frances:

Received your kind letter and I know you will be very much surprised at my hasty reply. But I just feel like writing so I had better make use of this most excelling spell. I saw Agnes day before yesterday & told her that you had said that you had had experience to back you. Oh Frances do tell me some of your experiences. I am very much interested you know, as much as you are about me surely. Hope it wasn’t sad that you rejected him & he committed suicide. Lou said you wanted to know if Papa did any kicking. Oh no he was very much pleased so was Mama & everybody. I suppose you know Ed & I corresponded together since I was 12 years old & we kept it up right along. They all knew it at home. What else could my dear Papa expect but to hear the grand news sometime that we were engaged. At any rate Frances I look forward to a happy future & I have found all in Ed that you spoke of in that letter of advice. The only doubt is about myself. Oh Frances I am terribly stubborn. I never rest until I have had my will. But I think some people have altogether a different influence over one, don’t you? When I was first engaged, I was walking with August one evening. He did not know anything about it and I told him then & he answered “Who said so?” He wouldn’t believe it.

I have quite a number of things I have saved up all these years. Mama knit me a lovely bed-spread & now we are crocheting one which will be very pretty. I can’t well decide what colors I want my bed-room and the spareroom yet. In fact, I think there is plenty of time, we have no idea where we will live yet. August and Ella will commence tomorrow to build right next to Charlie Wieber on Detroit St. Mrs. Charlie Wieber looks rather suspicious. Every little while, a laughable remark will be made that is when the married women are not around.

We went out to Rocky River last Tuesday. Schlaters are building a new house on their place. Mrs. Schlater had been dangerously ill but is slowly improving now. Rosie & Emilia have gone up north to the mountains for their health, you know Rosie is consumptive. Anna got a diamond necklace for her birthday, 11 stones. Leisys are building an enormous large house of red stone next to their old one. Mr. Otto Leisy and his wife will live in the old one. Went to call on Tonie Schmidt the other day, she is the same as ever. So you are coming to Cleveland, that will be fine. I wish we were in town though then. Will you stay a little with me then or will you wait till Carl Krause comes back from Europe & be entirely occupied there? You better look out for some of the girls in Cleveland though because they are dead gone on him. In a few weeks probably I shall go to Defiance to see my cousins. Hope you won’t arrive while I am gone.

Imagine Detroit St. is going to be paved to the west end of Cleveland & the streetcar will also go out that far. We have gas-light along Lake Ave. now. I tell you it’s improving. Now I don’t know any news to tell you but that Louise [Pollitz] is practicing exercises very diligently. I have given it up as a bad job. Mama, August & Ella are outdoors in the heat somewhere. August is sick. Again Mama hopes your mother has not forgotten about writing. We send love to you all.

Ever your friend Dora

On May 23, 1891, Dora Louise Tiedemann was married to Edward Wiebenson. The ceremony was held at Steinburg in Lakewood with the Reverend John H. Niemann, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church on Jersey Street, officiating.

Following their wedding, Edward and Dora moved into a home on McLean Street. By now, August and Ella had moved into a grand home on Detroit Avenue, where they remained until 1900. For Edward, along with a new married life came a promotion. He was made the secretary and treasurer of the United Banking and Savings Company.

Heinrich and Anna Bühning continued to live at the Franklin Street house, where they also started a family. Three daughters were born at this house: Viola, Alvina and Ida. The three girls shared the guest bedroom on the fourth floor.

The year 1892 saw the addition of two more children to the Tiedemann and Wiebenson families. With gray eyes to match his mother’s, Herbert August Tiedemann was born on October 15. Edward Ralph Wiebenson was born on December 29, two years to the day after his elder cousin Carl. Edward was Dora and Edward’s first child. Herbert was August and Ella’s last.

Also in 1892, August left his job with Rauch and Lang to take a position as the secretary and treasurer of the Phoenix Brewing Company. Toward the end of 1894, Louise Tiedemann began to experience pains in her abdomen. As the months wore on, the pain worsened so that by the beginning of 1895, she was in bed and suffering from what Dr. J.H. Lueke, the new family physician, classified as a liver complaint.

At 1:10 p.m. on Thursday, March 28, 1895, Louise Höck Tiedemann passed away at the age of fifty-seven. Funeral arrangements were made with undertaker E.H. Saxon to have Louise buried out of her home on Franklin Avenue. Louise’s casket was set in the front parlor on the second floor, and at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 31, the funeral service was held. From there, the pallbearers carried her casket down the front steps to the waiting hearse and the mourners processed to Riverside Cemetery, where Louise was interred beside her daughter Emma.

Louise Höck Tiedemann with grandson Edward Ralph Wiebenson. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

Left to right: Carl Hans Tiedemann, Edward Ralph Wiebenson and Herbert August Tiedemann. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

Following the death of Louise, Hannes was overcome with grief and did all he could to keep himself occupied with his work. Late that spring, he boarded a vessel bound for Hamburg with a man named Claus Greve, an old friend and bookkeeper at the Weideman Company. It was there in Hamburg that sixty-three-year-old Hannes became acquainted with thirty-nine-year-old Henriette Margaretha Köpcke. Born on January 9, 1856, she was the daughter of Peter Christian and Rebecka Katharina Rüsch Köpcke of Freiburg. Henriette, by most accounts, was a short woman; in actuality, she was about five feet, five inches tall, not all that short by most standards. Other accounts claim that she was a waitress. This has never been proven.

Hannes Tiedemann and Claus Greve returned to America aboard the Normania on August 9, 1895. The beginnings of a relationship between Hannes and Henriette were now in place.

On April 5, 1896, Easter morning, Edward and Dora Wiebenson were blessed by the arrival of twin sons Albert August and Walter Ernst Wiebenson, Albert being born first.

Two months earlier, the house next door to Hannes Tiedemann, which had previously been occupied by the Weischel family, went up for sale. The lot was divided into two separate properties, and the house on it was torn down. The west half of this lot was purchased by Hannes Tiedemann. On May 14, Hannes sold this lot to Dora and Edward Wiebenson. Two days earlier, Hannes sent a letter to the United Banking and Savings Company:

Mr. Wiebenson is hereby authorized to draw on my account up to four thousand dollars to pay for Labour and material in putting up a new house next East of my dwelling No. 283 Franklin Ave. and that amount is hereby donated to him if it takes that much or more to build said house.
—H. Tiedemann

While construction of their new Arts and Crafts–style home was commencing, the Wiebenson family moved into a house on Detroit Avenue in Lakewood, not very far from Dora’s father’s home on Lake Avenue.

Immediately following the sale to Edward and Dora, Hannes Tiedemann and his brother Claus took a train to New York, where they boarded a vessel sailing for Hamburg. Near the end of the summer, Hannes sent news home that he would be returning with a surprise. While in Germany, he and Henriette had married on June 13, 1896.

Letter from Hannes Tiedemann to the United Banking and Savings Company, circa 1896. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

Hannes Tiedemann. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

Hannes, Henriette and Claus returned from Germany on the Normania on August 28. Henriette took much enjoyment in watching the lake behind the Tiedemanns’ Lake Avenue house. Eventually, Heinrich Bühning, who’d now Anglicized his name to Henry Buehning, built an elevated dais on the back of the property so that Henriette could sit in a chair and watch the lake as often as she’d like. Jokingly behind her back, the servants referred to this as her throne.

Sadly, before the Wiebensons moved into their new home on Franklin, one of their two newborn sons, Albert, passed away in the middle of the night of November 19 from heart disease at only seven months old. His remains were interred at Riverside Cemetery in the Tiedemann family plot. Following this, doctors took a closer look at Albert’s surviving twin brother, Walter, and determined that he, too, was suffering from childhood weakness. Most assumed that he’d be lucky to live to twenty-one. In fact, he’d live to ninety-six, outliving all of his brothers.

The Wiebensons were blessed with two more births, John Jacob on December 13, 1897, and Howard Cook on May 24, 1899. By then, the family had moved into their new home on Franklin.

With the spring of 1897 coming to a close, Hannes Tiedemann realized it was no longer necessary to retain his house on Franklin Avenue. He could easily ride the streetcar from Lakewood to work in Cleveland. Also, staying on Franklin would take Henriette away from the lake she enjoyed watching for hours at a time. Whatever the case may have been, a decision was made. Just as the summer was approaching, Hannes moved himself, all his personal belongings and his servants to the house on Lake Avenue and would lock the doors to his Franklin Avenue house for the last time.

Hannes Tiedemann briefly rented out the house before ultimately selling it, thus marking the end of the first era of the house that history would come to call the Franklin Castle.