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by Carol Ann Overath with updates and corrections by John T. Overath
The Overath saga begins on December 4, 1858 with the birth of Octave Overath in Trier,
Rhineland-Palatinate. Very little is known of Octave's forbearers. Family rumor places the
Overaths in the town of Overath, a village east of Cologne, prior to the 1850's, but
nothing definite is known.
Octave's history shows many typical German-Catholic aspects. As a young man he served aboard a square rigger. One incident that is recorded in the family chronicles involves the embarrassment of his father, the Burgermeister, when Octave came home from leave in his bare feet. He was given a new pair of shoes befitting the Mayor's son. However, Octave promptly hocked the shoes for a good bottle of schnapps. At some point Octave contemplated joining the Society of Jesus, possibly influenced by an uncle who was a Trappist Monk. He learned several languages and lots of theology from the Jesuits. Family legend tells us that he learned so much that he lost his faith and didn't return to the Church until his old age.
Octave arrived in New York City during one of the major waves of German emigration in 1880. While in New York, he met and married Amelia (Molly) Schroeder, a former resident of Budapest, Hungary. Prior to her emigration from Budapest, little is known of Molly's life. However, her surname suggests that she was of Germanic extraction. Also, the fact that she was working as a domestic in New York City seems to imply that Molly came to the United States as an indentured servant. The only other inferred fact from Molly's past is that she was not raised a Roman Catholic, for she converted to Catholicism shortly before her death in 1936. That Octave married her is further indication of his loss of faith. Catholics were not encouraged to marry outside their religion.
When Octave and Molly met, he had already been trained as a silversmith. In 1885 the Overaths went back to Germany, returning to America four years later. After returning to the U. S., Octave opened a silversmith shop on Sag Harbor, Long Island. What became of the shop is unknown but Octave next moved his family to Newark, New Jersey where he worked as foreman of silversmiths and assistant superintendent of the plant for Tiffany & Company. Octave was apparently an excellent silversmith because for many years the entrance to the Tiffany Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was graced with two huge candlesticks which were made by Octave personally.
A final note on Octave, he illustrated another aspect in the Germanic stereo-type by his treatment of his son George. Ever the autocratic papa, Octave forced George, his only child, to abandon his dream of studying architecture and art. Instead George was sent to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to study silversmithing and design. While in New York, George met and decided to marry Magdelen Josephine (Madge) Schneider.
During the pre-war years George and Madge lived at various residences in Newark and Lakeview, New Jersey while George worked at Tiffany & Company. There he was classified as a silversmith, but he actually only stamped the Tiffany name on silver products. Prior to U. S. involvement in the war, the couple had four children George Nicholas, Jr., John Francis Xavier (or Babe), Mary Margaret Octavia, and William Joseph Raymond. Why George Sr. did not serve in World War I is unclear. For a time during the war, George worked at the Federal Shipyard in Kearny, N. J. so he might have gotten a deferment through working for a war needed industry. He returned to Tiffany's after being told by Octave that he would lose his place and his seniority. The most likely reason that George Sr. did not serve is that he was thirty-four and the father of four and was therefore not called to serve overseas.
After the war the Overaths moved to an apartment on Prospect Avenue in Newark, where they weathered out part of the post-war recession. At this apartment, George and Madge shoveled soft coal into a furnace to keep the family warm during the 1918-19 coal shortage.
The early 1920's brought Prohibition. The Volstead Act became effective on January 1, 1920. In spite of the fact that there was a party at the Overath's that evening, George spent the night at Chippy Blum's Saloon on Sumner Avenue. Just before midnight he staggered home, clutching a brace of Rhine wine bottles to his breast. He teetered into the bathroom, laid down in the bathtub and quietly slept the New Year away. Yet another Overath drinking story was born.
Life for the Overath's in the 1920's and 30's is a good example of the typical American family for this time period. The Overath's were forced to move in with Madge's parents in Brooklyn during the post-war recession of 1921. As the recession eased and the 1920's turned briefly towards prosperity, the family was able to return to Newark just prior to Thanksgiving, 1922.
It was during the prosperous years of the 1920's that George Jr. began to work and strive towards his dream of becoming an architect. George began work at Tiffany's Newark office in 1925, after only one year of high school. That same year he enrolled in the architectural course at the Newark Technical School. In the spring of 1930 George completed the course and began working for the RCA Radiotron plant in Harriston, New Jersey as a draftsman.
The Great Depression brought much trouble to the Overath household. George Sr. lost his job and his home in 1930, and from then to his death in 1940 he never worked again. After 1930, Madge and the elder offspring supported the family. After losing his job at RCA, George Jr. went to work for the Osbourne Company in North Newark as an office boy. After working for Osbourne for one week, George Jr. was transferred to the payroll department where his boss was Marguerite Marshall. Two weeks later George was again promoted and transferred, this time to Osbourne's American Colortype plant in Allwood. He was laid off due to the Depression in February 1933. After a short return to RCA George was again employed by the foreign sales department at American Colortype. During this time George Jr. and Marguerite Marshall were engaged but, due to George's assignment in Bermuda, were not married until 1937.
After their honeymoon the couple moved to Newark. Two months later George quit his job with American Colortype and went back to work as a draftsman, this time for the United Color & Pigment Company. With the U.S. entry into WWII George was given the choice of either being drafted into the army or working for the government at Columbia University. What George's exact job was on the Manhattan Project is uncertain. It is known that he was an engineer at the time and worked under Dr. Harold Urey (a Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry), and Dr. John Dunning (an expert on the Universities' Cyclotron).
In January, 1945, George's work with the Project ended, and he joined Engineers, Incorporated in Newark. During this time George's fourth child was born and they relocated to Livingston, New Jersey. Due to the post war recession in 1949, George lost his job at Engineers, Incorporated. He then started his own engineering business, but this lasted only a few months. He worked for a Morristown architect and then returned to Engineers, Inc in 1950. That same year Marguerite bore twins, thus the Overaths had their sixth and seventh, also their last, children. Two years later George left Engineers, Inc. and began working for Fletcher-Thompson of Bridgeport, Connecticut as a field engineer. In 1953, he took an architectural brush up course at the Institute of Design and Construction in Brooklyn, and later that year became a registered architect.
(History of Jack's family deleted -- to be updated and published in the next issue! -Ed.)
In this narrative I hope I have shown how various events have shaped the Overath family. From its beginning as skilled labor to the present generation of college graduates. The influence of the modern technological world has followed the family through time. In short, it would be difficult to live in the modern world and not be shaped by it.