Else Dauer Celebrates her 77th Birthday

by Jim Graupner; editing by Philip Graupner
[Information drawn from an interview of Johanna Luise "Tante Hanni" Graupner, by Jim, on 3 July 1971, in Spencer, Wisconsin]

[Family Photo Courtesy of Philip Graupner: Elsa Selma Graupner Dauer, Erika, Ursel, Else, August Dauer]

Else Anna Lina Dauer Eickstedt celebrates her 77th birthday today, 9 February. Grandma Emma Aufderheide Boock had the date noted in her birthday book. Else was the oldest of three daughters born to Elsa Selma Graupner and August Wilhelm Dauer in Schlangenbad, Germany. The photo to the right shows Else at six months, 9 September 1930.

Her father was a master cabinet-maker in the beautiful mountain village of Schlangenbad im Taunus. Her parents actually met in the United States, in Milwaukee. In 1928, August, who worked for Nash as a draftsman, returned to Schlangenbad to work in his father's cabinet shop. Soon after, Elsa followed and they were married in September, 1928, in Schlangenbad. In 1935-36, August decided to take a position at the Opel Company as a model-maker for autos and, perhaps, airplanes.

The photo to the left shows Else at the school door in Schlangenbad, on her first day of school [ca. 1936].

The photo to the right shows Else and Erika (b. 11 April 1934) swinging on the courtyard gate of the store in Mulheim-Ruhr, Mellinghoferstr.69, 1938 or '39.

Perhaps August and Elsa had taken the girls to visit their grandparents, Anna "Oma" and Hermann "Opa" Graupner, in Mulheim, where Oma and Tante Hanni had a grocery

store in the first floor of their three-storied house.

After their house and store were destroyed in the bombing during WWII, Opa and Oma Graupner and Hanni, moved to Schlangenbad, near the Dauers for several years. Hanni worked in a grocery store in Georgenborn. Uncle August had resumed his cabinet-making for local clients and occasionally for the U.S. Army base in Wiesbaden.

When Else traveled to the United States, her Grandmother "Oma" Graupner and Aunt Johanna "Tante Hanni" already had arrived in Wisconsin, visiting three of her children's families: Ida Graupner (Mrs. Willard) Liepert, Hermann and Malinda Bloedorn Graupner, and Carl and Gertrude Boock Graupner. The photo above was taken on the kitchen steps of Ida and Willard Liepert's farmhouse, near Kewaskum. If I've correctly identified everyone, seven of Hermann and Malinda Graupner's children accompanied their father for this occasion.

The bottom two rows include: Richard, Donald, Herman, Paul, Robert, Dora Lou, and Linda Ann Graupner, and Willard "Willie" Liepert. The top two rows include: Anna Glaser "Oma" Graupner, Gerald "Jerry" Liepert, Uncle Hermann Graupner, Else Dauer, Uncle Willard Liepert, Joan Graupner, held by Aunt Johanna "Tante Hanni" Graupner. Philip noted that, in studying the photo, Jerry Liepert must have been on furlough from army training.

In 1953, Else married Raymond Eickstedt, who's family farmed in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Else and Raymond lived in Cedarburg and raised five children there. Raymond was an airplane mechanic for the Falk Corp. in Milwaukee. Later, Raymond took a position near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, as a small-airplane mechanic, so the family relocated to Lander, where Ray was the airport manager.

[Ray Alex (11), Yvonne (10), Erica (9), Ingrid (6), and Angela (1 1/2); Photo from January 1966).