When the Lilacs Bloom Again
Gusta Korbgoweit was born in Wehlau County, E. Prussia. Her son George remembered the village of "Augansbora" which could be Augken, Augstupoenen or Augstugirren. Gusta and her sister Mary gleaned grain on a Junker estate there. When Gusta was about 7, the family moved to Koenigsberg. There she learned urban or High German. In the fall of 1890, the Korbgoweits emigrated on the ship "Amerika." There was a great storm during the crossing. Gusta thought she would die of seasickness if not drowning. They docked in Baltimore in November 1890 and Herman the eldest son and new world scout led them to Connellsville, PA.. where her father Sam got work mining and later, drawing coke for the steel industry. Gusta may have had a job briefly picking beets near Connellsville- which she hated. By the mid-1890's, the country was experiencing depression and many Germans from Connellsville went out to Wisconsin to look for work. Gusta read an ad for a housekeeper at the Bellis Hotel in Wausau and left to work there. Her employer, a Mrs. Haene was said to be a tyrant. Soon however, she was shed of Mrs. Haene when Gusta (now"Korbywhite") met a lanky storekeeper's son by the name of John Hafeman who was in town getting supplies. They married at Zion Lutheran Church in Wausau on 29 Sep., 1897. In about 1901, they moved to the old Kennedy farm at the corner of 52 and J in the very southwest corner in Town of Hewitt.
The house there had a large dining room with a 15 ft. table in it for all the farmhand kids. There was an oil lamp over the table. The house had no electricity. Ingvold Olson, Gusta's son-in-law, built long cupboards for the kitchen with a window in the center. There was a wood stove in the kitchen on which Gusta made huge, farmhand-sized flats of hash browns with eggs cracked on top. She stretched the peanut butter with Caro syrup. When Joyce Olson, her grand-daughter tried to put butter on her toast along with peanut butter, Gusta scolded and called that "dickfressig."
Gusta sewed all the kids' clothes and ticked the mattresses. She also kept a large garden. She always worked in it until it was time to give birth. In fall, they loaded up the potatoes on the wagon, opened the cellar door and filled the basement with them. She kept crocks of various foods like sauerkraut on the steps going upstairs to keep them cool. The house only had a wood stove downstairs and no heat upstairs. The kids slept upstairs under feather ticking two-to-a-bed. Gusta and John's bedroom was downstairs at the end of the hall. In their bedroom was an heirloom glass candy jar which the kids were not allowed to touch. If they were good, Gusta might lift the lid and dispense one candy.
There was no plumbing in the house. There was a three ft. diameter washtub in the kitchen for bathing and an outhouse. There was a small parlor/living room cordoned off with draw curtains. When Oscar died while diving at Eau Claire Dells, they laid him out in the parlor. The undertaker poured the blood down the outhouse. This bothered his sister Olga greatly.
Gusta kept a clean house. She took the ashes from the fireplace and scrubbed the wood floors until they were white. At Christmas, the girls baked gingerbread cookies while the boys went out into the woods to cut a Christmas tree. They decorated it with popcorn, fruit, gingerbread men, pictures and small candles which were lit only on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve they gathered round it, sang and on a good year, they might exchange a small gift like an apple. Christmas dinner was ham and potatoes. The family never had a lot of money, but they always had enough to eat. When they were littler, the girls had one dress for church and one for chores. Those chores included picking rocks where the glacier had dropped its drift across their fields. Despite starting out poor, the girls became fond of dressing up. While picking rocks, they pulled their sleeves down so they would not get farmer tans. Only Meta, Gusta's eldest daughter stayed on the farm. The rest moved to the city coming back to visit on Sundays and holidays.
Gusta's daughter Olga had her wedding shower at the Sunrise Ballroom in nearby Nutterville. Most of the wedding receptions were held in the Hafeman's large dining room. Gusta played accordion and John Sr. clogged. The wedding guests often danced til 2 or 3 in the morning. The kids always wanted grandma to sing her songs over and over- songs like "Ach, du lieber Augustin." One wedding was to be held the first couple days of June when the lilacs bloomed. The lilacs did not cooperate that year and bloomed early.
Main sources for this short bio: George Hafeman (son), Olga Olson (daughter) and grand-daughters Joyce Wilde, Sharon Olson and Jo Fruectl.