Alcohol in my family has been a big, if under recognized player. I look at the landscape right now and the affects of it spread from generation to generation. In some places it effects are light. Some places it hangs heavy.
The Story of Alcohol, as far as I've discovered on my father's side of the family go to his father, Joseph August Muller. I have heard no stories about his father Leonhard, though, my dad might of had some if I'd thought to ask.
Joseph August Muller was born in 1891 and was the forth or fifth of six kids. He was born in Williamsburg Brooklyn as far as I know.
He didn't seem to have a career in mind when he ended going to school, most likely at sixteen. Back then children of immigrants were not expected to go to College and leaving school at sixteen was acceptable. Joseph August worked at several different jobs. He was an Office boy in 1910, a machinist helper in 1915.The 1920 census hasn't been found yet, but in 1930 he sold insurance.
He went to the Presbyterian Church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where he might of met his future wife. There is no marriage certificate yet, but I believe they were married in the early 1920's.
Him and his wife moved up to Rockland County in the early 1920's. I don't know if his brother Willie was first or not, but Willie bought a house on Route 59 in Nanuet at the time and Joseph, built a house on what was then called Benson Ave. Benson hooked around and came back up to what is now called West Nyack Road, then it was Route 59.
His first son, Joseph Leonard was born in 1920. My Dad, was born in 1922, Uncle Ken was born in 1924 and Doris was born in 1929. There are rumors of another child or two. One named Estelle, according to Lucille Lanzer Hoeberline and a boy named John, according to my Dad. My Dad said he was born in a camp house (A Camp House was a summer cottage for city people to rent during the hot summer months) near Uncle Willie's house as well as his brother Ken. I guess the house was still being built.
It's easy to blame the depression for people turning to alcohol. It's also convenient. I don't know why he drank. Maybe it's the same reason everyone drinks, why I drink. I enjoy it and there are times where I need it and there are times where it relaxes me after a bad day or a busy day. Or maybe I want to celebrate something. Or the reasons I used as a kid when I started drinking, it was not allowed and it was dangerous. Maybe my grandfather drink for none of these reasons, maybe all of them. Did he get his girlfriend pregnant and have to marry her and they didn't love each other. I don't know and probably never will.
My first drink, whiskey, I think, I remember taking at sixteen. I got caught after a while, but I never stopped. I didn't like beer at first, but it was expected that as a guy you'd drink beer, so after a while I developed a taste for it.
I don't know why Joseph August started drinking, but he continued to drink until the late 1940's, early 1950's. My Mom, who came on the scene in the early 50's said she never saw him drink or ever drunk. He was said to be a mean drunk. Harriet, who was his first grandchild remembers him living in Nyack in the forties and when her family would visit, he would call down from his Apartment window on the second floor telling her to catch and he would spit tobacco juice at her. His drinking would get so bad that my father and his brother Ken tried to get him to go away to a sanitarium so he could quit drinking.
In the home movies of him later in the fifties, I see a man maybe trying to make up for being a lousy father, husband and grandfather. Taking an interest in his seconds wives grandkids, helping his son build an extension on his house. He built the two workbenches in the cellar of 19 Klein. The big workbench stood in the same place against the eastern wall never moving as long as I was alive until 2016 when the drain system was put in to stop the water from collecting in the basement. The Big Workbench stood up to over sixty years of water damage before the legs gave out when it was moved. The small Work bench fell apart earlier in the 2000's.
The effects of his drinking as I said before run deep. His Oldest son, Joseph Leonard, the only one to go to college became an accountant. One of the stories about Uncle Joe was told to me by Lucille Lanzer Hoeberline, she said that when they were younger he wanted to date her. Being Cousins, she didn't see much future in it. Uncle Joe, married and moved to Queens. I was told he didn't like Jews, but his best friend was Jewish. My Uncle smoked continuously. He would light oa new cigarette from the end of a just finished one. I remember him standing in the living room, near the sun porch and he starts to cough and he coughs until his face turned a beet red. I think that was a short while before he was diagnosed with cancer. He died at the age of 45. His Wife had died a few years earlier. When We went to his house to clean it out it was packed high with junk. He was a hoarder.
His children are Joseph and Miriam, she is called Terry, both had problems of their own. As Adults, Joseph is very secretive. He has a house, somewhere, I think. He has a sister who got married and moved to Virginia. When her husband, Gary contracted Lou Gehrig disease and died shortly after she never recovered. She disappeared and We went looking for her and Karl was able to locate her, Joe knew where she was and didn't tell anyone and afterwards cut everyone off who went looking for her.
It is too convenient to blame all of a families problems on alcohol. In my Uncle Ken's family, his children have suffered several divorces of their own, a brush with drugs and the law and the death of two grandchildren from drugs. Hell, You could blame the 60's for all the turmoil, or just life.
Our Family was quieter then my Uncle Ken's, and not as nutty uncle Joe's. We'll get to Aunt Doris in a minute. In our Family, people took drugs, hung out with people who took drugs, all three boys drank, but for some reason we all survived it and maybe having kids a little later in life then our cousins has helped our children. As of 2017, all are kids are amazing people, destined to be great Americans.
That doesn't mean that we were all innocent. No it just means that we were lucky. During the late 70', early 80's I didn't think one of us was going to be alive much longer. He had his death car and death friends and it seemed he was trying real hard to die. Thank God something changed.
My drug use was limited to pot, you know weed, marijuana. I smoked it during the late 70's a little. The first time we were driving and smoking, The Police come around a corner behind us, lights flashing, sirens blaring. I had the joint and crushed it into dust on the floor as we pulled over and watches the cars pass us by. God must of had a real laugh over that.
In my family, there has always been an undercurrent of fear about Alcohol. My mother's Father was an Alcoholic.
I have been told Milton R. Moffett was an amazing man....when he wasn't drinking. His father James was an amazing man and a tall order to live up to.
James was born in Philadelphia PA. He married Gertrude Stickland in about 1899 in York PA. He was big into advertising and truth in advertising.
He moved his wife and three kids to Baltimore MD sometime around 1910-13. He started Moffett-Lynch Advertising company. During his time there he contracted TB and moved to El Paso.
Starting over in El Paso he sold oil leases, crossed the border to Juarez Mexico to buy or sell things and finally he got a job at the El Paso Herald. I have a few articles from the Herald about things he did and interests he championed. He ran for a spot on the school board, wanted to build camps for people who were driving cross country to stay in. Remember it was before interstate and McDonalds. James wrote about things that interested him. One article was about his son Gilbert, another was about his daughter and her school play. And one about Milton when he graduated High School. He wrote a column under the pen name Ren Wick. Milton, I assume wanted to follow in his extremely large footsteps. Footsteps that from one-hundred years away seem easy and practiced, effortless. Not footsteps I'd want to try and fill.
Ruth Darrow Smith was born in 1901. Sometime in the early 1920's her brother Dudleigh was dating a girl named Helen. Somehow Helen contracted TB. Ruth's mother Mary Ann Harden Smith decided to nurse her back to health. During that time Ruth and Cornelia, 'Babsie' contracted TB. Ruth went to El Paso for her health, Babsie stayed in New York dying in 1928, Ruth in 1947. Mary Ann, their mother died in 1925 from unknown causes, maybe it was also TB.
Ruth got a job in El Paso, I think at the El Paso Herald and I think met Milton there. They married in 1929 and their first child was born in 1930.
James died in 1928 at forty-four years old. I don't know when Milton started to drink or when it started to get out of hand.
When Ruth got closer to death, her sister Emilie and Emilie's son Wally come for a visit. In the late 40's, this is an event. It is not like now when you can pick up a phone and call across the world to see and hear someone far away. Ruth's father, Walter Smith had not talked to Ruth in eighteen years. A Phone call was a dollar a minute back then and that was big money when an average person might make $30.00 a Week.
Milton promised to quit drinking around this time and he did until after Ruth's death. Milton would die eighteen years after his wife from effects of excessive drinking. Milton's son Milton, nick named Tonny joins the Air Force in 1947 at seventeen.
In 1948 Cornelia, Milton's daughter goes to her Aunt Emilie in New York meeting her future husband William Muller when he delivers bread to Cornelia's aunt's house in Sparkill house. Emilie will look after Cornelia for the rest of her life.
Cornelia and Bill have three boys and one girl. Alcohol will play a role in their lives to a lesser extent.
All three Boys will marry wives with strong personalities. The lone girl, Ruth will marry twice, the second one possibly being an alcoholic.
Bill's brother, Joe will marry have two kids, Miriam and Joseph, both will have issues in their lives from the way they were raised. Their Father seeming to have issues, maybe from being raised by an alcoholic.
Bill's other brother, Ken will raise one girl and two boys and one will be an alcoholic.
Maybe none of the above paragraphs have any bearing on why this latest generation of Muller's are like they are, maybe so...
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