| Carl R. Krafft was born in Reading, Ohio, on August 23,
1884. At the time, his father was serving as a preacher for the Johannes
Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Reverend Carl F. L. Krafft had been
born in 1847 in Regensburg, Bavaria, the son of Pastor Carl Krafft.
They were descendants of Adam Krafft, the sculptor of the sixteenth century
whose works can still be found about the old town of Nuremberg.
At the age of nineteen, Carl immigrated to America to attend a seminary in Marthasville, Missouri. He was ordained as a minister in 1872 in St. Charles, Missouri. He married Wilhemina Meier of New Melle, whose father Henry Meier, was a pioneer who had come to that territory in 1860. Rev Krafft served as a traveling pastor, or circuit rider, throughout Missouri and Kansas until he accepted a position in Ohio in 1884. Five years later, after leaving a parsonage in Indiana, the family moved to the South Side of Chicago. The Salem Evangelical Church welcomed the large family which now consisted of seven children -- Emanuel, Frederick, Amanda, Pauline, Carl, Adolf, and Emil. The church had been founded in 1860 by a group of German settlers. After much dissension, the congregation called Rev. Krafft to the pulpit. For twenty-three years, the congregation enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity. My father, Carl, had many fond recollections of living in the parsonage next door to the church. At one time he raised pigeons in a coop in the backyard, much to the consternation of the parishioners who never knew if they could reach the safety of the church unscathed. A Sunday morning chore shared by the younger boys was the pumping of the church organ by hand in a small room behind the pipes of the organ. Electricity was not in use at the time. Occasionally the pumper fell asleep during the sermon and had to be awakened to pump again for the closing hymn. Regular playing cards were not permitted. The boys made up their own version of cards using pictures of flowers, animals, and buildings. They convinced their mother that it was a different game. Another chore was the tending of the furnace in the parsonage. Carl would do anything to be relieved of this duty. he was afraid of the rats in the basement. Everyone in the household knew when it was Carl's turn to shovel the coal in the furnace. He whistled all the way down the stairs and banged the coal shovel to scare the rats before he got there. The boys enjoyed sneaking out of the house by sliding down the rain spout from their second-floor bedroom. Carl's first ambition was to be an acrobat. He and his four brothers fitted up the backyard as a circus ground and they entertained the children of the neighborhood. It was not unusual for the boys to walk to school on their hands. The wooden sidewalks made hand-walking easier. A pastor's income was very low and, with nine people to feed, the offerings of home-grown products was appreciated. The whole family looked forward to weddings, christenings, and even funerals to help with the finances. During Carl's school days, his teachers reprimanded him for drawing in all of his textbooks. However, they did recognize his talent for drawing and encouraged him by having him do the artwork in the school. He took piano and organ lessons and later became the church organist. His love for music continued throughout his life. My father gave up the idea of becoming a circus performer in his early teens. He entered business college and his first job was in the office of a paint factory. A job in a stationery store followed. This office position consisted of pushing a cart through the Loop delivering orders. (The center of the business section of Chicago is known as the Loop, because the tracks of the elevated or "L" make a loop around certain streets.) Carl then worked for a wholesale dry goods store, the owner of which also had the idea that a business-college graduate should push a cart. This time, however, it was an "inside job," hauling goods from the stockroom to an elevator. He next answered an ad for a "bright young man with fine penmanship" to work in a pet store. Carl got the job, but soon discovered that the work consisted of 90 percent cleaning bird, rabbit, and ferret cages and 10 percent displaying penmanship. One day he refused to clean the monkey cage in the front window of the store and was fired. Carl decided the business world was not for him. |