| Schaefer House | | 1917 | 3465 Burns | English Colonial | Mildner and Eisen | Jacob M. Schaefer was born on April 25, 1860 in Detroit, MI to John Schaefer and Gertrude Weidenbach (both parents were born in Germany and emigrated to the U.S.). John was a carriage maker and Gertrude raised 11 children. As of 1880, Jacob had one older brother, Charley, and 9 younger siblings. In 1880, the family was living at 86 Clinton St. in Detroit; many of their neighbors were Eastern European (the 1880 census lists Polish and “Bohemian”) and German (“Prussian” or “Bavarian” per the 1880 census). The Schaefers and many of their neighbors had last names that suggest they were Jewish. In 1880, when Jacob was around 20 years old, he was working as a painter; his siblings and neighbors had other similar occupations ranging from “rag peddler” to bookkeeper to brick mason to store clerk, suggesting that the neighborhood around Clinton Street was made up of mostly working-class immigrants and their children. Jacob married Clara Schumacher in June 1895 in Detroit. Clara and was born in Detroit and her parents were German immigrants, Joseph Schumacher and Gertrude Andre. Pastor Leo Stauss officiated their wedding and Jacob and Clara’s siblings were witnesses; Jacob was 35 and Clara was 28 when they married. The fact that a “pastor” married them suggests that Clara was Christian (Protestant, probably Lutheran). That same year (1895) Jacob and John Schroeder established the Michigan Smelting & Refining Company for the purpose of trading old metals; Joseph Sillman joined the group and became an executive at the company in 1900. The business was incorporated in 1903. In 1912, the company’s plant was moved to nine acres on Joseph Campeau Ave. in Hamtramck. During World War I, the company manufactured enormous quantities of metal for the U.S. government/military. As of 1921, the company was making some 750,000 pounds of metal daily including brass and bronze ingots, brass billets, brass slabs, solder, babbitt, lead and tin pipe, brazing spelter and die castings.1 Jacob and Clara had one (at least one *surviving*) child, Edmund J. Schaefer, born in 1897. In 1900, Jacob, Clara, and their son were living at 52 (-244-272) E. Moran in Detroit; it is not clear from the 1900 census whether or not they owned their home on E. Moran. However, by1905 Jacob was wealthy enough to be featured in a book of caricatures of notable Michigan businessmen and politicians. 3On or about 1910, Jacob, Clara, and their son moved to 1102 (-100-107) “Boulevard East” (today’s East Grand Blvd.). They lived here until 1917 while their house on Burns St. was being built. In 1917, Jacob, Clara, and twenty-year-old Edmund moved into their new home on Burns St. in Indian Village, Detroit. (Note: the house number on the 1920 census is 707 (-81-106); today it is 3465 Burns St.) Clara’s younger sister, forty-two-year-old Mary Schumacher, was listed as Jacob and Clara’s “servant” on the 1920 census. (Mary most likely lived on the 3rd floor of the house). Some 13 years younger than Clara, Mary was born in 1876; in 1900, after Clara had left home and married Jacob, Mary was unmarried and living with her parents and younger siblings on Maple St. in Detroit. After the stock market crash in 1929, Jacob, Clara, and their son, Edmund moved out of the house on Burns. Perhaps Jacob had to liquidate his assets following the financial downturn and sold the house as a result. In 1930 Jacob, Clara, and Edmund were living in a rented house on Cooper Ave. in north Royal Oak, MI (Normandy/Woodward area). Jacob died from arteriosclerosis (heart disease) at 8746 Petoskey in Detroit in 1939; he was 79. He is buried in Mt. Elliott Cemetery in Detroit (Section M, Lot 96, Space 13). Clara died in 1952 and was buried next to Jacob at Mt. Elliott (Section M, Lot 96, Space 15). Their son, Edmund, was named as the informant on Jacob’s death certificate. Edmund was a photographer and married a woman named Alice; they had two daughters and one son and were living on Chatsworth Blvd. in Detroit as of 1940. |
