It is the faintest of memories. My grandmother’s mother was an orphan. Rosa Faber was born shortly after her mother arrived from Germany. She was raised with another orphan girl named Rosa. In the mid-nineteenth century, this was not unusual. County and church orphanages took in some foundlings, but many of them were poorly equipped and life there was grim (think Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens). In rural areas or small towns, orphans were left to whatever charity existed.
The two orphans named Rosa went different ways in adulthood. One married Oliver Elchert, a well-to-do farmer in New Riegel in Seneca County. The youngest of their children was my grandmother. The other Rosa married a tailor in Bowling Green named Michael Greiner. But the two Rosa orphans kept in touch over the years. When they wrote to each other, they addressed each other as, “Dear sister.” When fate brought me to grow up in Bowling Green in the 1970s, several of Michael and Rosa Greiner’s daughters were still living in town, and treated us as family. As a youngster, I can remember being amazed at seeing my grandmother and one of the Greiner ladies holding hands! The bond was that strong after a century.
I only knew Michael Greiner, Rosa’s husband, by reputation. He was born in Alsace-Lorraine in 1854, that little chunk of France that had a majority of German-speaking residents. We do not know just when he came to the United States, but became a citizen in 1878. As a tailor, he had a good reputation, judging from an article in a Bowling Green newspaper:
“Michael Greiner, High Grade Tailoring
Very little can be said about Mr. Michael Greiner as a merchant tailor of high repute, that is not already known to the major portion of our citizens. An experience of several years in working for others, and about two years in furnishing the male portion of our society with up-to-date garments has given this gentleman's thorough knowledge of what is required in his line of trades. And that he is prepared to meet all demands made upon him no one will dispute after examining the carefully selected samples exhibited by him one door north Exchange Bank, upstairs.
In the line of tailoring, cleaning and repairing Mr. Greiner is an expert, and has built up a patronage which includes many of the leading and influential men of this section. The large trade enjoyed has been drawn to him because of the fact that he can always be depended upon; because he gives entire satisfaction, and because his charges are always as low as consistent with first class service.
Mr. Greiner is straightforward in all transactions, is a worthy citizen and stands high in his large circle of acquaintances.” (Wood County Democrat, February 16, 1900).
The Greiners had a good sized family as well. Six children were living at home in 1900. Mary, the oldest was following her father into tailoring, while Leo was listed in the Census as a baker. By 1910, third child Joseph was working in one of Bowling Green’s glass factories. At the time, Bowling Green rivaled Findlay and challenged Toledo as glass-producing towns. Natural gas, so plentiful that the towns could give it away, turned out not to be long-lasting. Even younger daughter Rose had a career as the City Editor of a Bowling Green newspaper. I knew her as “Aunt Rose” when I was a boy.
I still have one of my grandmother’s many recipe books. There are many handwritten recipes for such things as angel food cake, doughnuts, ‘green corn pudding,’ cough syrup, and mailing addresses, It was only years recently that I noticed the name of the merchant who had passed out the book as a free advertisement.: “M. Greiner, The Tailor, Bowling Green, Ohio.” I may try to make the doughnuts when next I remember the two orphan girls.
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