Conradine Rosamunde Schwan (1884 - 1972)

Born 28 Oct 1884 in Bremen, Deutschland

Ancestors

Died 6 Nov 1972 at age 88 in Albany, New York

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Biography

Rose Schwan entered the world on 28 October 1884 in Altstadt, Bremen, Germany, the 3rd of 7 children of Conrad Schwan, a saddle maker from Moor, Bruchhausen-Vilsen, Germany, and his wife Rosa Walter, from Buer, Melle, Germany. She was given the name Conradine Rosamunde, but her family called her Rosa.

When Rose was 14 years old, she went from Bremen to Bruchhausen-Vilsen, a trip of 24 miles, to help care for her elderly maternal grandparents, Heinrich Walter and Sophie Gertrud Busch, and to help them in their store, which they had acquired from Rose’s paternal grandfather, Friedrich Schwan. With her grandparents she acquired a love of reading, and learned how to manage a small business. She later remembered how her tongue got so tired from talking customers into buying something. She remained with her grandparents about a year and a half, until her grandmother passed away in the summer of 1900, when she and her grandfather went back to Bremen.

When she was 20 years old, Rose decided to leave Bremen to come to America to join her brother Jules in Hoboken, New Jersey, then known as “Little Bremen”. She left Germany on 23 June 1905 on the steamship Batavia, never to return to her homeland, and arrived in New York on 7 July 1905. Upon her arrival, she changed her name to Rose, quickly learned English and found work as a store clerk.

About 1912, she and her brother moved from Hoboken to the Bronx. Their home was directly across the street from the Academy of the Sacred Heart, known as Maplehurst. The property had previously been known as Villa Boscobel, the home of the first mayor of Chicago, William Butler Ogden, until his death in 1877, and still contained his mansion and 11 acres of beautifully manicured grounds that had been designed by the famous New York landscape architect, Calvin Vaux. Rose was enchanted by the gardens and eventually met the gardener’s daughter, who introduced her to the Convent, where Rose volunteered to help in the kitchen.

As time passed Rose became comfortable with the Catholic way, and when her brother Jules married and moved back to New Jersey, she decided to commit her life to God. On 23 June 1915, she was baptized into the faith at the Church of the Holy Spirit and on 6 January 1916 entered the Society of the Sacred Heart at Manhattanville (on the east side of Convent Avenue at 133rd Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan).

She took her first vows at Manhattanville on 15 August 1918, and also took the title "Sister Rose Mary", which never changed in her lifetime. In 1918 she returned to Maplehurst, where she had first come to the faith, and remained there until 1924, when she went to Kenwood for 6 months, and then to Noroton for 3 years, at which time (1927) she came to Eden Hall, where she spent the rest of her working life. In August 1971, too frail to continue, she was taken to Kenwood, where she passed away 15 months later.

On a personal note, I received the Western Union telegram of the passing of our "Aunt Rose" at home on the evening of Election Day 1972 and shared the sad news with my father. We were both too sad to speak about it, but I remembered her as the sweetest, most positive and unpretentious person I had ever known. In the 44 years since, almost to the day, I can't say that opinion has changed. She had a way to make everyone she was with, in person or by letter, feel cared about, special and happy to know her. And yet, none of us ever knew that she was severely hearing impaired since childhood, only learning of that many years after her passing by one of the sisters who lived with her at Kenwood.

Mark Swanson

Sources

• WikiTree profile Schwan-118 was created 6 Nov 2016 by Mark Swanson.

• Birth records received from Peter Meyer (Great-grandson of Conrad Schwan) at Miami Beach, Florida, 14 Mar 2007, by Mark Swanson.
• Western Union telegram notifying family members of her death, received at Miami, Florida, 7 Nov 1972 by Mark Swanson.