Joseph Henry Koferl

My father, Joseph Henry Koferl was born to Anna Maule and Henry Joseph Koferl  on on November 16, 1915 at his parent's home on 487 North Hoffman Avenue in Lindenhurst, NY. It was common practice in those days to have a midwife assist in the birth of a child. Midwives in most states practiced without government control until the 1920s. Even today, regulation of midwifery varies from state to state. ...By the beginning of the 20th century, midwives attended only about half of all births in the U.S., and physicians attended the other half. 

According to the 1930 Census Joseph attended school as many of the young boys did at that time till he was 15. Children were greatly affected during the Great Depression, even if they didn’t understand what was happening. They knew if their parent(s) had lost their job. They knew that money was scarce. Some children had to leave school to take jobs and help support the family. Most of the time it was 16 and 17 year old children who dropped out of school to go to work. But sometimes younger ones had to drop out and go to work. Joseph was no exception to the rule and so he dropped out of school and got a job driving a soda truck. He had no license but he drove a truck until one day he said to his boss, I need to take some time off so that I can go for my road test. The boss was very surprised that he did not have his driving license. This is a picture of Joseph standing next to an old car with a relative or friend. Joseph is the younger boy with the tie.

He worked various jobs and eventually got a job in Deer Park working for Mr. Hagen as a mechanic. He held this job until Axel Hagen retired and moved to Texas. Joe lived in the house next to the Hagens on Park Avenue when they lived in Deer Park. He opened a repair shop at home and worked from his home till he retired due to health reasons back in the 1980's. Many of the neighborhood children grew up learning about the repair business from Joe. He became well known and at one time he repaired school buses for the school district. Of course things were different back in the 40's and 50's. At that time there was very little problems with zoning and commercial businesses.

I remember that we still had a few farms in our town when I was growing up and my father would repair tractors and other farm equipment. Sometimes he would have to create a part that was no longer available. What I enjoyed most out of the experience of my father working from home was that he was always around to give you advice and help you with a bicycle repair. His garage is still standing.