American Venice

This is a photograph of my Grandmother, Anna Maule sitting on the fender of the car. The day looks beautiful for a trip to the beach or a picnic. Note the dirt road and crops that are growing on the side of the road lead me to believe it is late spring or early summer. Anna is dressed in a short sleeve dress and the driver is wearing a suit jacket. The boys in the car were wearing caps and probably had knickerbockers on because of the warmer time of the year. The photograph was taken at the end of the teens or early twenties.





My father grew up near or on the border of Copiague and Lindenhurst known as American Venice. We have photographs taken at the end of his road looking at the water. Here is a photograph to the right of my father taken near the back of the house. He is dressed in his little sailor outfit. To the left another photograph looking across the street at a neighbor's yard with my father in the foreground. I remember that my father took us to the area where he lived one evening during the summer. He showed us where he lived and told us that the area known as American Venice was originally used for film making before Hollywood became so important to the industry. According to the information that I found on the Internet they do not mention the film making industry but instead it was a real estate venture to bring more people to the suburbs before and after the Great Depression.

 Below is a photograph of my Uncle Billy who is standing on the dock near the canals. They lived on 487 John Street in Lindenhurst according to the 1920 Federal Census.The picture taken of my grandmother, Anna Maule probably taken at the end of their block near the canals. It looks like this was taken the same day as the one by the automobile.
Another photograph of my Uncle with either his brother taken the same day as the previous one on the dock near the canal. This picture was taken of the neighbor's home across the street. They lived in American Venice until 1925 New York Census where we find them living on Wellwood Avenue in Lindenhurst.

American Venice became a unique place to live through my fathers memories.

 "An ornate gazebo sat on an island in the middle of a laguna at the north end of a canal framed by striped mooring poles and gondolas imported from Italy. From their perch of towering columns, statues of winged lions invited passersby to come closer and explore, to saunter over arched Venetian bridges and past Italian-style villas.
This was once the scene not in Venice, Italy, but in American Venice, a unique community created in the 1920s in Copiague, just off the Great South Bay. The Great Depression and a surge of year-round residents eventually transformed American Venice into a conventional suburban neighborhood, and for years the Town of Babylon has been trying to recreate those golden days. But it would require acquisition of a site at the head of the canal, and the town has been unable to persuade the property owner to sell.
American Venice was the brainchild of real estate developers Victor Pisani and Isaac Meister, according to a new book, "Copiague" (Arcadia Publishing), by Babylon town archivist Mary Cascone. At a time when many communities on Long Island were still on the cusp of development, the pair decided to create right in the heart of Copiague an oasis dedicated to a city more than 4,000 miles away."

By The Sea, By The Sea

My Aunt Gertrude had a beautiful smile and eyes.  Here she is enjoying a day at the beach in her fetching bathing outfit circa late teens early twenties. If you look especially closer you can see beach chairs and a pavilion in the background of the photograph. I think that this bathing suit was styled after the two piece dress worn pre 1920 style. Note the long skirt, stockings and bathing shoes. I wonder what my Aunt would of thought of today's swimming gear. I think she would have liked the styles and how they looked and felt. You can tell from the photographs that I have of her she took great pleasure and effort when coordinating her outfits.

Fashion history was shocked into the 20th century with some of the newer all revealing figure hugging swimsuits that revealed the body limbs more clearly than ever before.

Liberated from long skirts, young women of the twenties wore a figure hugging wool jersey sleeveless tank suit.

Left and right - bathing beauties in the 1920s and below in 1928

The swimming suit was ideal for the androgynous athletic figure that fashion suited best in the 20s.  It looked very similar to male swimming costumes of an earlier era. 

The swimsuit legs stopped at an unflattering point mid thigh and beneath the swimsuit legs were built-in modesty shorts. 

Swimsuits were often in dramatic abstract patterns or stripes and those with poorer figures covered them up with wraps.

Whilst the new bathing cap of the 1920s, ideally suited to bobbed hair was not unlike the cloche hat of the same era.

The photograph found below  is of a friend of my Aunt's probably taken the same day. The one to the right (middle) resembles my father's side relatives and is possibly of  his mother (left) And her sisters to the right. If you recognize any of the photographs please contact me by email or leaving a comment. The photograph found all the way to the right is of my Aunt with a 20's bathing suit possibly taken on a different day. You can see how the bathing suit is made of jersey fabric and shows off more of the figure.

Yours, Mine and Ours

Aunt Minnie, Grandmother Anna
 and Father Joe

My father's family was a blended family in that each parent had children from a previous family. "A stepfamily or blended family is a family where one parent has children that are not genetically related to the other parent. Either one or both parents may have children from a previous relationship. Children from a stepfamily may live with one biological parent and visit their other biological parent, or they may live with each biological parent for a period of time.^[1]" At times this was the case with my father's family. where two of the brothers took turns living with both their mother then their father according to the census records. Looking at 1910 census both William and John lived with both their mother and father part of the time.  The Hain or Hein family consisted of two children John who was born on October 26, 1906 and William who was born on August 22, 1902 born to Anna Maule and Diedrich Hein. The two brothers grew up knowing their father, Diedrich but one of the brothers along the way had a parting of the ways and grew apart from his father thus changing his name to Hain. Uncle Billy or William Hain changed the spelling of his name from Hein to Hain.

Uncle Billy

While at the same time living in the household was the Koferl clan consisting of Henry Frank born on September 1, 1896 and Minnie or Helen born in 1900. Minnie or Helen and Henry Frank were born to Pauline and Henry Koferl.Here is a photograph of Aunt Minnie or Minnie Ha Ha the name my father, Joseph gave her and his mother Anna Maule. Minnie and Joseph were haf sister and brother to one another. My Uncle Billy was the only Uncle on my paternal side that I really got to know. As the two families grew up they grew apart and only my father and Uncle Billy seem to stay close.

In 1920 Minnie lived in Lindenhurst with Anna and Henry Koferl my Grandparents and worked as a clerk. According to the 1925 New York Census Minnie lived with her Aunt and Uncle the Scipios. at that time she was working as a wrapper in Brooklyn. After the 1925 NY Census, I lost track of Minnie the paper trail seems to have ended probably due to her getting married and the change of names.

Henry Frank lived with his father according to the 1920 Census and he worked as a salesman. He married Rebecca Gardner on December 17, 1928. By the 1930 & 1940 Census they were living on Hallock Street in Riverhead and he was working as a plumber. According to the census records they had no children.

John Hein who was living with both his parents up until the 1925 NY Census worked as an auto mechanic.  In 1930 according to the census he was still living with his father, Diedrich and was working as an assistant auto service manager. By the 1940 U.S. Census he is married to Anna and they have two children Rose Marie who is 10 at the time and John Jr. who is 7. He is working as a plumber at that time.

Victory Garden

When my parents moved into their house on 79 Park Avenue in Deer Park, America had already entered the war. Both of my parents wanted to do their part and so they planted their first victory garden. Along with ration stamps they managed to survive the war years and continued the practice of planting a garden for the rest of their lives.  " Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany^[1] during World War I and World War II. They were used along with food stamps to reduce pressure on the public food supply. Around one-third of the vegetables produced by the United States were from victory gardens.^[2] In addition to indirectly aiding the war effort these gardens were also considered a civil "morale booster" — in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown. This made victory gardens become a part of daily life on the home front." This is a photograph of my parents preparing the ground for the garden. My father had a scythe in his hands and he is cutting down the tall grass before he turns over the ground. The building behind him was the garage that my father worked out of for many years as an automobile mechanic. Some of the vegetables that my mother and father planted were red beets, carrots, string beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, lettuce. My mother canned all summer long putting up tomato sauce, string beans, pickling red beets, preserving jams and jellies, rhubarb and strawberries, apple sauce, pickles, corn on the cob, to name a few.

During the war my father would get all the women together in the neighborhood and they would share their ration stamps for gasoline with him so that he could purchase gas to use for the repair shop. He would then take the women to the stores to do their shopping. The effort to carpool save them a lot of gasoline ration stamps. Other things that helped when it came to rationing was that Mrs. Nicklaus their friend had experience the rationing system from the previous war and told my mother to buy extra staples for example sugar for she knew that a ration stamp system would soon be put in place.

During the war my father was the neighborhood air raid warden. It was his job to check the homes in the neighborhood to make sure they were drawing their curtains following the correct blackout procedures.  "During the Second World War, the ARP was responsible for the issuing of gas masks, pre-fabricated air-raid shelters (such as Anderson shelters, as well as Morrison shelters), the upkeep of local public shelters, and the maintenance of the blackout."

William Hain and the General Store

In this photograph my Uncle Billy is working in a general store in Nassau County.  He was a half brother to my father, Joseph and they shared the same mother, Anna Maule. The photograph shows a young man sitting at the counter where my Uncle worked. The boy is wearing Knickerbockers which tells us that this was taken in the early 1920's. My Uncle Billy was born in New York on August 22, 1902 to Anna Maule and Diedrich Heins Sr. most likely the photograph was taken when Uncle Billy was in his late teens or early 20's.

"The American general store flourished throughout the 19th century but declined rapidly in the 20th century, particularly after the 1920s. It was mostly succeeded by specialized stores, each handling a relatively narrow product range or a particular type of good....The general store served as a meeting place for members of the community, of which the storekeeper was an important member not only because he supplied material goods but because he was also the source of news and gossip. Because produce from the land and forest tended to yield a seasonal return, the storekeeper also sometimes extended long-term credit of from six months to a year to his customers."

The concept of the general store where customers were assisted with there orders as opposed to self service was practiced during that period of time. My Uncle would not only gather the order but ring it up and bag it as part of the service. This was all done while the customer sat waiting for his order to be filled. Cans goods lined the shelves with price tags on the shelves displaying the current cost. Every nook and cranny was filled to capacity in an orderly manner. Popular advertisement lined the top shelves while below a coffee grinder appears to be waiting for use. Gas light fixtures were probably converted to electric by the time the photograph was taken.