LEVINE:

Okay. This is Janet Levine for the National Park Service. It's February 17th, 1994, and I'm in the home of Mr. and A Daiberl. I've just interviewed A Daiberl who came from Germany in 1926. And now I'm interviewing Mr. Daiberl whose first name is Louis. He came in 1924 when he was twenty...

DAIBERL:

[interposed] '25.

LEVINE:

Oh, '25? Okay, 1925, when you were twenty-four years old. No, you were twenty years old.

DAIBERL:

Twenty years old, right.

LEVINE:

Twenty years old. Okay. So you came a year earlier than your wife.

DAIBERL:

Well, few months earlier.

LEVINE:

A few, okay. Okay. Tell me first your birthdate. Your birthdate.

A DAIBERL:

January 1st, 1904.

DAIBERL:

January 1st, 1904.

LEVINE:

Okay. And you, where were you born?

DAIBERL:

In Gerzen, lower Bavaria.

LEVINE:

Spell the name of the town.

DAIBERL:

G-...

A DAIBERL:

E-R-C-E-N. Oh, no, wait a minute. G-E-R-T-C-E-N. Gertcen. Yeah.

DAIBERL:

Gerzen.

LEVINE:

G-E-R-T-C-E-N?

A DAIBERL:

Yeah:

LEVINE:

In Bavaria. And did you live there the whole time before you came to the United States?

DAIBERL:

No.

LEVINE:

Where did you go?

DAIBERL:

There, I lived out on a farm when I was about nine years old. I worked a year for ten marks. One pair of shoes and a shirt was my pay for a whole year. Cleaning pigsty, cow barns.

LEVINE:

Where was this farm?

DAIBERL:

Near Gerzen. The whole, the whole area there was nothing but farming. And a lot of [Not understood]) very poor farmers.

LEVINE:

So, did you go to school at all?

DAIBERL:

Yes, I did go to school till the sixth grade. Then the world war broke out. Then they needed everything at home for farming. They had to write to the Pope to let me out of school, because I was needed.

LEVINE:

So was your, was your father a farmer, too?

DAIBERL:

No. He was, in the summer he was in masonry. In the winter works for the government in the woods, cutting the woods.

LEVINE:

Cutting woods?

DAIBERL:

For the government.

LEVINE:

And what was your father's name?

DAIBERL:

Stefan.

LEVINE:

Stefan. And your mother's name?

DAIBERL:

Theresa.

LEVINE:

And do you remember your mother's maiden name?

DAIBERL:

Stertsenberger.

LEVINE:

S-T-E-R...(there is a pause)

A DAIBERL:

Stertsenberger. Stertsenberger would be S-T-E-T...

LEVINE:

S-E-N...

A DAIBERL:

S-E-N, berger, B-E-R.

LEVINE:

Okay. And did you have brothers and sisters.

DAIBERL:

I don't how many. I always said six of them starved to death.

LEVINE:

Really?

DAIBERL:

They were. [Laughs]

A DAIBERL:

Not really, he's kidding

LEVINE:

No?

DAIBERL:

Just about. There weren't any alive that I knew of.

LEVINE:

And when you went to that farm, how long did you stay there?

DAIBERL:

A year. Then I hired out to another farm. They paid a little bit better. Not very much. Then they were as far, as I'm concerned, taking half. They were [Not understood]) that I felt it.

LEVINE:

So after you worked for the two years on those two different farms, then what?

DAIBERL:

I left. I went to upper Bavaria.

LEVINE:

Oh.

DAIBERL:

And some friend of mine from the hometown worked in the factory there, and he took me along. I don't know just how it was, but anyway I worked in the factory a couple of years.

LEVINE:

What, what did the factory make?

DAIBERL:

Oh, God, I don't know anymore.

A DAIBERL:

You worked in a coal mine, too.

DAIBERL:

Yeah, that was after.

LEVINE:

So you worked in the factory a couple of years. And did you, who, who did you live with? How, where did you stay when you were in upper Bavaria?

DAIBERL:

The friend that took me, he had a room and I slept with him there. Then I decided to leave there. He, he left. He went somewhere else, and I said, "No, I'm going to stay." Then from there I quit. And I went in a coal mine.

LEVINE:

Was that in upper Bavaria, too?

DAIBERL:

In upper Bavaria.

LEVINE:

What was it like working in the coal mine?

DAIBERL:

Well, not too bad. It didn't pay very much. Especially during your time.

LEVINE:

Can you describe what you would do? Like in a given day, what would you do when you went into the coal mine?

DAIBERL:

Just digging coal. That's all.

LEVINE:

Say it again?

DAIBERL:

Digging coal.

LEVINE:

Digging coal. Uh-huh.

DAIBERL:

But I forgot what they paid, but it's about, it was union. And they had to pay a little better wages than most. When I was in the, on the farm, when I left Gerzen, I got six dollars a week. Worked like a horse from two, three in the morning in the summertime. They just treated you like you was twenty or thirty years old.

LEVINE:

Were you very strong? Were you?

DAIBERL:

I was as strong as an ox. Und (and) still today yet, as crippled up as I am.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Was there anything good that came out of all that farm work? Anything good about it?

DAIBERL:

The farm work?

LEVINE:

Yeah.

DAIBERL:

No.

LEVINE:

No.

DAIBERL:

[Not understood] was less. The woman was less, so were the guys. But whoever could spend a buck or so to go in the saloon, smoking big cigars and drinking, but they didn't give a darnn what happens to the help.

LEVINE:

Did you...

DAIBERL:

As, as far as I'm concerned, they can have Bavaria. Not that the country's beautiful----- but the way the people are treated. [Tearful]

LEVINE:

Yeah. You were treated very harsh for a, a young man. Yeah.

DAIBERL:

And I wasn't the only one. Everybody was, too. [Pause]

LEVINE:

Do you have any pleasant memories about being in Bavaria?

DAIBERL:

Oh, yeah. In upper Bavaria where I worked in the coal mine, there was up in the Alps, every weekend, every Saturday you can go in the Alps, in a different mountain. Five, ten couples. One guy with an accordion, and they play the accordion all night, and we hiked as far as we could. They rested up in the mountains a couple hours, then for home again for the next day the work. One time I stop the touring car. And I ask whether they give us a ride. There was for about ten miles where you could drive, so I was going to give him a mark. He says, "No, danke schoen. Ich bin ein Fabrikbesitzter." "Thank you, I own a factory." So he didn't want my dollar. But there was just about every Saturday -----from five to ten couples. [Pause]

LEVINE:

Did you ski? Did you ever ski?

DAIBERL:

No.

LEVINE:

No. Uh-huh. So what did you do for enjoyment? You went hiking?

DAIBERL:

Most...

LEVINE:

You played music...

DAIBERL:

There, there was my sport.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh.

DAIBERL:

From one mountain to another. Every weekend we go from, from one to another. [Pause] There were two, -----there were two lakes real close to us. One was Schleiersee; the other one was Tegernsee. Well, that's about our home life, what we done up there.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Well, what did you do after you left the coalmine?

DAIBERL:

I worked for the government. I got hurt. I had my arms crushed.

LEVINE:

What were you doing?

DAIBERL:

Seven hundred pound coal wagon. Jumped the tracks and I was trying to lift it out. I try to lift it up backwards, like so. [He indicates] Und my foot slipped und smashed my arm against a rock. The rock went right through the arm. I was in the hospital about twelve weeks. Then when the foremen s-----I went up to the mine. When the foreman saw me, he says, "Why don't you take your vacation at Denkenburg [PH]." I said, "Okay." I took my vacation and I looked for a job at the same time. There was some openings for the government to work way up in the mountains where they tell us stain the root down, stain the trees. And actually they got all measured, und counted how many little trees they need to replant it again.

LEVINE:

Was that for the government, too?

DAIBERL:

Yeah, that's all, that was all government work.

LEVINE:

So you did that, you planted trees and ---.

DAIBERL:

No, we were just surveying.

LEVINE:

Oh, surveying.

DAIBERL:

We were just a surveying group. There, there were probably fifty men and women, every day planting little trees. They don't do it like they do it here. They chop everything down and leave it lay. Out there they cut anything like a forest, a good size tree, next it gets right transplanted again, new.

LEVINE:

So were you able to use your arm...

DAIBERL:

Oh, yeah.

LEVINE:

after you had the accident?

DAIBERL:

Oh, yeah. I didn't have a problem till three years ago now. [Laughs]

LEVINE:

So did you like that job when you were doing the surveying?

DAIBERL:

Very much. Und it was me not to go over. My foreman says,------ he was a young college kid---- he says, "I got an uncle in Australia. He wanted me to come over." He says, "I ain't going." He says, "He's got a great, big ranch down there. He can have that. I don't want it."

LEVINE:

So did you stay surveying until you came to this country?

DAIBERL:

Pardon?

LEVINE:

Were you, were you doing the surveying until you came to the United States?

DAIBERL:

Yeah. It's, surveying I done when I was in the country.

LEVINE:

And then after that? Did you have another job after that in Germany?

DAIBERL:

No, the surveying, that was my last job.

LEVINE:

I see.

DAIBERL:

Then I come over here.

LEVINE:

How did you decide to come here?

DAIBERL:

How did I start? My sister sent me; I don't know what the fare was, hundred-fifty dollars or two hundred dollars. She sent me a ticket for that, and my fare was paid to, to Jacksonville. And that's how, my sister was living here in Palm Bay, but she didn't pay the part from, from Jacksonville down here. So I stayed in the, in the train station---with my fingers in my ears. Where the hell am I goin? Try to talk to somebody, then one lady out of kindness says, "Talk to this guy. He's Bohemian. He can talk German, too. They told me, I told them all that I needed, und he put me in the right direction, where I could get the train to go to, to Melbourne. That wasn't too bad. [Pause]

LEVINE:

What did you know about America before you came here? What did you think about it?

DAIBERL:

Well, I don't know. I couldn't tell you, really. But I figured nothing can be worse than we had in lower Bavaria.

LEVINE:

And did you come by yourself?

DAIBERL:

Ja (yes). I meet a guy on, on the train. I only had a few marks. He come almost from my hometown, too. Und he had a little reserve. I couldn't eat nothing once we were on the boat --- for three days I couldn't eat a damn thing. Drink beer. That would stay down. Anything else, whoop .

LEVINE:

What boat did you come on?

DAIBERL:

Műnchen.

LEVINE:

Műnchen? And, and...

DAIBERL:

That's the capital of Bavaria.

LEVINE:

And did you...

DAIBERL:

Munich.

LEVINE:

Munich. Where did you leave from?

DAIBERL:

Pardon?

LEVINE:

Where, which was, was port did you, did you sail out of? What was the port that the ship left from?

DAIBERL:

The ship from?

LEVINE:

Yeah. The ship. Where did you get on?

DAIBERL:

Bremen.

LEVINE:

Oh, you got on at Bremen?

DAIBERL:

I got, I got on at Bremen.

LEVINE:

And, and the name of the ship was the Munich?

DAIBERL:

No, I did not g---I went on the,----Műnchen was the...

LEVINE:

Munchen.

DAIBERL:

...the boat's name.

LEVINE:

Okay.

A DAIBERL:

That's the real name for, for...

LEVINE:

Munich?

A DAIBERL:

Yeah.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah.

LEVINE:

And, and do you, were you down in the, in the steerage, in the big part, in the bottom of the ship where everybody was in one room? Or were you in a cabin?

DAIBERL:

No, we came over in a cabin.

LEVINE:

And could you eat food after the first few days?

DAIBERL:

Couldn't keep nothing down. I had to throw up. And I tried to get to my cabin, and what the hell they call the steward----- was right out there. He said, "For three dollars I clean it up." That's all I had, too. If I had had five, he would have taken five. But three's all, that's, that's the only money that I had. Und so the other guy that I got acquainted with says, "Oh, don't worry about it. I have plenty of money for beer." But they were just as crooked ---- they're just like anywhere else while they can ---- get a buck out of somebody, they steal it.

LEVINE:

So when you got to Ellis Island, do you remember when the ship came into New York Harbor?

DAIBERL:

Not really.

LEVINE:

Do you remember Ellis Island at all?

DAIBERL:

Oh, yeah.

LEVINE:

Tell me about that. What was it like for you?

DAIBERL:

Well, it wasn't much of anything. We couldn't talk. We couldn't speak anything. [He taps on his microphone]. There was a store, or whatever it was, they handed us a box, like a big cereal box, with a couple of sandwiches in there, an apple.

A DAIBERL:

Crackers.

DAIBERL:

There was, there were, was our lunch for the next couple of days.

LEVINE:

Did you have to stay overnight there?

DAIBERL:

At Ellis Island?

LEVINE:

Yeah.

DAIBERL:

No I don't, I don't think so. They hauled us on the train somewhere.

LEVINE:

So you, nobody met you? You just...

DAIBERL:

No, no, no.

LEVINE:

Do you know how you got to the train?

DAIBERL:

To the train?

LEVINE:

Hmm.

DAIBERL:

Well, I went in the.--

A DAIBERL:

On a bus.

DAIBERL:

I--- I went in the big hall, and they were there ---hell, they were there in like cattle. And you had to open your suitcase.

LEVINE:

What did you bring? Do you remember what you had in your suitcase?

DAIBERL:

Yeah. A German army rifle. [Laughs] Not supposed to have a gun. But my sister says, "Bring your gun. There are all kinds of animals stealing your chickens, and, so I brought the rifle. I put it in; I didn't tell them that I had a rifle. I put the suitcase on the counter, the colored guy comes in. there's only about two pieces of clothes, closed it up. I figured if I have to go back home again I go back home.

LEVINE:

[Laughs] Well did you, did you, had, did you know your sister, the one who sent you the ticket? Had you, you knew her from when you were a little boy.

DAIBERL:

Right.

LEVINE:

Was that the last time that you had, been, seen her? When had you seen her before that?

DAIBERL:

Oh, God. She came over here in 1923, I think. She, she married over here. She, she married a guy she didn't even know.

LEVINE:

Oh, she came over as a mail order, was it a mail order bride?

DAIBERL:

Some, something like that.

A DAIBERL:

Not really.

LEVINE:

How did, how did she meet him, do you know?

DAIBERL:

Der (the) man?

LEVINE:

Yeah.

DAIBERL:

A guy from my hometown, from Gerzen. Some old guy, well, he know everything. He knew this guy, und he knew my sister, too. And somehow he managed to get the, to write to one another.

LEVINE:

Oh. Uh-huh.

DAIBERL:

And then she came over in Palm Bay.

LEVINE:

What, what...

DAIBERL:

No. In Jacksonville. Where the guy put me on the boat then to come down here. Well, I didn't know, I didn't know that that's supposed to be my end. I thought that's as far as I go, but there was, I think it kostet (cost) eight dollars or something, from Jacksonville to come here. I didn't have a penny when I got off the boat. But in Ellis Island, I got twenty-five dollars. Somebody had to deposit that. So I had a little spending money.

LEVINE:

Well, how, who, who gave you the twenty-five dollars, do you know?

DAIBERL:

I don't know.

LEVINE:

Huh.

DAIBERL:

I don't know where it came from.

LEVINE:

Maybe your sister sent it for you?

DAIBERL:

Not hardly, because I went right through.

LEVINE:

Yeah.

DAIBERL:

She wouldn't send it. Maybe she sent it there to keep it till I get here. That could have been.

LEVINE:

So, so what was your sister's name?

DAIBERL:

Eva.

LEVINE:

Oh, I see, that's Eva.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. I see. So were you the only two from the family who ended up here? You and Eva were the only two...

DAIBERL:

Yeah.

LEVINE:

.in your family?

DAIBERL:

Supposed to, there's supposed to be a bruder (brother) from my father over here somewhere, but we never heard anything about him.

LEVINE:

So, so when you got, you got pointed in the direction of Palm Bay when you got off the train in Jacksonville?

DAIBERL:

When I got off the train at five o'clock in the morning it was dark as hell. I fell in the sand about up to here. [He indicates] And I said, "What the hell kind of country is that?" [Laughs] My sister was out in the dark calling, "Louie, Louie."

LEVINE:

What did you think of it down here? What did you think of Florida when you first came?

DAIBERL:

Where did I sleep?

LEVINE:

No, what did you think of Florida?

DAIBERL:

Not much of anything. Well, I made a living. I had a job. That's all that counted. I got a job. I landed here on a Saturday morning, I think. Or Sunday morning. Three, four German guys came down to Eva. "Where you want to work? Want to go on the farm?" I says, "Hell, no. I'm not going back on no farm again." So they got me, in Melbourne, they, they all were, them Germans, they were all Germans, they all were bricklayer, carpenter, masons, cement worker. So they got me with some Polish guy, a little contractor, only about three, four men. It was plenty in Melbourne, about anything that come along. Und they went to church. A lot of Germans, they went to church Sunday, und they said, "One of us going to pick you up Monday morning." And they hauled me right on the truck where they were working. The contractor was a Polish guy. Real nice guys. He expected work. He had couple of "niggers" [sic] working for him.----"Ay yay yay yay yay; ay yay yay yay." --- not doing anything ----walking back and forth with a shovel, not doing a darn thing. Then little Polish guy come, and he says, at that time the church, they wanted fifty cents a day raise, fifty cents an hour, the "niggers" [sic] wanted. What their wages were I don't know about, they wanted fifty cents more what they had. Und that little Polish guy, he take a [Not understood]) shovel, and hit the "colored" [sic] guy in back of the head. He said that if you want fifty cents an hour more, you work.

LEVINE:

So do you remember what you got paid when you first came?

DAIBERL:

About twenty dollars a week, which was tremendous to me.

LEVINE:

Yeah.

DAIBERL:

I had to pay, in a couple of months I had to pay, pay it back to my sister, whatever I owed her. But he started me out with twenty, twenty dollars the first week. Every, every week he raised it a dollar, till it was up to twenty-three dollars. That was my best wage that I got down here.

LEVINE:

And did you like the work?

DAIBERL:

I sure did.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. So you were working in Melbourne?

DAIBERL:

In Melbourne, yeah.

LEVINE:

And then how did you get back and forth?

DAIBERL:

Walk.

LEVINE:

You walked from Palm Bay?

DAIBERL:

I walked from here to Melbourne every morning and every night. Then I got acquainted with some, couple of old fellows to pick me up on the highway, and I got so that I had to only walk over to his house. From, from my place to his place only about three blocks. And he, he had an old Model T Ford. He took me along every morning. Took me to Melbourne. But it's --- was far to walk every morning, hoofing along the railroad tracks.

LEVINE:

About how far is it? About how far is it from Palm Bay to Melbourne?

DAIBERL:

I would say at least three miles.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh.

DAIBERL:

[Not understood] and back every morning.

LEVINE:

Do you remember any things about this country that struck you as very different when you first came, that were really different than anything you had seen before?

DAIBERL:

No. No, not really. END OF SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO

LEVINE:

Then what? You worked, you worked, how long did you stay working in Melbourne?

DAIBERL:

I don't know. About a year, I guess. Then I went to, then I went to Chicago. I was twenty years old. I used to, I was used to dance Saturday nights, and Sundays. There wasn't such a thing; there wasn't any young girls down here. One was living a couple of blocks from my sister's place. She came over and tried to talk to me. What can I say? Me no versteh (understand). [Laughs]

LEVINE:

So how did you come to learn English?

DAIBERL:

Pardon?

LEVINE:

How did you learn English? How did you learn to speak English?

DAIBERL:

Just pick it up. Just pick it up as I work along. But up, when I left Melbourne I left here, and I went to Chicago. There I made forty-eight dollars a week ---cement work.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. And did you like it in Chicago?

DAIBERL:

Yeah. I got stuck in Chicago.

LEVINE:

You got, I'm sorry. Say it again, please?

DAIBERL:

I got stuck in Chicago.

LEVINE:

Stock?

A DAIBERL:

Stuck.

LEVINE:

Oh, stuck. So, you mean you couldn't get back.

DAIBERL:

No, I didn't care to go back.

LEVINE:

Oh.

DAIBERL:

I was satisfied. I was happy.

LEVINE:

Did you know anybody in Chicago?

DAIBERL:

I know one, well, you, you know Mary. [Aside to A Daiberl] She's supposed to be a cousin of mine, too. Mary Schindelbeck?

A DAIBERL:

Who?

DAIBERL:

She's supposed to been a cousin of mine, too. But anyway, she got me a job. As soon as I got up there I had work.

LEVINE:

This is the cement work?

DAIBERL:

Hmm-mm.

LEVINE:

So did you stay doing that for a long time?

DAIBERL:

Yeah---what the hell? Oh, I finally got laid off. [To A Daiberl] You got me a job in Chicago. Right?

A DAIBERL:

I don't remember any of that stuff.

LEVINE:

Well, me how, tell, you tell on the tape how you met your wife then.

DAIBERL:

How I met my wife? I, I went down to, to the train station in Aurora, Illinois, and there she was on the train. And I'm sure I drove you up to Schmeisser. Old lady Schmeisser was on the train station.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah. He saw my picture at my aunt's and uncle's house. That's how...

DAIBERL:

[sounds of brushing] And her aunt, she didn't had no use for me whatsoever.

A DAIBERL:

My aunt.

LEVINE:

Why didn't she have any use for you?

DAIBERL:

I don't know.

A DAIBERL:

She just didn't like him.

LEVINE:

So you must have had a car by then?

DAIBERL:

I did.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah.

DAIBERL:

A Model A coupe. When I bought the car on a Sunday afternoon It was in [Not understood] Illinois. Me and another German chum. [Not understood]) We drove it out of the, the owners drove it out of the station, und the guy that was with me drove the car, and we drove out of town. And when it was all free I said, "Well, why don't you let me drive. After all it's my car." He said, "Go ahead." I never drove a car. But I got down to Aurora. It's Sunday afternoon. I was in back of the streetcar; I hit that streetcar so hard. [Laughs] Con, conductor got off and says, "You didn't, you didn't do nothin', you didn't do no damage to the streetcar." I bended [sic] the fender all the ---- along the car.

LEVINE:

So then, so then did you, you say that your wife found you another job after you got laid off?

DAIBERL:

Yeah, in Chicago.

LEVINE:

Hmm-mm.

A DAIBERL:

I don't even remember that.

DAIBERL:

She had called, call Bob--- call Bob into California. Und somehow you knew.

A DAIBERL:

I don't remember.

LEVINE:

So what did you do then?

DAIBERL:

Worked in a bakery in a union league club. That's a private club. Got them all over America. Union league. I w--- there was about fourteen bakers making every, everything. Pies, candy, cookies, everything. I got to be the pot washer. What the hell did I get? Eighty dollars a month. I got eighty dollars a month, something like that. Lasted there, I got it up to a hundred dollars by the time I got laid off. I had a hundred dollars a month then. But the depression came and wiped out everything. About six of the bakers got laid off. There was lawyers, judges, big politician. That's all them clubs are p---. Very private. No vermin allowed.

A DAIBERL:

That's was a union league club in Chicago----- all lawyers mostly.

DAIBERL:

Und anyway, when we ---- when she wanted to get married, she was standing by the middle of [Not understood]) and hollered let's get married when I come out from work. So, I said, "Okay." We went up and...

A DAIBERL:

Had to ask me about a couple of dozen times.

DAIBERL:

We went up to the hall in Chicago. You probably heard about Mayor Daley, Richard Daley?

LEVINE:

Yes.

DAIBERL:

Big politician. He married us.

LEVINE:

Really? Wow.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah. Then my aunt got so mad, then we had to get married again in church.

DAIBERL:

Yeah, that was the stupidest thing. But she went.

LEVINE:

Yeah. Well, she mustn't have been too happy for you to marry him, huh? She didn't like him.

A DAIBERL:

No, No, but she didn't like the idea of getting married in the city hall, you know. So we had to, then she had us get married in church.

LEVINE:

So then how long did you stay around Chicago after you got married?

DAIBERL:

What the hell, we went to Morton Grove. Wasn't it Morton Grove where?

A DAIBERL:

[Yawns] Oh, excuse me. I don't remember.

LEVINE:

Well, did you have your children in Chicago?

DAIBERL:

Children?

A DAIBERL:

No. We had most of them in.

DAIBERL:

Morton Grove.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah, in Morton Grove, most of 'em.

LEVINE:

Where's Morton Grove?

A DAIBERL:

About eleven miles out of the Loop, out of Chica,---- out of Chicago's Loop. North.---- Northwest of Chicago.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. So after the bakery job, and then the Depression came, and then how did you, what did you do when your family was growing up?

DAIBERL:

When the Depression started coming? I got through lousy; I worked for ten cents an hour.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah.

DAIBERL:

Twelve hours a day.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah.

DAIBERL:

Und they thought they were paying big money. It was a greenhouse. One of the bigger greenhouses in, in the country. They were raising flowers, roses, growing cucumbers, tomatoes. I took a job as fireman, firing coal ovens. They thought that they really give me something. They was going to give me eight dollars a month. Wasn't it eight dollars? No.

A DAIBERL:

[Whispers}I don't remember.

DAIBERL:

Eight dollars a week. No, that wasn't eight dollars a month. Eighty dollars a month.

LEVINE:

Eighty dollars a month.

DAIBERL:

Eighty dollars a month. I worked there for four years.

A DAIBERL:

Never had the day off.

DAIBERL:

Yeah. The last year I got a day off, because I was going to quit. Anyway in four years time I made it from eighty dollars to a hundred twenty-five dollars in four years time. She was working, too. She was [Not understood]. We start to get a pretty good living.

A DAIBERL:

It's hard to remember all that stuff.

LEVINE:

Yeah.

A DAIBERL:

You know?

LEVINE:

It is. It is. So then, after that, after that, working in the greenhouse firing up the stoves, then what?

DAIBERL:

What the hell did I, what the hell did I do then?

A DAIBERL:

You worked at...

DAIBERL:

Oh...

A DAIBERL:

You worked at O'Hare Airport for a while, didn't you?

DAIBERL:

Yeah.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah.

DAIBERL:

O'Hare. Und then, when that slowed down, I went to the Glenview Club, 19, 194', about 1946? I must have went to the Glenview Club, und there spent the last twenty-four and a half years.

LEVINE:

Okay, where was that, where you spent the last twenty-four years?

DAIBERL:

Glenview Club.

A DAIBERL:

Glenview Club, a golf course.

LEVINE:

Oh. Uh-huh.

A DAIBERL:

[Not understood]

DAIBERL:

A ritzy, private golf club.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah.

LEVINE:

And where is that, outside of Chicago, too?

A DAIBERL:

Yeah. That's in Glenview. You heard of Glenview, haven't you?

LEVINE:

Glenview?

A DAIBERL:

Yeah.

DAIBERL:

[Not understood])

A DAIBERL:

Yeah.

LEVINE:

I see. So that's where you spent the rest of your working life?

A DAIBERL:

Yeah. Right.

DAIBERL:

But there...

A DAIBERL:

There's...

DAIBERL:

There I made good money. I made as much as hundred dollars a week. They had three guys doing the job what I was doing. Supposed to water the greens and the trees and everything. But then the guys, instead of taking care of what they're supposed, they stayed in the, there was a building there for the chauffeurs, bring the people out, the horse barns, garages for the chauffeurs. (Sounds of brushing) And instead of the guys taking care of their business, they stayed in that building playing cards all night. They fired the whole three of 'em.

LEVINE:

So...

DAIBERL:

And then the boss asked our oldest son what I was doing. I was working for [Not understood]) in Chicago.

A DAIBERL:

I remember we missed a sort of a stretch out of there. We, we worked in Oak Park. I worked, I, I worked there for five years doing the cooking and everything. And he was living there with me. And he used to take care of the yard, you know. And, and at the same time he worked in Chicago at that club...

LEVINE:

Oh.

A DAIBERL:

...you know.

LEVINE:

So were you happy at, at the golf club.

DAIBERL:

Yeah. Outside.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh.

DAIBERL:

Nobody bother you. I was all alone, but I--- I liked it. Und most, most of all the payday I really liked. [Both laugh] Yeah. We bought an old shack. Supposed to be a four room frame sittin' on the ground. And I bought that from the fellows down at the greenhouse. The guy want twenty-one hundred dollars for, though I didn't have a dime to pay down on the house. So I had an old car---- an old Pontiac or something anyway I said to the guy, I give you that car for a down payment. And he took it. And I didn't ever pay it. So I went over in the greenhouse. Two brűders (brothers) owned it. Und all the money that came in, into the greenhouse, there I go again. Anyway whatever they got cash into the greenhouse, the two split up. They'd be sitting on the table. "Ten for you, ten for me. Ten for you, ten for me." And I walked in there and I said, "It's just what I need." Und the guy that made out the checks, looks on the calendar. "Ho, ho, ho, it isn't, it isn't the first yet." I said I need more than what you gave me in the first of the month. I said I need two thousand dollars. Und Paul, he didn't take care or not, it's just work. Rick was the financier. And Paul says to Rick, "Yeah give it, give it to him." And Rick says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Me, me, me, and he didn't own the greenhouse." And Paul came in around twelve o'clock at night. He says, "I'm going to go over there, and I'm going to take a look at it." I didn't expect it that he'd give it to me, but an hour after, around twelve, one o'clock he come back. He says, "I give you the two thousand dollars." Then the other one says, "Yeah, if Paul wouldn't give it to you, I would have given to you, give it to you because I wouldn't want to let you go." And they tried to keep me there so bad. I worked for them. But they didn't want to pay nothing. I went for, -- when I quit went to a contractor. It was mostly digging basements for new homes. There I got dollar ten cents an hour, I guess. It was quite a jump from the measly couple dollars they gave me.

A DAIBERL:

That part I'll never forget. This old shack was sittin'on the ground. It had floorboards in about that wide [she indicates)] and between the cracks you could see the dirt underneath. It had an outhouse. It had no heating plant. And you should have seen what he made out of that place. It turned out to be beautiful. He went and raised the house up with automobile jacks. And when the wind blew real hard the house would shake back and forth. You know, it never, didn't fall off...

DAIBERL:

I never had a dime, but I had good credit.

A DAIBERL:

He had to; he dug out the whole basement by hand. He had to crawl on his stomach before diggin' till he could ----.

DAIBERL:

Six feet.

A DAIBERL:

...stand up, you know. Now...

DAIBERL:

Six feet basement.

A DAIBERL:

dirt was out there. And then he put new floors through the whole place. He put a bathroom in there. We build another, another two rooms on, and, oh, too, oh the old kitchen we tore off and put a new kitchen there. And then we had a breezeway built and a garage. And it had a beautiful fireplace and a breezeway. And it was, it really turned out to be a beautiful place. But he did it all. He did every bit of it.

LEVINE:

Hmm.

DAIBERL:

I had credit established at the grocery store, with the building material. The lumberyard I could go in anywhere, take what I want, pay when you can.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah. It did, it really turned out to be a beautiful place. And I don't think hardly anybody ever did it in that hard way, because you dig out the whole basement by hand, you know.

DAIBERL:

I remember it was, it was in April, but I didn't know what year. I said that the sun was shining. I said, "I think I knock a hole in the wall." It had a little one there some cement wasn't [Not understood] around them where them four rooms is supposed to be.

A DAIBERL:

Then we had the kitchen...

DAIBERL:

And I, I knocked a hole in there. Und then it starts snowing to beat all hell in April. [Laughs]

A DAIBERL:

Oh, oh, my God.

LEVINE:

Well, you must have felt very proud of that house.

A DAIBERL:

Well, my, my you know my daughter, my youngest daughter? She had a lot of friends, and they all the parents had new homes. And she always said, "Mom, I like this house the best of any of them, because Pa built it." You know. She said that all the time. And it sure, he worked like a dog. God. He really worked hard.

LEVINE:

So how long did you stay in that house?

DAIBERL:

Till we came down here.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah.

LEVINE:

When did you come here?

A DAIBERL:

About twelve years ago.

DAIBERL:

About 19'...

LEVINE:

Nineteen eighty something?

DAIBERL:

No. We, didn't we came in '79? Or '69? '69, '69, where the hell did '69 fit in?

A DAIBERL:

Yeah. And I hated to leave that place. He wanted to go fishing. That's how come we come down here.

DAIBERL:

Und fishing I did for eleven years.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah. Almost every day, except Saturday and Sunday. Every, the whole week.

LEVINE:

Now was your sister alive when you came down here?

A DAIBERL:

Yeah.

LEVINE:

Yeah.

DAIBERL:

I worked like a dog, but I still had time once in a while on a Saturday night to go dancing and have a few beers. No matter how bad it was.

A DAIBERL:

Down here? We never went dancing down here.

DAIBERL:

No. Up in Morton Grove.

A DAIBERL:

Oh, we're talking about Palm Bay now. No, we never did, we never did nothing down here.

LEVINE:

Well, have, have you enjoyed your life in Palm Bay since you've been down here?

DAIBERL:

Well, yes.

A DAIBERL:

He enjoyed the fishing. [Both laugh]

DAIBERL:

I enjoyed the fishing. The, you know what I missed when I left Germany?

LEVINE:

What?

DAIBERL:

The mountains. The Bavarian Alps. That I miss more than anything. But if you could afford it, there was the same thing on the west coast here. Mountains. We went to Seattle a couple of times. Canada.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah. Our oldest son, he's in Seattle. It's beautiful there. Yeah, well, that's the way it goes.

LEVINE:

Yeah. So, so did you have any friends from Germany that you, that you knew when you were here? Did you have any friends here that you had in Germany?

DAIBERL:

No.

A DAIBERL:

Uh-uh.

DAIBERL:

We know that one girl. That was it. But she was all America. [Laughs]

LEVINE:

So do you think you have any ways about you that are very German?

DAIBERL:

Pardon?

LEVINE:

Do you have certain ways about you that you think are very German? Like people in Germany?

DAIBERL:

I still can't hear it.

LEVINE:

Yeah. Are you, do you have certain ways that you are, certain qualities that you consider very German?

A DAIBERL:

I don't think so.

DAIBERL:

Not really. Whoever treated me nice, I treated them nice. [Pause] And who didn't treat me nice will watch out, too. I didn't care how strong they are, or how old they are, how rich they are, that didn't bother me. I fought for my rights all the way.

LEVINE:

So what makes you feel very satisfied that you did in your life?

DAIBERL:

Well, I think we done pretty good. The best thing was that I left Bavaria. No matter what I got into. [Long pause] But from, neither one had a dime when we came over here, but we still came up in the world. We can lay our hands on a couple a hundred thousand dollars [Not understood]). And there's the family.

LEVINE:

Well, it sounds like you made a very nice life for yourselves.

A DAIBERL:

I would say average.

DAIBERL:

We tried to build, and while we were up there in Illinois, we had a good time. The whole family, Sunday, we used to had pork or roast beef.

A DAIBERL:

Oh, yeah. I think he misses that mostly now because now we have Meals On Wheels, and we don't like it very much. [Laughs]

LEVINE:

So you had, you had a lot of meat in, in, around Chicago. Is that what you mean?

A DAIBERL:

A lot of what?

LEVINE:

Meat and, and good food?

A DAIBERL:

Oh, yeah. Yeah we always lived pretty good.

DAIBERL:

Sundays in the summer, almost every Sunday the kids come all together. The whole family would be home.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah. That's what we miss. mostly.

DAIBERL:

Like a barbecue rib.

A DAIBERL:

The kids are all up there, you know.

LEVINE:

Yeah.

A DAIBERL:

We miss that the most.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. So your whole family would get together on Sunday.

A DAIBERL:

Yeah. Saturday or Sunday. You know. Anyway, that was the most fun. That, that, I miss that more than anything else. I really miss that.

LEVINE:

Well, is there anything else that you would want to say about, about your life, and coming to this country, and making a new life here?

DAIBERL:

Well, I would say I was pretty lucky, the life that I cut out here, which I could never done in Germany. All in all it turned out pretty good.

A DAIBERL:

I would say so.

LEVINE:

Well, I want to thank you very much. This seems like a good place to stop. And...

DAIBERL:

Well, I'm sorry I can do no better. I'm...

LEVINE:

Don't be sorry. It's wonderful.

DAIBERL:

I'm kind of goofy once in a while.

LEVINE:

You're goofy? Well, you told a good story, and I thank you very much. I'm so happy I got to talk with you. I think you've a lot to be proud of, really.

DAIBERL:

Yeah.

A DAIBERL:

I think so.

DAIBERL:

There's nothing to be ashamed of.

LEVINE:

No, sir.

A DAIBERL:

I think we did pretty good. Not so good right now, but we, we did do pretty good. All these years he, he has never been sick before he got this.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Okay, well, this is Janet Levine for the National Park Service, and I'm signing off. I was speaking with Louis Daiberl here in Palm Bay, Florida. And it's February 17th, 1994. Mr. Daiberl is ninety years old. And I thank you very much.

A DAIBERL:

You're welcome.

LEVINE:

Good.