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In the decades following the end of the 30 Year's War, nicknames - and often
very odd ones - were common. And so, it seems, our Conrad was known - at least
for awhile - as the "cooker of cabbage." When son Andreas married
four years later, and later, Johann Heinrich and Bernhard, that nickname was
not shown in those marriage entries. Perhaps they were eating better then.
Andreas was born ca. May 1, 1641. Our Andreas. He will take
center stage in the following chapter.
Johann Heinrich was
born in 1645. He became an important figure in this community. He served as
judge for many years on the local court. He also was the Heiligenpfleger
, the local parish church financial adminstrator, in Laichingen. But he
suffered a lot of tragedy in his personal family life. His first wife was Anna
Schwenk-Edel; they married on Nov. 17, 1668. She bore eight children. She died
on Apr. 1, 1682. He remarried on Nov. 12, 1682 to an Anna Drechsler. She died
in childbirth the following November at the age of twenty. His third wife was
again an Anna and this time an Anna Schwenk-Schreiner. She bore nine children.
One of those was a Johannes. We will meet him later in the year 1752 in a very
interesting way. J. Heinrich died there in Laichingen on August 27, 1718 at
the age of 73.
Bernhard was born in 1650. On Feb. 6, 1676, he married Anna
Mack. They had ten children, seven of whom survived and married. Our cousin
Heinrich C. Schwenk, living in Laichingen today, traces his ancestry back to
this Bernhard, brother of our Andreas, and is thus a member of the eleventh
generation, with Conrad "the Great" (1601-1686) being our
common ancestor.
And now back to Conrad and Magdalena. This story of them and their
children has been considerably enriched through information obtained from
Cousin Heinrich Schwenk. Besides his family tree, he gave a copy of his
company's letterhead and family crest, or actually more of a company charter,
to Richard L. Schwenk, the writers's first cousin, who with his wife Caring
had visited Laichingen in June, 1995. The company is called, "Konrad
Schwenk Leinenweberei und Wäschefabrik" . This charter-like document
lists all the heads of the company - CEOs (Chief Executive Officer) if we may
use this 20th Century term - going back to our Conrad Schwenk, b. 1601. There
are ten CEOs which precede Cousin Heinrich and his two brothers. The first was
Conrad, the "founder" of this linen weaving company. The next four
CEOs, Andreas, Georg, Andreas and Johann Heinrich were not direct
ancestors of Cousin Heinrich. We'll return to this subject in a moment. CEO #
6, a Conrad born in 1773 and all the subsequent company heads were indeed
direct ancestors of Heinrich. So who were these other four Schwenk "weaving
executives" who presumably pushed aside their brothers and cousins, the
direct ancestors of Heinrich to take over the helm?
This question lead the writer once again back to the Hailey Morman
Church Family History Library and those precious microfilms and a search for
this Andreas Schwenk, CEO # 2. Who was he? How did he take over the company?
He was not our Andreas, b. 1641. A clue was provided on Heinrich's family
tree. Someone had handwritten a note on it indicating that CEO # 5, Johann
Heinrich Schwenk, born in 1725, was the third child of an Andreas, b. 1680 "from
a different line." Here is what the christening and marriage registers
revealed: Andreas, 1680, was the son of a Bernhard Schwenk born in around
1650. Bernhard had married an Anna Stump in 1675. Including Andreas, they had
at least five other children born between 1676 and 1688. The Godfather at all
these christenings was Heinrich Schwenk, judge! We met him earlier. He was the
third son of our Conrad. It is the writer's strong conviction that this
Heinrich and Bernhard were first cousins! The evidence for this lies below.
When Bernhard and Anna married in 1675, the pastor penned the
following words into the Ehebuch . Bernhard, lawful son of Andreas
Schwenk, behind the church, with Anna, daughter of Wilhelm Stump . And so
now we know the father of this Bernhard. A search for his death date yielded
very interesting information. He died on Nov. 20, 1695. His age of 79 at death
reveals a birthdate of April, 1616. He was a widower when he died. The pastor
described him as "Andreas Schwenk, hinter der Kirchen" (behind the
church). More than five years earlier, on Feb. 3, 1690, his wife Waldburga,
born Dauer, died. Again she was described as the wife of "Andreas Schwenk,
behind the church." Her age of 71 at death gives us a birth year of 1619.
Where is this all leading? Well, this leads to the high probability that this
Andreas was the younger brother of our Conrad. There were fifteen years
separating the births of each, but that was not all that uncommon in those
days. It seems almost certain that it was this Andreas who became the
2nd CEO of the Konrad Schwenk linenweaving company. Is it not logical that
this family-owned business would remain within a nuclear or extended family?
At sometime toward the end of that century, perhaps with the death of the
above Andreas in 1695, George, the son of our Andreas
(is anyone confused?) took over the reins of leadership. Then later, his
son Andreas took over as CEO # 4. Then in perhaps the middle of the 1700s,
Johann Heinrich, the great-grandson of "Andreas behind the church"
began calling the shots. Then, as mentioned earlier, the leadership of this
company fell back to Cousin Heinrich's direct ancestors and remained so until
today.
Cousin Richard Lloyd Schwenk has offered some incisive thoughts
regarding the leadership of this weaving company being sometimes passed
between cousins rather than traditionally from father to son. Below are his
words written in October, 1996.
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"Probably the success of The Schwenk Linenweber Co. in overcoming
problems of suitable CEO successors was their flexibility in selecting the most
able from among the sons and cousins and not confining their choice to just
the oldest son of the incumbant CEO."
But wait! We are not finished with "Andreas
behind the church." He and Waldburga had at least four children. Three
were boys born before 1657. They all married and continued contributing to the
"Schwenk overpopulation" of Laichingen. The only child whose birth
record was found - and she apparently was the last-born child of this
union - was an Anna Ursula. She was born on March 27, 1658. The pastor wrote
that the father was "Andreas Schwenk jung (junior), weaver.
Mother was Waldburga Dauer from Stubersheim. What is of particular significance
here is the word jung ! That has to mean that his father was also named
Andreas. Some pastors used the latin word, Junior. Most used the word, Jung.
Often, in order to identify the individual when there were many persons of the
same name - which was certainly the case in Laichingen - the words, "
der jünger" or der älter", the younger or the
older, were written after the names. But Jung after Andreas's name means he
was a junior. And so it follows, that if this writer's hypothesis holds water,
then the father of our Conrad and his brother Andreas was an Andreas Schwenk,
and he would be our earliest documented Schwenk ancestor. His estimated year
of birth would be sometime between 1570 and 1580. A persistent search for his
death date revealed nothing. He must have died before the church books were
reinstituted in 1657. This writer and descendant of our documented patriarch
Conrad hopes the reader has not become hopelessly confused with all the
Andreas', Conrads and Heinrichs, but the story of the Konrad Schwenk
Leinenweberei Company's chief executive officers and the probable relationship
between the first five of those had to be told; and as well, the connection of
these to the likely father of our Conrad (the Great).
Back in 1974, the Konrad Schwenk Linen Weaving Co. hired a firm in
Stuttgart to research the early ancestry of this Schwenk line. The name of the
firm is "Wappenarchiv Dochtermann." It specializes in designing coat
of arms, authenticating ancestry, etc. It was this hired research which led to
the creation of the list of CEO successors of this linen weaving company. In
their search, they came up with an interesting anecdote about our Conrad, the
founder of this company. First of all, their research confirmed that Conrad's
nickname was "Köchinen Coles"
, cooker of cabbage; but more interestingly, perhaps, that reportedly he
and two other members of Laichingen were captured by Austrian troops on Sept.
27, 1646 and marched toward Pfullingen. While on what is called the Honauer
Steige , a trail, the three prisoners escaped. The information of this
event was recorded in a report by the Vogt , marshal or provost, of
Urach, and sent to Duke Eberhard III of Württemberg.
The Commonness of the Family Name SCHWENK in Laichingen
We have already learned of this in the opening section of this story. But to
further illustrate this, here are some of the marriage entries back in 1658
through 1661. The population of Laichingen was then around 300. Marriages were
few and far between. There were three weddings in 1658. One of those was
between a Maria Schwenk, daughter of the "honorable Andreas Schwenk,
judge and weaver." The groom was Johannes Mangold. They, are
incidentally, also two of our ancestors. The charts toward the rear of this
book show our connection to them. In 1659, only one couple pledged its vows.
That was Ursula Schwenk, daughter of "the honorable Christoph Schwenckh,
toll official and master candlemaker." She married Cyrianus Schüttenhalm,
wagonmaker. The wedding in 1660 was that of Hans Jacob Schwenk, above
mentioned. Four events of matrimony occurred in 1661. In one of those,
Margarette Schwenk, widow of Georg Wäng, married Jacobus Brüttinger.
She, as it turns out later, will be the "great-grandmother"
of our cousin Elsbeth Schwenk-Schwahn. The story of her (Elsbeth) appears
at the end of this chapter.
The following entry in the church registers was made in 1945!
"While working on the church registers in the parsonage in 1945, a
final remnant stuck beneath the oldest Laichingen marriage register, was
discovered a single leaf, page 7 with 7 marriage entries from the year
Unfortunately, pages 1-6 and pages were not found..."
Of the seven marriages (actually only six appear on this page), one involved a
bride born Schwenk. Here is the entry for her and hubby:
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