Selma Cornelia Aschbrenner, known as Sally, grew up in Marathon County, Wisconsin. As an adult she spent a short time working in Washington D.C. before returning to Wausau to marry and raise a family. This series of posts takes us page by page through the photo album of her teen years and young adulthood. She was an active and vibrant gal. These photos show her doing things she could no long do when her mobility became limited in the following decades.

She collected photographs. Lots and lots of photographs. She took most of them and posed in many. This series gives us a glimpse of Sally’s young life, through her own pictures.

Curtis & Yale Friends

The eleventh page of Sally’s photo album featured a collection of photos taken in and around 1923. Sally was a young professional. She had started her career as a stenographer at Curtis & Yale in Wausau. The woodworking company, who manufactured sash, door, blinds, mouldings, chairs, and interior finishings, was a major employer in Wausau.

Sally and Leona Jahns

Sally met new friends working in the city of Wausau and brought friends to her parents’ home to visit.

One of those friends was Leona Jahns. Leona was born 07 June 1901, in Wausau. She started her career as a phone operator and by 1922, worked as such at Curtis & Yale.

She was several years older than Sally and had been in the workforce for a couple years before Sally graduated high school.

Pictured: Leona Jahns and Selma Cornelia Aschbrenner.

Location: Sally’s parents’ home on Highway A in Town of Berlin, Marathon County, Wisconsin.

Date: circa 1923.

Sally and Lillian Tiller

Another Curtis & Yale friend was Lillian Tiller. Lillian Tiller was born 31 August 1900 in Wausau. She too was a few years older than Sally. Lillian started as a clerk at Curtis & Yale. Later, she became a stenographer and eventually, a typist, there.

Pictured: Selma Cornelia Aschbrenner and Lillian Tiller.

Location: Sally’s parents’ home on Highway A in Town of Berlin, Marathon County, Wisconsin.

Date: circa 1923.

Leona and Lillian

Leona Jahns and Lillian Tiller enjoy their picnic lunches.

Pictured: Leona Jahns and Lillian Tiller.

Location: Marathon County, Wisconsin.

Date: circa 1923.

April Scene

This photo was dated 8 April 1923. These ladies pose on what was likely a nice April day.

Pictured: Unidentified.

Location: Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin.

Date: 8 April 1923.

At Work?

Leona Jahns and Sally Aschbrenner sit outside of a brick building for this photograph. Could this have been a break from work at Curtis & Yale?

Pictured: Leona Jahns and Selma Cornelia Aschbrenner.

Location: Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin.

Date: circa 1923.

Friends

Friends of Sally on the sidewalk on a nice spring day.

Pictured: Unidentified.

Location: Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin.

Date: 1923.

Drink Coca-Cola

Sally (front left) and friends congregate in front of a Coca-Cola advertisement painted on the side of a building. The boys on the right seem to have been photo-bombing Sally’s photo.

Pictured: Selma Cornelia Aschbrenner (front left) and unidentified friends.

Location: Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin.

Date: 1923.

Leona Jahns

The back of this photograph was labeled, so Leona Jahns is probably the gal in the center of the photo. The others are unidentified. Wonder what “L.AOT” stood for?

Pictured: Probably Leona Jahns (center, front). Others unidentified.

Location: Probably Marathon, Wisconsin.

Date: circa 1923.

Many thanks to Uncle Chuck Krueger for gifting Sally’s photo albums to me. I suppose I’m the only one who is obsessed enough with family history to spend hours and hours doing something with them. Of course, I thought I should find a way to share.

I didn’t join the Krueger family soon enough to meet Sally. She died 15 May 1983, just two weeks after I started dating her grandson (now my husband). I’m sad that I missed getting to know her. I’m glad that she left a legacy of photos that help me see a side of her that maybe even her own family didn’t get to see.

Many of the faces and places in the photographs are not labeled. If you can help identify someone or someplace, correct any mistake I may have made, or otherwise add to the story, please contact me, for example by submitting a comment. Thanks.

Who is Who?

Fred and Alice Aschbrenner family

Sally Aschbrenner, the subject of this series of posts, was the daughter of Alice Rosalie Fehlhaber and Frederick A. Helmut Aschbrenner. She had one brother named Freddy.

Three-generation pedigree chart

Leona Jahns

Leona Jahns was born on 07 Jun 1901 in Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin as the third child of Robert Jahns and Minnie Buchholz. She had two siblings, namely: Lillie, and Otto. She attended school in Wausau through 8th grade.

She lived with her parents at 228 4th Avenue in Wausau. She worked as a telephone operator at Curtis & Yale. By 1927, she had moved to an office clerk position there.

When she was 26, she married Oscar P. Dippmann on 12 Oct 1927 in Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin. Leona and Oscar raised a foster son.

They lived at 318 South 9th Avenue in Wausau. Oscar died in 1977.

Leona died on 25 Jun 1983 in Sunny Vale Nursing Home, Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin. Sally lived her last days at Sunny Vale dying 15 May 1983, just a few weeks before Leona died.

Lillian Tiller

Sally’s friend and co-worker Lillian Tiller was born on 31 Aug 1900 in Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin. Her parents were German immigrants, Frank C. Tiller and Anne Hoppe. She attended school in Wausau through 8th grade.

In 1918, she lived with her parents at 720 Scott, Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin. She worked as a seamstress. In 1920, she lived at the same address but was then working as a filing clerk in the “sash factory.” By 1922, she was a clerk, in 1925, she was a stenographer, and in 1927, she was a typist.

When she was 29, she married Erwin Baehr, son of Mr. and Mrs. Otto Baehr, on 26 Feb 1930 in Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin. She and her husband moved to Highland Park, Wayne, Michigan, and she became a homemaker. The couple had one daughter named Carolyn.

Lillian was widowed in 1963 and eventually moved to St. Louis. She died on 05 Nov 1993 in Missouri, at the age of 93.

Selected sources:

Ben Clark, “Curtis and Yale,” Marathon County Historical Society, 31 Jul 2018, (http://www.marathoncountyhistory.org/window-industry/curtis : accessed 09 Jun 2020).

Louis Marchetti, “Curtis & Yale,” History of Marathon County Wisconsin and representative citizens, Chapter XXIII, pp. 378-399, The State of Wisconsin Collection (http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=div&did=WI.HistoryMarathon.i0030&isize=text : accessed 09 Jun 2020).

“Leona Dippmann,” 27 June 1983, page 12 (https://www.newspapers.com/image/274402400/ : accessed 08 Jun 2020), Wausau Daily Herald, Wausau, Wisconsin.

Ancestry.com, 1920 United States Federal Census (Online publication – Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.Original data – Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. (NARA microfilm publication T625, 2076 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Reco), Year: 1920; Census Place: Wausau Ward 6, Marathon, Wisconsin; Roll: T625_1995; Page: 7B; Enumeration District: 47.

Ancestry.com, 1930 United States Federal Census (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002), ancestry.com, Year: 1930; Census Place: Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin; Page: 10A; Enumeration District: 0064; FHL microfilm: 2342316.

Ancestry.com, 1940 United States Federal Census (Online publication – Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.Original data – United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627), Ancestry.com, Year: 1940; Census Place: Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin; Roll: m-t0627-04497; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 37-72.

Ancestry.com, Wisconsin Death Index, 1959-1997 (Provo, UT, USA, The Generations Network, Inc., 2007).

“Baehr, Lillian T.,” 06 Nov 1993, page 16 (https://www.newspapers.com/image/143056937/ : accessed 07 Jun 2020), St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, Missouri.

Ancestry.com, Wisconsin Births, 1820-1907 (Provo, UT, USA, The Generations Network, Inc., 2000).

Ancestry.com, 1920 United States Federal Census (Online publication – Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.Original data – Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. (NARA microfilm publication T625, 2076 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Reco), Ancestry.com, http://www.Ancestry.com, Year: 1920; Census Place: Wausau Ward 4, Marathon, Wisconsin; Roll: T625_1995; Page: 7B; Enumeration District: 44.

Ancestry.com, 1930 United States Federal Census (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002), ancestry.com, Year: 1930; Census Place: Highland Park, Wayne, Michigan; Page: 33A; Enumeration District: 0985; FHL microfilm: 2340809.

Ancestry.com, 1940 United States Federal Census (Online publication – Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.Original data – United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627), Ancestry.com, Year: 1940; Census Place: Detroit, Wayne, Michigan; Roll: m-t0627-01890; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 84-1609A.

Ancestry.com, Indiana, Death Certificates, 1899-2011 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Ancestry.com, Indiana Archives and Records Administration; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Death Certificates; Year: 1963; Roll: 08.

Ancestry.com, U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011), ancestry.com.

Ancestry.com, U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Ancestry.com, Record for Lillian Tiller Baehr.

The Aschbrenner Family