Biography

Arno Curt Pappe 1893-1948

This biography has been pieced together from a variety of sources. We welcome any additions or corrections by family members or other researchers. Please contact us if you have additions or corrections to the biography of Arno Pappe.

Photo: Karl Pappe Family in Leipzig in 1889, Carl Arthur Pappe at left

Arno Curt Pappe was born in Leipzig on January 11, 1893 in Leipzig, Germany. The youngest of five children, he was the son of Karl Friedrich Ludwig Pappe (1857-?) and Auguste Pappe (1858-1928). We do not know Auguste's maiden name. He went by several names throughout his life, including Arno, A.C., Charles and sometimes Charlie. In the years before World War I when anti-German sentiment was widespread in the US, he also went by the alias, "Curt Renall." He was a baker all his life.

In 1911 at the age of 17, Arno immigrated to the US, departing from Bremen, Germany on the SS Koln, and arriving on March 9th in Galveston, Texas. He first went to Kansas where he worked as a baker in several different towns for a man named Fred Harvey, who owned a number of restaurants. (Note 1)  Subsequently he also worked for the same employer in New Mexico, Kansas and Texas.

Arno was not close to his older brohter, Carl Arthur Pappe, who had immigrated eight years earlier. But he did stay in contact with his mother Auguste Pappe in Leipzig and his sister, Amalie Gertrude "Trudel" Pappe Ulrich, who lived in Berlin. He received many letters from Trudel over the years. (see 1922 postcard, and others)

By 1914 Curt was in Clovis, New Mexico. Clovis is on the Texas-New Mexico border, about 200 miles east of Albuquerque, where Arno's older brother, Carl Arthur Pappe (1883-1931), also a baker, had lived since 1908. On January 05, 1915, four years after arriving in the US, Arno married Margaret "Maggie" Clementine Vaughn in Clovis. Maggie was born May 23, 1886 in Terrell, Texas to Francis Marion Vaughn and Rebecca Moody. The couple had two sons while in Clovis — Ernest in 1916 and Simon in 1918.

The 1920 federal census shows the family back in Kansas, living in the town of Iola, which is in Allen County, about midway between Wichita and Kansas City. The couple's third child, Lorraine, was born in Fort Worth, Texas on January 10, 1922. In late 1921, Arno's widowed mother, Auguste Pappe, came to the US. She lived with Arno and his family for a period of time and when she passed away in 1929 she was buried at Fairview Memorial Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

At some point before their twin girls, Juanita and Mary, were were born in January 1924, the family relocated to Southern California and settled in the Los Angeles area. The next year (October 1925) another daugher, Gladys, was born. Their last child, Dick, was born in March 1928. In the 1930 census we find them in Covina, which is in the eastern part of the county. Arno still listed his place of employment as a wholesale bakery.

In 1926 Arno filed a Declaration on Intention to become a naturalized citizen. Then in 1931 he petitioned for citizenship,and was naturalized on December 31st. At that time he was living at 210 E. Bonita Street in Baldwin Park, California.

Some time before 1942, the Pappe family moved to northern California and settled in the small historic town of Yreka in Siskiyou County, on northernmost corner of the Shasta Valley, about 15 miles from the Oregon border. Arno's WW-II draft registration card states that he is self employed with both his business and residence at 117 Broadway Street.

For most of his adult life, Arno suffered from tuberculosis, as did his children, and required treatment from time to time to keep it under control. His daughter Gladys died from the disease in 1945 at the age of 20. Arno finally succumbed, passing away on February 14, 1948 in Yreka, California at the age of 55. Ten years later, his wife Maggie died on July 07, 1958.

Arno Curt Pappe and Maggie (Vaughn) Pappe had seven children:

  1. John "Ernest" Pappe 1916-1946.  Born: April 12, 1916 in Clovis, New Mexico. Died: January 11, 1946 in Siskiyou County, California.
  2. Simon Charles Pappe 1918-1971  Born: March 31, 1918 in Clovis, New Mexico. Married: (1) Joyce Methin, (2) Luella Mae Unknown. Died: October 24, 1971 in Anchorage Alaska.
  3. Margaret "Lorraine" Pappe 1922-2005  Born: January 10, 1922 in Fort Worth, Texas. Married: Arthur Franklin Cave, 3 children. Died: February 5, 2005 in Eureka, California.
  4. Juanita Pappe 1924-2008  Born: January 30, 1924 in Watts, Los Angeles County, California. Married: Kenneth Leighton Tevogt , 2 children. Died: January 24, 2008 in Murietta, California..
  5. Mary Francis Pappe 1924-2001  Born: January 30, 1924 in Watts, Los Angeles County, California. Married: Charles Henry Brown, 1 child. Died: May 4, 2001 in Cloverdale, California.
  6. Gladys Fay Pappe 1925-1945  Born: October 23, 1925 in Baldwin Park, Los Angeles, California. Died: April 27, 1945 in Siskiyou County, California.
  7. Richard "Dick" Pappe Born: March 11, 1928 in Baldwin Park, Los Angeles, California. Married: Joyce Jeanette Edwards, 7 children. Died: December 01, 2003 in Gold Hill, Jackson, Oregon.

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NOTES:

(1) Harvey House was the first restaurant chain, with 84 establishments in seven states along the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. Fred Harvey's company was dedicated to bringing good food at reasonable prices in clean, elegant restaurants, to the travelling public throughout the Southwest. See the Harvey House Homepage.

 

 

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