Letters from Curt

Bartelt Curt von Schmalensee, was the third son of FFL and his second wife. He was born on January 15, 1860, in Gross-Paglau. Unable to afford his tuition, the family took him out of military school when he was 15 years old. That same year he joined the Merchant Marine and sailed all over the world, including to Africa and the Americas. In 1877, at the age of seventeen, he survived a shipwreck off the coast of Valparaiso. In 1880, he immigrated to the United States to live with his father, whom he found living in dire circumstances. He worked as a sailor on the Great Lakes, and later as a bartender, waiter, newspaper agent and carpenter. He lived in St. Paul, Chicago, and eventually settled in St. Louis, Missouri, in later years building his own home there on Thrush Avenue. He married Dorothea Steckling in 1884. Their marriage was blessed with eight children, two sons and six daughters. Curt died on May 23, 1932, his wife having already passed away on November 2, 1931. Both found their final resting place in the New Bethlehem Cemetery in St. Louis.