Clemens Vonnegiut
His paternal ancestors the Vonnegut's came from Munster, Westphalia, where the name derives from a distant
forebear who had an estate—"ein Gut"---on the little River Funne; hence the surname FunneGut the estate on
the Funne. This name was subsequently changed from Funnegut to Vonnegut. Funnegut sounded too much
like "funny gut" in English. His father had been an official tax-collector for the Duke of Westphalia.
He had completed his Abitur' at the Hochschule in Hannover: which meant that he had the equivalent at that
time of an American college education and was qualified to attend one of the Universities as a candidate for a
Ph.D. degree.
He had an acquaintance with Latin and Greek, and spoke French fluently in addition to his native German. He
had read widely in History and Philosophy; had acquired a fine vocabulary; and was able to write with clarity.
Although raised and instructed in the Roman Catholic Church, he rejected formalized religion and disliked
clergymen.
He greatly admired Voltaire, and shared many of the latter's philosophical views. Instead of attending a University,
Clemens became a salesman for a textile firm located in Amsterdam, Holland. At the age of twenty-four, in 1848,
he decided to emigrate to the United States, where he first traveled about as agent for the textile mill.
A sophisticated eccentric who wore a cape and carried rocks around downtown to build his biceps, Clemens arrived
in Indianapolis from Germany in 1851 and immediately recognized an opportunity to sell coffin fittings and tools at
what was then the edge of the western frontier.
Arriving in Indianapolis in 1850 and entered into a partnership with fellow German Charles Vollmer shortly thereafter.
Their general merchandising store was called Vollmer & Vonnegut at 71 Washington Street, Indianapolis. Vollmer
left to go out West in 1852 but was never heard from again.
In 1858, Vonnegut ought and assumed Charles Vollmer’s share in the business and opened Clemens Vonnegut
Hardware at 8 East Washington Street the merchandise store he and his business partner Charles Volmer had run
for several years. The store front moved to several Washington Street locations including 338 East Washington
Street in 1859 and 342 East Washington Street in 1867.
In 1898 Clemens Vonnegut, Sr. moved the business to 120 and 124 East Washington Street. Clemens Vonnegut, Sr.
would remain president of the company until his death in 1906. In 1908 the store was incorporated as the Vonnegut
Hardware Company at 338 E. Washington St.
His business was located in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana and the venture eventually expanded to 12 branches
and would remain a fixture for over 100 years; and was operated by three of Vonnegut’s sons, and other descendants
until 1965. The Schlage Lock Company of San Francisco bought the business that year, which by this time included
twelve neighborhood retail hardware stores, an industrial division with two warehouses, and the Van Duprin Lock
Company. Schlage Lock retained Van Duprin Lock but sold the stores and warehouses in 1966. The retail stores
operated through the 1970's, and were all closed by 1980.
Views of the Vonnegut hardware of 1906, 1908, 1928, 1947 and unknown; and a catalogue
In 1869
Clemens Vonnegut, Jr.
eldest son) began working at the hardware store then left in 1890. He returned in 1910 and became Vice President of
the company. (His brother,
Bernard Vonnegut Sr.,
worked at the firm briefly but disliked working in the hardware store) Bernard Vonnegut (second son)
would have no interest in his father's company and ultimately choose a different career path, as an architect.
The author
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
was Bernard's grandson and worked for during the summers while attending high school at Shortridge.
In 1908
Franklin "Frank" Vonnegut
(third son) took over as the company's president.
George Vonnegut (youngest son) would
become the secretary and treasurer of the company. Carl Prinzler, co-inventor of the Von Duprin panic bar device, was
manager of the builder's hardware department in 1903.
Clemens met his wife while she worked as a waitress in a small German restraurant across the street of the
Vonnegut Hardware Company on East Washington Street. Katrina was from a German immigrant family of
seven children of a German mmigrant family who who had settled on a farm in Wayne Township, Marion
County, just west of Indianapolis. Katrina had very little formal education.
At the urging of Charles Vollmer, a schoolmate, Vonnegut married on January 24, 1853 / Jan 11, 1853
Indianapolis, Marion, In. (5/509) Miss Katharina/Catherine Blank daughter of Johann George Blank and
Anna Maria Oser [Ogers] She was born Nov 1828 in Urloffen, Baden, Germany, and died 12 April 1904
in Indianapolis, Marion, Indiana Burial: 15 April 1904 in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana Sec 2
Lot 52.
He bought a modest home on West Market Street and they raised their family in steadily improving material
circumstances.
Both spoke German in their home, but had considerable fluency in French as well. The training of their
children was in the tradition and culture of nineteenth-century Germany. It is highly significant of Clemens's
ascetic and puritanical ethics that his literary idol was Schiller and not Goethe, who was much the greater
genius. He disapproved of Goethe's morals, and would not read him
Clemens attained local distinction as an advocate of progressive public education. He served for twenty-seven
years on the Board of School Commissioners of the City of Indianapolis; most of the time as Chairman and Chief
Administrative Officer. He was an incorruptible and highly efficient officer. He was particularly interested in the
High School, and saw to it that first-rate instruction was provided in the classics, history, and the social sciences.
He was instrumental in the establishment of the second High School in 1894, known as Manual Training High School,
where, under Professor Emmerich as Principal, instruction was provided with emphasis on Science, Mathematics, and
Practical Engineering. Graduates of these two high schools were readily accepted at Harvard and Yale and other
great Universities until about 1940; since then the prestige of these high schools has sadly declined as a result of
owered standards.
At his death at age eighty-two in 1906 he was a greatly respected figure in the business and civic life of the community;
next only to Henry Schnull as the first in prestige of the German immigrants to Indianapolis.
Old Clemens, as he advanced into his seventies, turned over management of his business to the competent hands of his
three sons: Clemens, Jr. Franklin, and George. His son Bernard had a brief connection with the Company but disliked what
he called `the trade in nails' and confined his attention to his profession of architecture and to his avocations in the arts.
He had never been as robust as his brothers, two of whom lived into their nineties. The old man set them all an example
not only of the highest standards of moral integrity but of physical fitness through exercise of the body.
To the end of his days old Clemens was a devotee of the teachings of Father Jahn: a sound mind in a sound body. He
exercised daily in all weathers and ate and drank very sparingly. He never weighed much over one hundred and ten pounds.
He could be seen striding vigorously about the streets swinging a large boulder in each hand. If he passed a tree with a
stout branch within reach he would stop, lay down the boulders, and chin himself a number of times on the branch.
Clemens Vonnegut was a cultivated eccentric. He was small in stature, but stout in his independence and convictions. While
his forebears had been Roman Catholics, he professed to be an atheist or Free Thinker. He would more properly be called a
skeptic, one who rejects faith in the unknowable.
But he was a very model of Victorian asceticism, lived frugally, and eschewed excesses of any kind. He greatly admired
Benjamin Franklin, whom he called an American saint, and named his third son after him instead of naming him for one of the
saints on the Christian calendar. As a recognition of his service to public education, one of the City's schools was named after
him.
He was highly literate, well read, and the author of various pamphlets expounding his views on education, philosophy, and
religion.
On a cold December day in the year 1904, in his eighty-third year, he left his home for his usual walk. He apparently became
confused and lost his way. When he did not return at his accustomed time, his f amily instituted a search with the assistance
of the police. He was found several miles from his home lying by the side of a road-quite dead. It was the sort of death he
would have welcomed-active to the very end.
He wrote his own funeral oration.
Clemens and Katrina were both small in stature and dark complexeted. They spoke German in their home and was fluent in
French also.
They brought children up in the tradition and culture of nineteenth-century Germany.
|
Clemens Vonnegut, Sr., (1824-1906) was a Forty-eighter who was born in Germany but moved to Indianapolis
after the 1848 evolution. |
Three years later he founded the Vonnegut Hardware Company. That same year he helped create the first Turnverein in
Indianapolis (the Indianapolis Turngemeinde).
Vonnegut was an important civic leader. As well as being an active Turner, he was at various times the president of the
Maennerchor, the vice president of the Normal College, and the president of the German-English School. He pressed for
the teaching of German in public schools and, as a member of the Indianapolis school board, for the introduction of physical
education. Vonnegut as also a Freethinker. He outlined the important tenets of the organization in a book he originally
published anonymously called A Proposed Guide for Instruction in Morals from the Standpoint of a Freethinker for Adult
Persons, Offered by a Dilettante.
H. C. Chandler & Co.'s Business Directory For Indiana 1868
INDIANAPOLIS
Hardware, wholesale.
Vonnegut CLEMENS, 178 and 180 e Washington
Hardware and Cutlery, retail.
Vonnegut CLEMENS, 178 and 180 e Washington
Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood
Chicago: American Historical Society, 1919, pg. 2173-5
Clemens Vonnegut as was pointed out by Mr. Dunn in his History of Indianapolis, no single foreign nationality, was a
nationality, had a greater influence in the development of the city than the German. The city owes a special debt to
the Germans who came following the collapse of the revolutionary movement of 1848. In that struggle they had lost
their father-land, but they brought with them to the New Word a vision and an imp ulse to intellectual and political
betterment which meant much to the new nation, as a nation, and to countless communities throughout the Middle
West. On the broad prairies and in the forests, in peace and in war, in every branch of human endeavors and human
achievement. One of these at Indianapolis was the late Clemens Vonnegut
At fifteen years of age Clemens Vonnegut, Sr.; was apprenticed to a merchant banker in Muenster, Westphalia. Six years
later he entered the business of a manufacture of silk velvet ribbons at Crefeld, on the Holland border. He made rapid
progress and after having covered France, Belgium, Holland, England, Austria and the German countries as a
ommisvoyageur he was entrusted with the task of establishing an agency in America.
Mr. Vonnegut arrived in New York City in the summer of 1851, when twenty-seven years of age. The purpose in hand
accomplished, he resigned his position, renounced allegiance to his erstwhile king, and became a citizen of the United
States, in all that word implies.
Before we follow him out West let us speak personality of the man, who has now long been gathered unto his fathers. He
had quit school before graduating because of ill health and weak eyes. While he did not become robust, he built up his
constitution through exercise and gymnastics, and was enabled to endure the hardships, first of a European apprenticeship
and then that of the American small-town storekeeper in the days when business hours extended from the crow of the cock
until late into the night.
When he left school he decided to improve his interrupted education after business hours, and while his colleagues lounged, he
finished his school work, and kept up his music and reading of English, French, and German classics and history. He was never
interested in cards, hunting, or fishing, and that may account, in part, for his aversion to the handling of sporting goods, which
in the early days consisted mainly of guns and tackle. Golf was not then in vogue. For sociable recreation he joined a singing
society and a gymnastic association.
He was earnestly interested in public affairs, especially in educational matters. He was a republican in politics, independent,
however, in local affairs, yet he was a member of the School Board for twenty-eight years and but for enfeebled health could
have enjoyed the honor more years, though he never spent a minute nor a dollar at electioneering. He was willing to serve
conscientiously, if called, but willing to retire if another sho uld be found more desirable. It is very fitting and appropriate that
one of the public schools of his city is named in his honor.
Before becoming so closely identified with the public schools he assisted in the founding of the German-English Independent
Schools, which the German citizens of Indianapolis established in 1859 to supplement the rather meager facilities afforded at
that time by the common school system. For a dozen years following the Civil War it was on of the famous institutions of
Indianapolis, and for over fifteen years Mr. Clemens Vonnegut was one of the most active members of the society supporting
the school; in fact was it president most of the time.
Mr. Vonnegut was also a member of the Indianapolis Turngemeinde, from which was later developed the Social Turnverein of
Indianapolis. This characteristic institution of German club life was established in 1851. The members of this organization were the
pioneers in ntroducing physical education and manual training in the public schools. Clemens Vonnegut held a fifty-five years
membership in the Turnverein, and his influence and co-operation were vital in the establishment and successful operation of the
Normal College of the North American Gymnastic Union, located in the Athenaeum.
It is worthy of note that in 1917 Governor Goodrich and Lieutenant Ord, of the United State Army, found the members, of the
college better qualified for drill masters than the members of any other local organization.
When in 1896, at seventy-two years of age, Mr. Vonnegut retired from business, he kept himself in good physical condition through
gymnastics and long walks. He continued the study of music and wrote essays on education and moral philosophy, and translations
into his native tongue from a favorite American author.
These pastimes were interspersed with help to his grandchildren in their studies of algebra, geometry, Latin and French. Accustomed
to close application to work during nearly two generations, he had to keep himself always busy.
Clemens Vonnegutwas liberal in religion, but essentially religious in temperament and venerated all scared things. He was humane,
prudent, scrup ulously honest, always willing to advise and to help any who had gained his confidence, and these qualities secured for
him a host of friends who truly loved him. When he died in 1918 Indianapolis lost a worthy citizen, whose life the people should long
cherish in memory.
Mr. Vonnegut came to Indianapolis in the year of his landing, 1851, on invitation of a schoolmate, Charles Volmer, who had preceded
him a few years. He formed a partnership with his friend, a relationship that continued until 1858, when Mr. Vonnegut bought the
interests of Mr. Volmer, who went to California, and from that time Mr. Vonnegut conducted the business alone until he associated
his sons with him.
Successively, as they left school, the German-English School and the Indianapolis High School they entered the store, beginning with
broom and duster, and when they arrived at majority, respectively, they were admitted as partners.
The original venture was a general merchandise store. When Mr. Vzonnegut took over the business alone he closed out the sundries and
carried only hardware, tools, leather, and findings. In those days in order to get leather from the tanner the dealer had to furnish
a reasonable quantity of hides, and these hides, bought from butcher friends (who made one understand that they were bestowing a
favor) were trimmed, sorted, and bundled by candle light after the store closed. In 1867 he closed out the leather business and
devoted himself to hardware and tools, factory, foundry, mill and machine shop supplies and kindred goods.
In 1898 the business was moved to its present location, 120 to 124 East Washington Street, and it was incorporated in 1908 as the
Vonnegut Hardware Company. The officers are: Franklin Vonnegu t, president; Clemens Vonnegut, vice-president; George Vonnegut,
secretary and treasurer.
Clemens Vonnegut on January 24, 1853 married Miss Catherine Blank, who died April 13, 1904. They were the parents of four sons,
three of whom are still living.
The eldest,
Clemens, Jr. , born
November 19, 1853, entered his father's establishment in 1869. After an intermission of twenty years, 1890-1910, during which
time he was manager of the Indianapolis Coffin Company and the National Casket Company, he returned to the hardware business.
As a republican he represented Marion county in the State Legislature in 1895. He married Emma Schnall of Indianapolis. They
have three children; ELLA is the wife of
W. K. Stewart, and they
have one child, Susan. ANTON married Ina Holleweg, and their three children are: Louise, Richard, and Antonette.
WALTER married
Margaret Potts. They have one daughter, Irma Ruth.
The second son was
Bernard Vonnegut, who was born August
8, 1855, and died in August 1908. After a short trail of the mercantile business he entered an architects office, but after a year
sought to restore his failing health by working as a carver with mallet and chisel in the Ittenbach Contracting Company's stone
yard. Then after an apprenticeship with a manufacturer of mathematical instruments he entered the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology at Boston, of which he was a graduate, and took advanced work in the School of Technology in Hanover, Germany, and later
in a similar institute in Berlin. On returning to Indianapolis he entered upon a long continued and successful career as an architect,
establishing the firm of Vonnegut & Bohn. He married
Nannie Schnull.
They had three children:
KURT married Edith
Lieber. They have two children:
Bernard
and Alice. IRMA is unmarried. ALEX married Ray Dryer.
Franklin Vonnegut, the third son of
Clemens Vonnegut born October 20, 1856. He has been uninterruptably identified with the hardware business for forty-six years.
Mr. Franklin Vonnegut is a director and was president of the Citizens Gas Company during the first eight years of its existence.
He is also president of the trustees of the Normal College of the North American Gymnastic Union and president of the Patriotic
Gardner's Association during the recent campaign to urge all city people to produce sufficient war needs, having been chairman of
the Vacant Lots Cultivation Committee. He succeeded his father as a member of the Board of School Commissioners, but after five
years of service was obliged to resign in order to look after has [his] private business affairs. He has served as president of
the Commercial Club and as director of the Chamber of Commerce. In politics he is a republican Mr. Franklin Vonnegut married
Pauline Von Hake, who died May 12, 1890. She was the mother of three children:
THEODORE F. married
Lucy Lewis. They have one child, Pauline. FELIX married Edna Goth. ARTHUR married Lillian Fauvre, they have two children: Franklin
Fauvre and Virginia.
The fourth son,
George Vonnegut, born
October 22, 1860, has been connected with his father's business since 1876 except for a period of two years when he was a
student in the Seminary of the North American Gymnastic Union, at that time located at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For several years
he taught gymnastics in the Athenaeum. He married Lillie Goeller, and their three children are: Erwin, Ralph and Carl. George
Vonnegut is an active member and was for several years a director in the Commercial Club, president and director in the
Merchant's Association, is active in other civic organizations and is a member of the Board of Directors of the North American
Gymnastic Union.
Hyman's handbook of Indianapolis: an outline history and description of the ...
edited by Max Robinson Hyman
Clemens Vonnegut, one of the most prominent and influential of our pioneer citizens, laid the foundation of the business
which still bears his name, in 1851, and in which he is still interested with his four sons, Clemens, Jr., Bernard, Franklin and
George Vonnegut.
The business at that time was conducted under the firm name of Volmer & Vonnegut.
In 1857 Mr. Vonneut succeeded to the business, and since that time has continued at its head. It is recognized to-day as
one of the leading and oldest retail and wholesale hardware establishments in Indiana.
The premises occupied are located at 184 to 192 East Washington street, and the stock embraces one of the most complete
assortments of hardware of all kinds to be found in the State. This includes everything in the line of shelf and heavy hardware,
mechanics'tools of all kinds, and mechanics' supplies.
In the early part of this year, to meet the pressing demands of the trade of this market, they opened a machinery department,
in which they carry a complete line of light machinery of every description for iron and wood working, embracing lathes, shapers,
milling machinery, shears, punches, power drills, emery grinding machines, pulleys, shafting, hangers, etc.
A special catalogue is issued for this department. The trade of this house extends throughout this State, and a number of traveling
salesmen represent the firm on the road. Nearly thirty persons are employed in the house.
Clemens Vonnegut, during his long career, has been an active promoter of the city's welfare. For more than a quarter of a century
he held a position on the school board, and during that period was recognized as one of its most useful members. He was largely
instrumental in securing the establishment of industrial training school.
His sons are all actively identified with public affairs, and their names are connected with many associations of local importance.
Franklin Vonnegut succeeded his father as a member of the school board, and was recently re-elected to that position. Clemens
Vonnegut, Jr., was elected a member of the Indiana Legislature of 1906.
Indianapolis City Directory, 1889. Indianapolis, IN: R.L. Polk and Co., 1889 & 1890
Name: Clemens Vonnegut
Location 1: 184 and 186 E Washington
City: Indianapolis
State: IN
Occupation: Wholesale and Retail Hardware
Year: 1889 & 1890
Location 2: 504 E Market
Vonnegut Family Index