Church Row

4 March 1910: 1. 813-823 Kempner (22nd): First Baptist Church, erected on the site of the 1883 building destroyed in the 1900 hurricane, dedicated 1905; 2. 810 Kempner (22nd): The grand house on the left in which Miller was boarding was built in 1893 by Alfred Muller, noted Galveston architect, for Herman Marwitz, who was impoverished by the construction costs and never lived in the house. The landlady was Minnie Bedell LeRoux (1876-1964), daughter of Confederate Captain William Harry Bedell (1841-1913), and widow of Victor Donascio LeRoux [See Herman Marwitz House]; 3. 721 Kempner (22nd): Eaton Chapel, 1879, named for the founding rector of the Galveston Episcopal Church, Rev. Benjamin S. Eaton (1805-1871), [See Eaton Chapel]; 4. 705 Kempner (22nd): Trinity Episcopal Church, 1857;
5. 2201-2203 Church: In 1909 the first level was vacant, with some boarders on the second floor [See Herman Marwitz House]; 6. 2202-2206 Church (Avenue F): Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company, 3 floors, 1896, the last work of Alfred Muller before he died (of typhus); 7. 2202-2204 Post Office (Avenue E): Fellman Dry Goods Company Building (selling dry goods, notions, carpets, matting, ladies' ready-made wear, dressmaking), a family enterprise: Leopold Fellman (1835-1918), Louis Fellman (1872-1956), Alphonse Fellman (1879-1916), 5 floors, 1906.

23 March 2019: 1. 822 23rd: The Baptist Church from 1905 was demolished in 1958 and replaced with a more modern edifice facing 24th Street and this structure is one of the and this structure is one of the outbuildings; 2. 2216 Avenue H: Trinity Episcopal Church and School Offices; 3. 721 22nd Street: Eaton Chapel, 1879; 4. 705 22nd Street: Trinity Episcopal Church, 1857; 5. 2202-2206 Church: Merrimack Building (Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company Building), 3 floors, 1896; 6. 2201 Market: U. S. National Bank Building, 12 floors, 1924; 7. 2920 Todd Road: Gulf Copper Dry Dock & Rig Repair at Pelican Island.

Postmarked: 4 March 1910; Galveston, Texas
Stamp: 1c Green Ben Franklin #331

To: Mr. Claud E. Klinger
41 Catawissa Ave
Sunbury, pa.

Message:
Hello Claud – old boy I reached here and all is going fine The house I marked is where I board.
Miller.
801 – 22nd St.
3/4/10

Claude Elsworth Klinger was the proprietor of Royal Tea Company in Sunbury, Northumberland County, PA, son of Samuel Emanuel Klinger and Harriett Dunkelberger. He was 27 years old when he received the postcard, still living at home with his parents and younger siblings: Bessie Fay (1888), Emma Loy (1892), Mary Catherine (1894), Mable Ruth (1896), and George Donald (1899). The large family of ten children also included independent adult children: Stella May Klinger (1878) who was married to Henry C. Worrell, Palmer Eugene (1880), Emery Roland (1885), and Earl Clyde (1889). The Klinger home was at 41 Catawissa, a huge two-story house with big porches on both levels, a house still extant on that lot.

“Miller” was Charles Raymond Miller who was a neighbor from the Klinger family in Sunbury, living at 446 N. 7th street in 1909, just a 3 blocks from the Klingers. Miller worked as a telegraph operator in Sunbury (1909), then in Galveston in 1910 as assistant manager of the S. H. Kress 5 & 10 cent store. He was temporary manager of the Kress Store in Houston in August 1911, replacing Frederick Ellsworth Haynes as manager [See Taub House for a postcard Haynes sent as part of an exchange club]. Miller’s stay in Texas would prove to be short, and he returned to Pennsylvania by 1914 when he became Claude’s first cousin when he married Cora Miller, the daughter of Claude’s Aunt Catherine Dunkelberger Miller. Claude had remained in Sunbury and married Anna Fisher in 1913, and enlarged the Klinger clan even further with the birth of Ruth Isabel (1916), Paul Elsworth (1919), Harriet (1927).

Miller did not stay in Sunbury more than a short time. By 1917 he was manager of S. S. Kresge 5 & Dime in Scranton, PA where he and Cora raised their two boys, Paul R. (1915) and Charles J. (1919). The thirties brought him to Grand Rapids, MI, where he became disabled from work after 1935. He continued to live in the area until he died in 1960 and was buried in Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens in Kent County. Cora lived another 11 years and was buried by her husband.

Claude maintained Royal Tea Company in Sunbury until about 1930 when began farming a few miles east in the Ridge and Valley section of the State. Claude died in 1969 and was buried in Northumberland Memorial Park in Stonington. Most of the rest of the Klingers are buried in Pomfret Manor Cemetery northeast of the town center of Sunbury: his father Samuel Emanuel Klinger (1851-1923); mother Harriet I. Dunkelberger Klinger (1856-1958), who died at the age of 101; sister Stella May Klinger Worrell (1878-1963); Aunt Catherine A. Dunkelberger Miller (1847-1925); Uncle Charles S. Miller (1849-1928)