Stanke Family Reunion

George Friedrich Berthold Stanke

from Pomerania, East Prussia to Queensland, Australia Saturday 28th September 2013
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Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the arrival of

Program
9.30am Arrival, registration and morning tea 10.30am Commemorative Service 11.30am Cemetery Tour 12.00pm Lunch 1.00pm Photo opportunity

Order of Service
Official Welcome Michael Jarick Bible Readings Toni Robinson & Linda Cox Message Tim Jarick Hymn - Now thank we all our God (LHS 437) Prayers Offering For a bronze plaque for George Stankes grave Blessing Announcements

1 Now thank we all our God With hearts and hands and voices, Who wondrous things hath done, In whom His world rejoices; Who from our mothers arms Hath blessed us on our way With countless gifts of love, And still is ours today.

2 O may this bounteous God Through all our life be near us. With ever joyful hearts And blessed peace to cheer us; And keep us in His grace, And guide us when perplexed, And free us from all ills In this world and the next.

3 All praise and thanks to God The Father now be given, The Son, and Him who reigns With them in highest heaven: The one eternal God, Whom earth and heaven adore, For thus it was, is now, And shall be evermore.
Nun danket alle Gott Martin Rinckart (1586-1649) Tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1858, alt.
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The Life of George Stanke

George Friedrich Berthold Stanke was the second child born to Michael Friedrich Stanke and Sophie Caroline Dumke on the 9 May, 1835, probably in Zuchen, in the Kries of Belgard, Pomerania, Prussia. Not much is known of Georges family of origin apart from the following facts; Georges family were teachers, his grandfather Friedrich Stanke (birth and death dates unknown), his father Michael Friedrich Stanke (1802-1872) and his older brother Carl Ludwig Hermann Stanke (1833-1903) were all teachers. George seems to have been more of a person who liked to work with his hands as his occupation on the passenger list when he left Prussia is listed as Schmied which is the German word for blacksmith. Certainly, George Stanke decided to leave his homeland of Pomerania and journeyed to Queensland for economic reasons. At the time Prussia was becoming increasingly militaristic, wars were fought with Denmark, Austria and France, there were successive harvest failures, high interest rates, and large families to support. George Stanke had brothers and sisters who also immigrated to the United States around this time too. Specific details of these siblings other than Carl Ludwig Hermann have not yet been discovered. In 1863, George left his home village of Zuchen, around April or May, and travelled to Hamburg to immigrate to Australia on board the boat the Beausite. The passenger list of the Beausite states that George was a blacksmith by trade, that his name was Berthold Stanke and that he was the only passenger on board from the Pomerania (German: Pommern) is a region of Prussia that was on the Baltic Sea and was taken over by Poland after the World War town of Zuchen. Two. George Stanke and his family lived in the area of Belgard. The Beausite
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departed the Port of Hamburg on the 23rd May 1863 with five hundred and ten passengers and arrived in Moreton Bay three months and thirteen days later on the 5th Sep 1863 with five hundred and eight passengers. During the voyage nine babies were born on board who were named after the vessel. There were also ten deaths from inflammatory affections of the lungs and diarrhoea. Some of the larger families that were passengers together with George Stanke include the Albrecht, Lau, Stegemann, Blanck, Link, Heck Raabe, Volz and Rut(h)enberg families. Life on board the Beausite for George and his fellow passengers must have been pretty horrendous during the voyage. German ships of the time on the Hamburg-Brisbane run were larger than their British counterparts. The British ships often had a reasonable amount of cargo plus passengers whereas all the German vessels were selected for their immigrant carrying capacity.1 Under the sardine like conditions on some German vessels, parents and as many as 3 children shared a double bunk; and 14 year olds slept with parents. One ship of the time was fitted with triple-decker double berths which allowed 2 feet 10 inches for the lower and 3 feet 4 inches for the upper space between berths. Early German ships also made no provision for segregating the sexes. It is reported that the Beausite had no portholes whatsoever.2 Below is an account of the Beausites arrival at Moreton Bay and her voyage according to the captain as recorded in The Courier Saturday September 12th 1863; The above named vessel arrived at the anchorage in Brisbane Roadstead at sundown on Saturday evening from Hamburg She is a large vessel of 932 tons registered burden, and is commanded by Captain C.I.S. Bruhn. She has a very small cargo, however, consisting of about 70 tons of general
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The Beausite

merchandise. Her passengers are all Germans, and number in all 508 souls. They are under the medical supervision of Mr. George Steinlein. There was a considerable amount of sickness among the passengers, but none of a contagious nature. We regret to have to record several causalities during the passage. On the 10th August, two men were much injured by the violent lurching of the vessel in a heavy gale. One of them was thrown with his back against one of the hatches, and injured his spine to such an extent that he lost the use of his legs. The other had his shoulder broken, and one of his fingers fractured; but he is now in a fair way of recovery. Another young man named Nicolas Schneider fell overboard and was drowned while in the act of drawing a bucket of water. Ten deaths from sickness took place during the voyage, five of which were caused by various inflammatory affections of the lungs. The remaining five died of other complaints, but chiefly from diarrhoea. This mortality was principally confined to the children. There were nine births, of which six were males. Among the immigrants are a large number of skilled mechanics, and altogether they are, we are informed, a very fine class of people, being quite equal to those which arrived recently by the German ships Alster and La Rochelle. The Beausite was visited by Dr. Hobbs, the Health Officer, on Monday last, and as on inspection he found the passengers in a satisfactory state as regards health, he passed her. The steamer Settler left Raffs wharf at 7 oclock on Thursday morning, to proceed to the Bay, for the purpose of bringing up the immigrants who arrived by this vessel. She made the run down the river in ten hours against the flood tide, and was alongside the ship at 9 oclock. The immigrants commenced their debarkation immediately the steamer was made fast, and in due time the whole number were, with their luggage, received on board the Settler, which then returned to Brisbane, and arrived alongside the wharf of the South Brisbane depot at about 5 oclock same evening. Among the passengers was the unfortunate man, mentioned above, who lost the use of both legs on the passage out, in consequence of an injury to the spine, caused by a fall against one of the hatches during a violent gale. He was conveyed to the hospital shortly after the arrival of the steamer.

Captain Bruhn has furnished us with the following report of the passage: - The Beausite sailed from the mouth of the River Elbe on the 26th May with 510 passengers, and a general cargo on board bound for this port. She passed the Lizard Point on the 7th of June, and crossed the Equator in longitude 29 deg. 15 min. west of Greenwich on the 2nd of July. Thence she made the run to the Cape of Good Hope in 24 days, and passed the meridian of that place on the 26th of July. Very heavy weather was encountered while making the easting from the Cape of Good Hope to Bass Strait. Cape Otway was sighted at 4am on the 13th August, while she having made the run from the Lizard in 79 days. From Cape Otway until she arrived in Moreton Bay she met with light South Brisbane wharves c.1860s northerly winds, which have somewhat increase the length of her passage. She arrived off the Pilot Station on the 4th of September at 9pm, and on the following morning at 8 oclock she was boarded by the pilot. At 3 oclock in the afternoon of the same day she was cast anchor in Brisbane Roads. The British ship Nimrod was spoken by the Beausite off the Cape of Good Hope on the 26th July. She was bound to Melbourne from London, and was 56 days out. No other vessels were spoken during the voyage. 3 As indicated the Beausite anchored in Brisbane Roads, which is the area off Nudgee Beach and off the end of the present Brisbane Airport runway. The Settler was a large stern wheel paddle steamer which usually sailed on the Brisbane-Ipswich service. The South Brisbane Wharf was the landing site for immigrants, who were brought ashore to the Immigration Depot at South Brisbane. The nearest wharves to the depot were Towns Wharf, the A.S.N. Wharf and Hockings Wharf. Single men and women were accommodated in separate quarters, and married couples with children in the South Brisbane depot. Intending
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employers went to the depot to select suitable persons for their requirements.4 From a newspaper report of October 1863 it is known that conditions at the South Brisbane Immigration Depot were not good at all. The writer of the article states that the immigrants would surely be tempted to accept the first offer of employment, however unadvantageous that might be, to escape the conditions of the immigration depot which would make the cell of a Brisbane gaol look like an earthly paradise. If George Stanke continued to stay at South Brisbane, fortunately, his conditions sound like they would have been better; Some distance further on, at the top of the ridge on which is erected the German Lutheran Chapel, there are a number of tents provided by the government, occupied by some eighty or ninety Germans recently arrived, per Beausite. They have, however, supplemented the number of tents provided for them by the liberality of the government, by the erection of sundry gunyahs, which give a somewhat picturesque effect to the scene. Although more exposed to the weather than the denizens of the "barns," their situation is much to be preferred as being healthier and more comfortable in every way. One thing is very certain, that unless more room is provided for the immigrants, and a proper system of ventilation insisted on, the mortality during the ensuing summer months in South Brisbane alone is likely to increase at a most alarming rate.5 Little detail is known of what George did exactly when he first arrived in the colony of Queensland. How long he stayed at South Brisbane, who employed him, where he lived the next few years are questions that remain unanswered. Presumably if George was recruited to migrate to Queensland, when he arrived in the colony he would have had to work for a local employer for a number of years. Many of the German settlers worked for the pastoralists and squatters on the Darling Downs as labourers and shepherds. Perhaps George travelled by steamer from Brisbane to Ipswich and then by road to Toowoomba. People frequently travelled by river steamer from Brisbane to Ipswich and then by coach or walked inland to Toowoomba and beyond. Maybe George worked his trade from the old country, that of a blacksmith. What we do know is that after five and a half years in Queensland, from at least January 1869, George Stanke was living and working on Mitchell Downs pastoral run in western Queensland. On Saturday 6
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February 1869, The Queenslander newspaper had the following advertisement on page one;
1 REWARD. LOST, on Mitchell Downs, a DEPOSIT RECEIPT (Bank of New South Wales, Roma), for 53 14s. The above reward will be paid at the Bank of New South Wales, Roma.BERTHOLD STANKE. Roma, January 25.6

What can be deducted from this advertisement is that George or Berthold Stanke (as he must also have been known), had been working on the Mitchell Downs property for some time and had earned 53 pounds 14 shillings which he had deposited in the Bank of New South Wales in Roma. This was quite a sum of money in its day. It would have been worth at least a couple of months wages for a labourer at the time. The Bank of New South Wales in Roma would have been the closest bank to Mitchell Downs. To offer a one pound reward for a deposit receipt in a Queensland (Brisbane) newspaper it sounds like he needed the receipt for proof of the money (53 14s) he had. This reward advertisement raises many questions such as how did George lose it? Was the receipt ever found? Was the receipted money forfeited? We can probably safely assume that George went to Mitchell Downs either labouring as a blacksmith (as his occupation was listed when he arrived in Queensland) or working as a shepherd like many other German immigrants on the Darling Downs. Mitchell Downs was one of the early pastoral runs of the Maranoa area west of Roma. The property was taken up and named by Edmund Morey in 1854. A correspondent of The Brisbane Courier reports in 1869 of how the former site of Mitchell Downs station had in the last nine months suddenly sprung into existence and could boast three good bush public houses, a substantial store built by Messes Lewin and Co of Roma and Messrs Zieman and Co. A Celestial7 on the bank of the river provides the town with cabbages, eschallots etc, and a butchers shop is being built. Also importantly that a blacksmith and his assistant are kept busy. 8 Who knows for sure, perhaps this blacksmith or his assistant was George Stanke?
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After working in western Queensland for a time, George moved to Toowoomba before eventually settling at Glencoe and starting a family. More concrete details are known about this phase of Georges life, such as his marriage to Euphrosine Kanowski. Euphrosine, or Eufrosene as it is sometimes spelt, was born in Alt Christburg, West Prussia, on the 28th of December 1852. Euphrosine was the third child of Johann Kanowski and Anna Bieber. Euphrosine migrated to Queensland together with her parents, two brothers and two sisters in 1874 at the age of twenty one.9 For their first five years or so the Kanowski family lived at Highfields renting small farms before settling at Glencoe. Euphrosines father Johann took up land across the road from George Stankes farm and latter divided it amongst his three sons; Gottfried, Carl, and Friedrich.10 However for Euphrosine, in a little over a month of arriving in a new country, she was married to the thirty-nine year old George Stanke. It was not uncommon at the time for older men to marry younger women especially when there were a limited number of women from the same culture available as brides. It was said that the early pioneering German men found the British women too lazy to be wives so just like their employers the single men sometimes went to the immigration depot in Brisbane to find a prospective bride from their homeland. George had worked hard in his new country and had established himself enough to marry a wife and start a family. George Stanke and Euphrosine Kanowski were married on the 28th of August 1874 in the German Church, Perth Street, Toowoomba according to the rites of the Lutheran Church.11 The officiating minister on their marriage certificate is listed as Godfrey Hampe12 and the witnesses to the marriage were Carl Schauwecker and Hulda Mller. At the time of their wedding George and Euphrosines place of residence is both recorded as Toowoomba. Many German families lived in the Middle Ridge area of Toowoomba in its early development.

Two years after George was married it is known that he was officially granted his land at Glencoe. When the Glencoe area was originally settled, the British and Irish immigrants took up the land that required the least clearing, so this left the heavier timbered blocks, usually the
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good scrub country, for the more frugal and harder working German settlers. This country also cost less.13 According to his deed of grant George paid twelve pounds twelve shillings and six pence for his 101 acres on the 15th September 1876. This deed was authorized by the Governor of Queensland, on behalf of Queen Victoria. Interestingly the deed stipulates that the original owner of the land can require a peppercorn if so desired as payment for rent. These deeds have sometimes been called Peppercorn grants. Joseph Voll who was granted his land the day before Georges and was his neighbour for 30 years, was said to be one of the first selectors of land in the Glencoe area. The Volls and the Stankes may well have selected and settled their land at the same time. Joseph Volls obituary says that he selected a portion of the then Gowrie Scrub, without a clear place to make a hut, and without even a dray. The selectors could be seen carrying their wire or rations on their backs or else hung across a pole with a man at each end. Water had to be carried over two miles in buckets, as there were no tanks, nor could they even pull a trolley through the scrub, which today is all rich wheat and corn farms.14 On the 29th May 1877 Georges selection was surveyed by A.W. Murray who described the land as vine scrub and chocolate soil. And on the 4th of October 1878 George had paid two thirds of the rent due on his land as lessee according to the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1868. On the 31st of October 1881 George Stanke as a lessee paid the balance (one pound, ten shillings, seven pence) of the five years rent on his selected land and was issued a deed of grant for it. On the 20th of September the bailiff or a representative of the bailiff of crown lands inspected George Stankes land and reported as to the nature of the improvements to the selection and a description of the house; Weatherboard cottage,

The seal of Queen Victoria on George Stankes Land Grant Deed

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shingle roof, four rooms furnished the residence of the selector, wife, and family for the last five years. Barn iron roof, stock and outbuildings . As to how the land is used; About 20 acres enclosed by paling fence and under cultivation. In that same year that they were granted their land, George and Euphrosine had their first child Christine Mathilde (1876). Over the next fifteen years a further eight children were born, roughly two years apart; Wilhelmine Franziska (12/4/1878), Bertha Marie (19/6/1880), August Ferdinand Herman their first son (10/8/1882), twins Martha Elilie and Auguste Louise (8/9/1884), Anna Caroline (23/12/1886), Carl Gustav Gottfried (25/5/1889) and Marie Henriette (7/9/1891). In 1895, five days before Christmas, George and Euphrosine suffered the death of their second child and daughter, Wilhelmina Franziska. Franziska who was seventeen years old died from a tumour or appendicitis. Two years after this tragedy, Euphrosine gave birth to her last child, Ernest Albert Heinrich (6/6/1897). Those early years of settling in Glencoe and starting a family were pioneering years for George and Euphrosine. The native vine scrub was cleared by hand, a house was built, a farm maintained The orginal Stanke house and later enlarged, 15 and a family of ten children was raised. But George was a pioneer not only in terms of settling the land but also in terms of establishing a Lutheran congregation there. The first worship services for what later became Bethlehem Lutheran Church were conducted in George and Euphrosines home. Lay reading and preaching services were conducted there as well as the first baptism in 1878 by Pastor A.D. Hartwig of Douglas. It was in 1880 that Bethlehems first church building was erected and dedicated on land donated by Georges
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neighbour; Carl Blanck. The other notable act documented in Georges life is that on the 16th August 1881, eighteen years after arriving in Australia, he enrolled to be naturalized as a British subject. 16 Being naturalised meant that George was afforded the right to own land. Owning your own land was one of the reasons George came to Australia in the first place. At the age of 75, George Stanke died on the 23rd November 1910 at his home in Glencoe. He was buried the next day at the Glencoe cemetery by Pastor A. Hartmann, with H.J. Wrembeck and H. Wieden being the witnesses. According to his death certificate Georges cause of death was due to three things; an enlarged prostate, toxaemia, and exhaustion. Spencer Roberts was the medical attendant who certified the death and is listed as last seeing the deceased nearly a year before on 9th November 1909. Georges son Herman is named as the informant of Georges death and that he resided at the time in Kingaroy. 17 In a letter written by Georges daughter Louisa Erskine some 48 years later she writes that her father passed away on her wedding day. We had everything arranged so we put it off for a week and were married quietly. It gave us all a shock. Peter (Louisas husband) tells me they carried my father from the house to the church. It may be half a mile eight men could easily do it.18 On Georges headstone is written in German; Here rests in God George Friedrich Berthold Stanke. Born 9th May 1835. Died 23rd November 1910. And the words of Revelation 2:8 Be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life and Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Euphrosine survived her husband George another nine years, dying on the 25th of November 1919, aged 66 years 10 months and 25 days. She too is buried at the Glencoe cemetery in a plot next to her parents. In this 150th anniversary year of the immigration of George Stanke to Queensland we give thanks for his pioneering spirit, his groundbreaking work in establishing himself and his family at Glencoe, and his faith in God which sustained him throughout his life, from Pomerania to Queensland.

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End Notes
Rights of Passage; Emigration to Australia in the Nineteenth Century Helen R. Woolcock, Tavistock Publications; 1986, London: 54. 2 Rights of Passage; Emigration to Australia in the Nineteenth Century Helen R. Woolcock, Tavistock Publications; 1986, London: 195, 191. 3 Emigrants From Hamburg to Australia 1863 compiled by E. Kopittke & R. Kopittke Queensland Family History Society Inc:1991: 25, 26 and The Courier, 12 September 1863, p. 2, viewed 12 August, 2013, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3165639 4 Roderick McLeod Research Officer Queensland Maritime Museum, personal correspondence 31 January 2007. 5 ' The Courier, 1 October, 1863, p. 2, viewed 12 August, 2013, http://nla.gov.au/nla.newsarticle 3166018 6 The Queenslander, Saturday, 6 February 1869, p. 7 A term used to describe Chinese emigrants to Australia during the 19th century. 8 The Brisbane Courier, Saturday, October 23, 1869, p.5 9 Two days after arriving in Queensland Euphrosine Kanowski and her sister Wilhelmine are recorded as being godparents to a three month old baby, Eduard Jacob Rarisch, who was born on the Herschel and baptised by Pastor Schirmeister at the North Brisbane Lutheran Church (St Andreas) along with two other babies born on the voyage. 10 M.G. Kanowski, Fine Men and Women; Some Darling Downs Migrants of the 1870s including part of the Kanowski/Kajewski Family Tree, Brisbane: 1978, p.5,6,11. 11 Queensland Marriage Certificate, Registration Number 1874/000813. 12 Godfrey or Gottfried Hampe was a Gossner Missionary sent out from Berlin in 1866. He first served the South Brisbane congregation for two years and then transferred to Toowoomba to assist Pastor Langebecker. In 1872 Hampe took charge of the Independent German Church, which had been founded by Pastor Anger, in Perth Street. Numerous members of this church were forced out through the action of the trustees and in 1887 constituted themselves as Holy Trinity congregation and built a new church in Hume Street. (F.O. Theile, One Hundred Years of the Lutheran Church in Queensland 1938). 13 Stories from Under the Pepperina Tree; Bethlehem Lutheran Church Glencoe, 125th Anniversary, 1880-2005 compiled by members of Bethlehem, TEC Print: 2005, p.2 14 The Toowoomba Chronicle Thursday, June 20, 1918 15 By 1901 Georg had purchased another 101 acres of land to the west of his property, close to the church, then 117 acres from the Mahon brothers, 27 from Rundmanns and 3 parcels of land 25, 33, and 30 acres from the Kanowskis, and finally a 4 acre triangular piece from Mahons. 16 List of naturalized aliens in the Queensland Governments Votes and Proceedings 1885 Vol 2 p.254. Georges place of residence is listed as Gowrie Scrub. 17 Queensland Death Certificate, Registration Number 1910/003736001003. 18 From a letter written by Louisa Erskine to her niece Jean Jarick on the occasion of her wedding.
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Georg Friedrich Berthold STANKE b. 9 May 1835, Zuchen, Pomerania d. 23 Nov 1910, bur.Glencoe m. 28 Aug 1874, Toowoomba Euphrosene KANOWSKI b. 28 Dec 1852, Alt Christburg, West Prussia d. 25 Nov 1919, bur. Glencoe

Further information : http://stankefamilyhistory.weebly.com Or contact : tjjarick@gmail.com

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Christine Mathilde (Tine) STANKE 18751934

Wilhelmine Franziska STANKE 1878-1895

George Friedrich Berthold STANKE (1835-1910) Euphrosene KANOWSKI (1852-1919)

Bertha Marie STANKE 1880-1956

August Ferdinand Herman STANKE 1882-1963 Emma Wilhelmina BISCHOF

Martha Elilie STANKE (twin) 1884

Auguste Louise STANKE (twin) 1884

Anna Caroline STANKE 1886-1955

Carl Gustav Gottfried STANKE 1889-1970

Marie Henriette STANKE 1891-1977

Ernest Albert Heinrich STANKE 1897-1964

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