Captain Herman Schuenemann was lost in the wreck of the Christmas tree schooner Rouse Simmons he was survived by his wife, Barbara, and three daughters. Together the four women carried on the family business of harvesting, shipping and selling Christmas trees into the the 1930's when Barbara died.
Misidentified by the newspaper as Elsie and Pearl Schuenemann, these two beautiful young women could only be the Schuenemann twins, Pearl and Hazel, who were born in October 1898.
Within a month after the twins were born Herman Schuenemann's brother, Captain August Schuenemann, was lost in the wreck of the schooner S. Thal. That year Herman did not go north for Christmas trees. One might surmise that he stayed home to help care for his wife and newborn daughters. This decision might have saved him from sharing his brother's fate. Captain Herman is said to have had a custom of calling his twin daughters on their birthday from the northwoods where he was busy gathering trees to bring south to Chicago.
Older sister Elsie, Herman and Barbara Schuenemann's first child gained a reputation as a spunky and adventure- some woman. Shortly after her father's death was announced in the Chicago papers, she was quoted as saying that she would herself take a schooner north to Michigan to secure a new load of Christmas trees for the families of Chicago.
It's clear from this picture, taken for the Chicago Daily News, however, that Elsie was no sailor. An observant viewer will note that the schooners cabin is behind her, and that the sidestays and ratlines of a mast can be seen over her left shoulder. In other words, while Elsie appears to be pointing the way for the vessel to sail, she is in reality facing the stern of the boat.
It matters not that Elsie never actually sailed a schooner to northern Michigan. The fact is that the girls and their mother, who had once made wreaths and garlands for their father to sell from the deck of the Rouse Simmons, continued undaunted for another twenty years. They preserved the fabric of their own family while bringing Christmas joy to tens of thousands of families in Chicago.
During their lifetimes the Christmas tree became the ubiquitous symbol of a season in which Chicagoans were moved to counter tragedy with charity, and to dispel darkness with light.
Stores like Marshall Fields on State Street (above) adopted the evergreen to appeal to the shopping public.
The year after Capt. Herman Schuenemann and his crew perished on board the schooner Rouse Simmons, "Chicago's Christmas Tree Ship," the city of Chicago erected its first municipal Christmas Tree in Grant Park (right).
