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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand 
April 21, 1986 
Cassette 1, Side 2 
 
 
Robert L. Reed  00:14 
Now, we were talking about your family w-- like to take walks together.  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  00:20 
Well, are you referring to when I was very, very young or now later on? 
 
Robert L. Reed  00:26 
Well, let's start when you were very young and then come up the ladder.  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  00:29 
Well, actually, there weren't very much to do, excepting that we would have, you know, little 
picnics among ourselves, but going to school and coming home and doing our homework. And 
Sunday was a day that they all relaxed, my father and mother closed shop, and go to church in 
the morning, and that's about it. 
 
Robert L. Reed  00:54 
Were there other church activities that you participated in?  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  01:00 
Well, not right then. We were all too young, really. 
 
Robert L. Reed  01:05 
And-- now, you went to school in Saint Cloud for a while.  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  01:12 
Yes, we did.  
 
Robert L. Reed  01:14 
What were some of your experiences there?  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  01:18 
In Saint Cloud, oh, we were very happy, comparatively. We had quite a little ways to walk to 
school, but that didn't deter us.  
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Robert L. Reed  01:31 
Were you all going to the same school? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  01:33 
At that time, all except the very younger ones. And the sisters were very kind, and they were 
very helpful, and they were very patient. There were five of us going to school at one time, at 
Holy Angels School. And at one time, I remember-- I was only corrected once in school. I 
always tried to be very good so not to be corrected, because someone would tell my mother and 
my father if I got home [laughs]. 
 
Robert L. Reed  01:56 
You mean one of the other kids would tattle on you? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  02:07 
Yes. Anyway, I was seated in one of the first rows, and I had long pigtails at the time, braids. 
The little girl in back of me began pulling my hair. I turned around, said, "Please don't." And the 
sister just caught me turning around. She pointed at me and said, "Go out in the hall and stay 
there till I call you." I went out there and I wept. It wasn't my fault. I said, "Please, it wasn't my 
fault. I was trying to tell her not to pull my hair." "Go out in the hall!" Which made-- what made 
it worse, is because my brother came through the hall. He was going to the boys lavaratory. He 
saw me, and he pointed his finger at me. Says, "I'm going to tell Mama on you!" So when I got 
home, I had to go through that all again. It was a misery. That's the worst thing that ever 
happened in all my school days. 
 
Robert L. Reed  03:12 
Well, when you were about that age-- what age were you at that time? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  03:17 
I should-- I guess about 12. 
 
Robert L. Reed  03:20 
Could you-- do you remember from then any games that the kids played around school? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  03:26 
Well, we lived right on the Mississippi River. 
 
Robert L. Reed  03:29 
Oh, that's [inaudible]. 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  03:31 
It was a block or two, a steep hill down towards the water. My mother forbade us to go near the 
water. Some little children we knew lived quite close to it. But we couldn't go down there to visit 
them, because it was too near the edge. But one time, we were at home, and my little brother, 
Ben -- he was about two years old, two or three -- he wandered away from home one day. And lo 
and behold, he made a bee's line to go down to see the river. My mother searched for him and 
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screamed and searched and couldn't find him. She ran down to the window here to the river. 
Here, my little brother Benny was standing and looking at the water. He had got that close to it. 
Of course, she called him in time and he got a good little spanking after that, but that was the 
highlight in his life. I think he still remembered it for many, many years after.  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  04:30 
Oh, another something happened in Saint Cloud. We lived near the courthouse, and one day, we 
saw a black car, a carriage driven by horses, stopping at the courthouse. Someone drew my 
mother's attention to it, so she called us, and we all got on the street watching this carriage and 
what it was doing there. A man with a black suit and a [?flat hat?] was being led into the 
courthouse. There was a jail there. So someone said, "Oh, that's Crawford." I think he was a 
murderer that they had moved from one jail to another. We were terrified then to even go near 
the courthouse. I remember that very distinctly. Was the first experience we had of even seeing a 
murderer. 
 
Robert L. Reed  05:36 
Do you think of any other games that kids would do in school or at home? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  05:43 
Well, on the schoolground, they just kind of played tag and, you know-- in Saint Cloud, there 
was really no large yard to play in. At recess, we went home to lunch and we went back for the 
afternoon session, then we had to go home right after that. And of course, when we got home, 
there's plenty of things to do. So there wasn't much time to play there. But when we were living 
on the farm previous to that, there was a large, large, vacant acreage, you might say. We'd run 
out there and we'd play Ring Around the Rosie and Drop my Handkerchief-- Drop the 
Handkerchief and all those old games. It was fun. It was quite a long ways to walk to school, 
though, especially in the winter. Sometimes a blizzard would coming up and my father would 
surprise us with coming to pick us up in an old bobsled with a couple of horses and blankets. 
 
Robert L. Reed  06:49 
Did you-- did your family raise a crop on the farm?  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  06:52 
Oh, they raised a couple of crops, wheat and barley and oats and a large garden with potatoes. 
And my mother had her little green garden with lettuce and whatever one could make a salad out 
of, although in those days, salad was not the way it is now. We had lettuce, and she just put a 
little bacon drippings or little vinegar, and the other vegetables were mainly always cooked, 
carrots and rutabagas and tomatoes and cucumbers and whatever we had, you know? 
 
Robert L. Reed  07:33 
You said your father liked to do a lot of reading. Do you remember any-- did he subscribe to any 
papers or magazines? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  07:38 
He had a German paper. There was one published at that time. 
 
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Robert L. Reed  07:41 
Published in this country [crosstalk].  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  07:42 
It was published back East. I don't know he got it after that for a long, long time. And we always 
took a daily paper. And when we had study books, when we were going to high school, we'd 
bring home our histories, and he would read them avidly. He'd want to see what we were 
studying. Well, he'd take the book and read them, and he loved history. 
 
Robert L. Reed  08:15 
In your home anywhere in Minnesota, did you ever have a phonograph, the kind you wind up or 
the kind with the trumpet thing?  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  08:22 
Oh, no. We had a-- no, we had the piano. That was it. We had a zither, but no one became 
accomplished enough to play it. No, that's all we had. And we kept busy. We'd have to practice 
every day. And it got so that it was a pleasure for me to practice. My younger sister is quite a 
well-known physician-- musician in San Francisco. She studied both organ and piano with the 
idea in mind that she would play in the movies, but by the time she was able to, of course, you 
know what happened to the movies. They didn't need an organist. And she's an artist. She's a 
professional artist. And I do a little dabbling in paint myself, sometimes. I love to do handcraft. 
I've tried most anything-- everything and anything. I knit, and sew, crochet, tat. Know anything 
about tatting? 
 
Robert L. Reed  09:36 
I've heard about it.  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  09:37 
It's sort of a lost art. In my first home, I made yards and yards of tatting, and I put it on my first 
curtains that I hung in... What else did I--? Embroidered. Knit afghans. I made a lot of things for-
- to sell at various bazaars at my church, and later on, at the senior citizens-- the Wallingford 
Senior Citizen that I became affiliated with and interested in. And in fact, I was always so very, 
very busy. I think it was my nature. If I didn't have anything to do, I'd find something to do. I 
would like to do tin craft when it was popular.  
 
Robert L. Reed  10:23 
Tin craft? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  10:24 
Yes. 
 
Robert L. Reed  10:24 
How did you do that? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  10:30 
These h-- these huge ornaments to hang on walls, and Christmas ornaments of tin craft. 
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Robert L. Reed  10:39 
You pound that up? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  10:40 
No, you just use certain tools that you measure, flatten them out, and then mark them in such a 
way that you cut them a certain way that you would use your little needlepoint pliers to turn and 
twist to make a pattern. I liked that, too. 
 
Robert L. Reed  11:02 
When the question came up of moving to Seattle, how did you feel about it? Where were you 
going to school at the time when you moved? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  11:11 
At the time-- let me see, at the time we moved to Seattle... Oh, the farm school. And when we-- 
well, liked to think of going somewhere-- especially way off for the coast. Our friends told us 
they can't even raise decent potatoes you can eat. There's nothing but Indians there, which 
terrified us. It was all just the contrary. They didn't know, they'd heard. But we were here only-- 
well, for the first couple of weeks we were here, my sister and I -- Theresa and I were the closest. 
We cried every night. We wanted to go back to Maple Lake. We didn't like the weather. We 
didn't like walking to school in a heavy fog where we couldn't even see our hand before our face. 
Isn't it wonderful that nothing happened to people in those days? No one was afraid. And they 
told us that was on account of the heavy timber. After more of the timber was cut, well, it cleared 
up more. Of course, we do have some fog now, but nothing like it was then. Gradually began to 
like Seattle. We began to like our school and our teachers and got acquainted a little bit more. So 
we-- I wouldn't live back in Minnesota, now, if you gave me a home. I wouldn't.  
 
Robert L. Reed  11:12 
Well, I'm still thinking about Minnesota and your lives there. When you got ready for the trip out 
here, what were you looking forward to for your own future? What did you expect to do? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  12:29 
For myself, well, I was about 15. So, well, we were just looking for something more pleasurable 
than going to a farm school and not having any friends. 
 
Robert L. Reed  13:02 
At 15, did you have a boyfriend back there?  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  13:06 
Oh, no, no one thought about that.  
 
Robert L. Reed  13:08 
Too young?  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  13:09 
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Oh, in those days, no, we were not allowed to even walk down the street with a boyfriend or 
have a boyfriend. 
 
Robert L. Reed  13:17 
But on the other hand, girls who grew up to a certain age and weren't married, what would they 
call them? Old maids?  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  13:32 
Well, there's a difference of opinion on that. I married quite young. I was only 19. If there's a 
time-- if there's time, I'd like to tell you how I met my husband. He was the one and the only man 
in my life. Okay? It was on the train when my father came to Seattle in 1907. It was winter. 
There was a heavy snowstorm in the Dakotas, I think it was, and the train had to stop because 
there was a snow slide. During the next few days, everyone got acquainted with everyone else. 
My father had a pair of shoes that were stolen, the only pair he had. Someone on the train gave 
him a pair. I think it was a man that later became my husband. That's a long time ago. I'm piecing 
things together. Because they were so long and slender, and my father had a short foot. My father 
was very stylish, though, when he was dressed up. He had his twisted little mustache. Anyway, 
he met these three young men from Europe, and they spoke German, and they were delighted to 
meet someone in this country who could speak German with them, and they visited all the way to 
Seattle. My father asked them, "Where are you going?" "We're going to Alaska to get some gold. 
We heard in Europe, in London, that you could pick up nuggets on the ground." So they were 
going to seek their fortune. They had a little money with them. They always worked. But when 
they got to Alaska, they worked for a long time, oh, a year or two, and the company went broke. 
They came back with not a penny in their pockets. They came back to Seattle and one day my 
father was shopping -- he came home with lot of groceries from the public market, where you 
could buy a whole bag full of greens, you know, for 50¢ or 60¢ -- and he saw these three men 
always together -- they were fearful of [?being apart with a strange?] -- standing on a corner to 
cross, and they met each other, and they were overjoyed that here they met someone they had 
known before. From then on, he used to invite these three young men to come to our house for 
dinner, because they were just like children to him, you know. They were away from home and 
they had nothing and looking for a job, and they kept on coming every Sunday. And we children 
thought it was a joke, because every time they came, they'd bring a box of chocolate. We were 
looking forward to the next box of chocolates, so we didn't mind how many Sundays they came. 
And finally, one of the young men, he went to Oregon, found a job there, and the other one got 
married and had a large business near Lincoln High School where he sold food-- lunches to the 
students. And my young man turned up once in a while. He had a good job. He was working in 
the Washington Hotel. He mixed drinks behin-- over their marble slab of a counter-- whatever 
they call it, a bar. And that's how it started. Yeah. Took a long time. Had no idea. It just became 
that way. And then we were married. 
 
Robert L. Reed  17:34 
Well, before getting married, did you-- did he finally become-- [?call in?] officially, or...? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  17:45 
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Oh, yes, she had to ask my father. So we took walks to the park, to a little park [laughs] and went 
on picnics together. We used to go to Alki Beach for a picnic, but we all went along. So I don't 
know whether they didn't trust him or they didn't trust me. I don't know. We all went. 
 
Robert L. Reed  18:08 
The whole family? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  18:10 
Yes. Though we had fun. 
 
Robert L. Reed  18:18 
So you think the move to Seattle was a good move? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  18:21 
Oh, yes, because my future. [Tape cuts.] 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  18:26 
Oh, well, I'll tell you that we began to study music, piano lessons. 
 
Robert L. Reed  18:31 
Now, you say that in Saint Cloud, the-- your father took you-- all the kids in to Saint Cloud in a 
wagon so you could go to school there, and he went back to the farm to take care of the farm. So 
your family was split most of the time for a while? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  18:52 
For a couple years.  
 
Robert L. Reed  18:54 
[Inaudible]? For how long? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  18:56 
Well, we did that for a couple of years, but it was only for the school term each year. 
 
Robert L. Reed  19:01 
So you went back and worked on the farm in the--  
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  19:04 
Yes. 
 
Robert L. Reed  19:04 
--summertime. And how did you like that sort of a life? How did it work out? 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  19:11 
Well, we didn't like it too well because it was such a hardship for our parents, and just moving 
with bare necessities was rather difficult too. We only took with us maybe-- well, food, like 
maybe a barrel of apples and a few sacks of potatoes, and figuring that we could buy the rest 
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when we got to Saint Cloud, which was true. And some bedclothes and children's clothes and 
pots and pans, a few sticks of furnitures, just what we actually needed. And we did that for about 
three years. Our family was sort of split. But only in the school term; we were always together in 
the summer. Until we sold the farm. No one was happy on the farm. It was a wonderful farm, but 
we weren't happy. We wanted to get to town. We were used to town life. So then we sold the 
farm, my parents sold the farm, and we came to Seattle, where we lived from then on. In fact, I'm 
still living here. 
 
Robert L. Reed  20:21 
Very much so. Maybe we should talk a little bit about your ancestors back in Germany, earlier 
than your grandparents. 
 
Esther Gertrude Garske Brand  20:35 
Yes, I have a record here. So I have a record, which my oldest brother John gave me because he 
did a study of it. And being with my father so much of the time, he got little more information 
than the rest of us children, who were not always there. And of course, he did a lot of research. 
He ran across someone from that part of the country in Europe, and he wrote to them, and they 
gathered a little more information. So this is what I have to date. Actually, my father's ancestors 
of what I have the record of starts in 1790, 1790. Count Garske in that part of Russia, which at 
the time-- at that time had been Poland, he escaped to the German border to avoid exile. He had 
one son, Jacob, coachman for King Frederick the Great, known as Old Fritz. This was Prussia. 
When son Jacob married, the king gave him 600 acres of land and right to the title of "von". In 
other words, that's where "von Garske" began. Jacob had four children, Anna, Steven, John 
Clements, and Jacob, Jr. They all lived near Harmelsdorf, [?Krin?], Deutsch Krone. All 
descendants were vested with rights as citizens of Germany through Jacob, Sr. One of the sons, 
John Clements Garske, married a young woman by the name of Emelia Bleska. Both were music 
teachers. They both died during the cholera epidemic in 1867 leaving four orphan children, my 
father one of them. There were four children, Clements, a schoolteacher; Lucy, who later came 
to America; Gregor, my father; and John L., John L., who had a grocery store in Saint Paul later 
on. My father, Gregor, was 14 years old when he arrived in America. He traveled steerage with 
only 14 pennies in his pocket on arrival. He was born in 1858, married my mother, Susanna 
Schmitt, in 1883, and they had nine children, my brother John, born in 1885; a little sister, 
Katherine, born in '86, who died the next year. I never knew her. Leo, 1888, he died in 1974; 
Veronica, born in 1890, passed away in 1977; Theresa, 1892, she passed away in-- just a couple 
of-- 18-- 19-something or something. Just a couple years ago-- stop! She died in 18-- 1984. 
Joseph, born in 1900 and passed away in 1975; Benjamin C., born in 1903. He died in 1980. 
Ruth, Ruth, born in 1905 and still living and myself, Esther G., born in 1894. 
 
Robert L. Reed  25:02 
Thank you, Mrs. Brand. And this concludes the first recorded interview. I'm looking forward to 
seeing the rest of it. Thank you. 
 