Nelly May Kavelman

Other Events:

• FindAGrave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/233769168
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-199353P
• Residence: 1911, New Dundee, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran

Other Events:

• FindAGrave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/233767543
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-48497P
• Immigration: 1882, , Ontario, Canada
• Immigration: 1883, , Ontario, Canada
• Residence: 1891, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran
• Occupation: 1901, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Clerk
• Occupation: 1906, New Dundee, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; clerk
• Occupation: 1911, New Dundee, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Retail, General Store
• Residence: 1911, New Dundee, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran
• Occupation: 1926, New Dundee, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Merchant

Notes:

Flash from the Past: New Dundee's story lives on in Kavelman's photos

Herman Kavelman was a shopkeeper, fire chief, librarian, clock repairman ... and photographer

NEWS Aug 24, 2018 by rych mills Waterloo Region Record

Every community should have had a Herman Kavelman.

Luckily for New Dundee, Herman spent most of his life in that Wilmot Township village. He was born in Mecklenburg, Germany, in July 1882 on the eve of the family's departure for Canada. A few years later, Gottlieb Bettschen was erecting the Jubilee Block in New Dundee, named to honour Queen Victoria's 50th year on the throne. Over the first 20 years, several merchants sold dry goods and groceries from Bettschen's building - including Joseph U. Clemens, Jacob Kriesel and Alvan C. Clemens. In 1899, Kriesel hired a 16-year-old apprentice who, 11 years later, had not only married Jacob's sister, Millie May, but purchased the business.

For the next 60-plus years, New Dundee's centre of life was Herman Kavelman's store. Herman was more than a shopkeeper \emdash fire chief, librarian, clock repairman, leader of the store's hot stove gossip group ... and photographer. He and his camera seemed to be all over town preserving images of people, homes, construction, vehicles, celebrations, disasters \emdash in short, all the things that make up a community's story. Many of these photos he issued as postcards in the early decades of the century. Some 300-plus of his glass negatives, many from the 1900-1930 era, have survived and are in the Township of Wilmot Archives. However, they took a circuitous route.....

mills, r. (2018). Flash from the Past: New Dundee's story lives on in Kavelman's photos. TheRecord.com. Retrieved 24 August 2018, from https://www.therecord.com/news-story/8857157-flash-from-the-past-new-dundee-s-story-lives-on-in-kavelman-s-photos/

___________________

This Storekeeper, 86, Slowing Down a Bit.

By HENRY KOCH Record Business Editor

NEW DUNDEE - After 70 years in the same general store, Herman Kavelman is slowing down a bit.

He's 86 and complains about being a little tired when the last customer decides to go home about 9 p.m. By that time he's worked a 14-hour day.

What's worse, he feels, is that he isn't able to lift a 100-pound bag of sugar these days. "I'm really not 100 per cent anymore," he chuckles, "because I can lift only 50 pounds."

The sprightly octogenarian, who will be 87 on July 16, still shovels snow, "but not too much of that anymore."

There was a time, he recalls, when he used to unload whole train carloads of salt all by himself, fix watches and clocks, sell refrigerators and radios, fit women and children with shoes, measure men for suits, run the village library in his store, and still be fresh as a daisy at the end of a long day.

He still zips around his large general store with the agility of a man in his early 50s. His only helpers are part time high school students.

But he no longer unloads salt, repairs watches, sells refrigerators and radios or fits women shoes. and children,

He discontinued watch repairing a couple of years ago because he found it difficult to see the hairsprings and dropped the other items "because they got to be too big a bother."


He still repairs the occasional clock, however.

The village's library board gave him $50 a year to house. the library and act as librarian until around 1959 when a separate building was erected.

The space in his store became too small for the community's needs. Mr. Kavelman marked his 70th anniversary as a storekeeper Jan. 1.

He was 16 when Jacob Kriesel hired him as an apprentice clerk on Jan. 1, 1899. His salary was $30 a year, plus room and board the first year and $50 a year the third year.

The kind hearted proprietor threw in a hand-made blue serge suit for good measure, worth about $20 in those time, days.

He took over the business in 1910 and "reluctantly" install electricity in 1925. The gas brackets are still there. So are the big bins, which contained bulk tea, flour, sugar and various spices in the early days.

The curved glass showcases and the original counter are also there, but the old coffee grinder was retired many years back. It's stored in the back room now and is not for sale.

Mr. Kavelman recalls when he sold green coffee to his customers for 10 cents per pound. ...

Biggest change of all has been the decline of bartering. At the turn of the century, the store accepted eggs, butter and drier apples (schnitz) for staple items.

"We often didn't get any money until after the harvest was in," the veteran storekeeper recalls, "Sometimes the farmer wouldn't settle his account until after selling his cattle in April or May."

The best schnitz was sold on the Toronto market and the darker, more dried up product went to Montreal and northern lumber camps "since we were told they'd eat anything up there."

The winter's supply of butter was kept in the basement and it was one of the proprietor's duties to mix it making uniform possible" before packing it into pails for shipment to market.

Upstairs, customers found a limited choice in the early days. For example, there were only three kinds of soap and they came in bulk cartons. There was Comfort, Gold Soap and Castille.

"One old lady used to poke her hat pin through the bars of Gold Soap looking for gold, but she never found any."

Cheese came in 90-pound "rounds" and sold for 10 cents a pound. Molasses was popular, especially blackstrap, and about the only item individually packaged was corn flakes.

All kinds of packaged goods now crowd the old shelving in the Kavelman store, looking somehow out of place alongside the old counters, gas brackets and wood stove.

Some of the items are products of another era, like the size 14½ celluloid collars and the old-fashioned women's corsets. The collars are still for sale for 25 cents each and the corsets are less than $2.

He's down to one old bowler hat and it isn't for sale.

Mr. Kavelman still gets the occasional request for men's spats. "But since I never handled them, I have none for sale now."

He sold thousands of pairs of high-buttoned shoes over the years and kept a couple of pairs as souvenirs. They mysteriously disappeared recently.

Among the old-fashioned items customers still request is horse liniment. "The horse liniment made today is good for horse or human," he laughs.

Disposable items, Mr. Kayelman recalls, are nothing really new. His store handled disposable men's shirt collars from 1899 to 1909. "They were cheap and popular-a dime a dozen."

His best customer for disposable collars was George Trussler, a farmer on Huron Road, who used them until he died at the age of 103.

Mr. Kavelman's most exciting experience in the store was a couple of years after he started at the turn of the century when a group of farmers were seated around a stove in the dry goods section and were fooling around with a shotgun.

They were arguing as to whether it was loaded or not when the gun went off and put a hole in the ceiling. The hole is still there.

The shot scared the heck out of me." he recalls.

The veteran drove a years ago. storekeeper car until a few years ago.

His first car was a four- cylinder French model called EMF, for Everett, Metzer and Flanders, which he purchased in Toronto in 1913 for $250 and drove home in two days after two driving lessons. "I had real confidence in those days."

The villagers, he recalls, named it the Every Morning Fix, but he dubbed it the Easy, Medium and Fast.

Outside of a sore back and the occasional stomach ache, Mr. Kavelman enjoys reasonably good health. For recreation he reads The Record every night from about 9 to 10 p.m. and watches the television news at 11 p.m., retires and rises at 7 a.m.

He's outlived two wives and has a housekeeper to look after his household chores. He lives above the store.

Mr. Kavelman's main interest in life is people. He thoroughly enjoys the daily contacts with his old customers, the high school students and the old-timers who come in to sit and chat around the stove.

That's why he dreads the thought of retirement. "I'd like to quit, but what would I do?"

His ambition was to be a storekeeper for 70 years. He made it. Now he plans to carry on "so long as my health holds out."

The Kitchener-Waterloo Record

Herman married Millicent May "Millie" Kreisel 18 Apr 1906, New Dundee, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. Millicent (daughter of William Kreisel and Elizabeth, daughter of Wilhelm "William" Kriesel and Elizabeth Hett) was born 28 Aug 1884, New Dundee, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; died 20 Mar 1917, New Dundee, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; was buried , New Dundee Union Cemetery, New Dundee, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• FindAGrave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/233769243
• Name: Millicent May "Millie" Kavelman
• Name: Millie Kriesel
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-48496
• Residence: 1911, New Dundee, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran

Notes:

Death of Mrs. Herman Kavelman.

After a long illness Millicent May Kriesel, beloved wife of Mr. Herman Kavelman, passed away at New Dundee on Tuesday, March 20th, at 10.30 a m The funeral service was held on the 23rd March at the Lutheran church thence to the New Dundee cemetery for interment. The pall-bearers were Messrs. Arthur Kavelman, Irvin Kavelman, Ed. Kavelman, C. Kavelman, W. Kavelman and Milton Doman, and the many beautiful floral tributes testified to the esteem in which the deceased was held. Besides her sorrowing husband she is survived by one daughter, a father, five sisters and two brothers.

The Chronicle Telegraph, 29 Mar 1917, p. 1

Other Events:

• FindAGrave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/233830734
• Name: William Kavelman
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-85635
• Residence: 1882, Penzlin, , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
• Occupation: 1891, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Agricultural Laborer
• Residence: 1891, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran

Notes:

Obituary - With sincere regret we chronicle the death of the late Mr. Wm. Kavelman, who after suffering for over a year with consumption, passed away on Monday of last week. The funeral took place on Friday last at the Blenheim Church.

The Chronicle Telegraph, 28 Feb 1901, p. 1

Wilhelm married Wilhelmine Dorothea Ernestine "Minnie" Damier 4 Nov 1881, Groß Vielen, , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Wilhelmine was born 26 Oct 1855, Groß Vielen, , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany; died 18 Nov 1927, New Dundee, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; was buried , New Dundee Union Cemetery, New Dundee, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: Minnie Damier
• Name: Wilhelmine Dorothea Ernestine "Minnie" Kavelman
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-75848P
• Residence: 1882, Penzlin, , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
• Immigration: 1883, , Ontario, Canada
• Immigration: 1883, , Ontario, Canada
• Residence: 1891, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran
• Occupation: 1911, New Dundee, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Farmer
• Residence: 1911, New Dundee, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-48498

William — Elizabeth. Elizabeth was born Abt 1854, Of, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; died Yes, date unknown. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: Elizabeth Kreisel
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-48499

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-75862
• Residence: 1861, Groß Vielen, , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany

Carl married Caroline Christina Dorothea "Lena" Krumm 18 Oct 1844, Wulkenzin, , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Caroline was born 15 May 1818, , Germany; died 30 Nov 1901, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; was buried , Blenheim Mennonite Cemetery, Blenheim Township, Oxford Co., Ontario. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• FindAGrave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/233881223
• Name: Caroline Christina Dorothea "Lena" Kavelman
• Name: Lena Krumm
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-75861
• Residence: 1861, Groß Vielen, , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
• Immigration: 1886, , Canada
• Residence: 1891, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran