Conrad Fleckenstein & Josephine Redich

Conrad Fleckenstein was apparently the only son of Johann and Eva Fleckenstein. They also had four daughters. The family lived in Blamenbach (sic) [Blankenberg?] which at that time was under the strict repressive government of Prussia.

In 1847, the Fleckensteins decided to move to America and start a new life. The entire family, along wiht several other relatives, boarded the ship Grace-Brown in the port city of Bremen. A few weeks later, on September 18, they arrived in Baltimore. From there they continued inland, finally settling in Pennsylvania.

Sometime in the late 1850’s Conrad met and married Josephine Redich, also a German immigrant. She had been born in Prussia, and for some unknown reason her family could not come to America as a group. Josephine and her sister had to draw slips to see which of them would get the chance to go first. Her sister won the lottery; Josephine had to wait. Even as the loser, she was able to arrive in the United States by around 1857.

Conrad and Josephine lived in Johnstown, Pennsylvania where he worked in the steel mills. Here the Germans and the Welsh were the first settlers and most of the population seemed to be European. Together they raised nine children (Mary, Eva, Francis, Conrad, Katie, Charles, Joseph, Regina, and Louis).

With the westward expansion of the country after the Civil War, the Nation’s appetite for iron was insatiable. The Cambria Iron Company had it’s giant three-ton converters going around the clock. The valley was full of smoke and the city clanked and whistled and rumbled loud enough to be heard miles away. The night sky glowed so red that hte entire valley appeared to be on fire. In the midst of this the workers put in a ten or twelve-hour day, six days a week. Many times they worked from one week right on through Sunday and on into the next. The work was intensely hot and dangerous with slippery floors and molten metal that could cause serious injuries at the slightest mistake. If they received ten dollars for a week’s work they were very well paid.

The Johnstown that Conrad knew was not always an oppressive city, choked with smoke. Many times the wind would sweep the valley clear and the air was as fresh as any man could ask for. The night sky, especially in winter, would then be coal black and sparkling with a million bright stars.

Most of the mill hands lived in cheap pine-board company houses along the riverbanks, but by the mid 1880’s Conrad had bought his own home at 713 Chestnut Street in Cambria City. One day, while chopping wood, a splinter flew into his eye. The accident caused him to be blind in one eye. Yet the blindness was not permanent. His sight was strangely restored a few years before his death in 1899 at the age of 75. Josephine outlived Conrad by more than twenty years, passing away at the age of 87 just days after what would have been Conrad’s 100th birthday.