Another thoughtful piece, from my friend, and fellow businessman, Tom Fiske:
Every family has members that no one talks about. In my case it was my great-grandfather Adam Sebastian. He worked hard, succeeded, and died young. The problem was that he was a low class emigrant from Bavaria. People like that just did not fit into Southern society, so everyone kept quiet about Adam as though he had been a bank robber. To this day he is not a popular topic in my family’s circle of friends and cousins.
But Adam always had a certain appeal for me. I am a B (Business) school graduate, and he was a heck of an entrepreneurial businessman. With hardly any English at all, Adam emigrated from Whoknowswhere, Bavaria to Louisville, KY about 1856. I am sure that the Ohio River Valley area reminded him and many other Germans of the Rhine River Valley. That’s why there were so many of them in an area that stretched from Cincinnati, Ohio down to Paducah, Kentucky along the Ohio River.
After doing his market research (he looked around and saw a huge horde of hungry and homesick German-speaking people) the twenty-six year-old Adam saw a great business opportunity. He found productive land on the outskirts of Louisville and set up a farm. On the edge of the farm beside a large road, Adam purchased a house whose lower floor could be used for a retail store. He set up a supply line from existing farms and went into the grocery business. Business license information shows that Adam obtained a permit to sell alcoholic beverages. He supplied German-speaking people with food and other items they wanted, with a warm German touch. Adam was a full-fledged entrepreneur in the finest of American traditions.
He quickly became an American citizen, which meant he had a good grasp of the English language.
All this time Adam was raising a family of four children with his wife, Teresa. Then tragedy struck. Teresa died. But Adam labored on, working night and day to make his small business succeed. He was successful until a few days before Christmas, 1874. Having worked too hard, a massive stroke took his life at age forty-four. This could also be in the American tradition.
Adam Sebastian was my hero. Coming from another country, he went into business and made a success of it. But some of my family would rather not discuss this low born immigrant who did not fit into the social scale, even at the bottom. Truly, one cousin’s meat is another cousin’s poison.
were announced at the FamilySearch Developers Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. The 14 recipients were recognized for their outstanding and innovative work in advancing products and technologies that integrate with FamilySearch’s emerging suite of products and services.
We will be open there today from about noon until 9:30 pm and tomorrow with the same hours.
by Mike Brubaker, the online monthly periodical deals with Georgia, as well as topics of National interest. The periodical is well done – and free! It’s also available in paper format for $10 a year.
