Reuben Hassler Berkheimer (1894-1978)
Imagine you are a 15 year old who has moved from a railroad town on the East Coast with the largest repair and construction facility in the world known for it’s profitability and production. You, and your parents, have left Altoona, PA, where you were born and moved across the country. A year was spent in Shelby, Ohio where you father took a construction job, before moving on to the West Coast.
We don’t know what caused Alonzo M. Berkheimer in 1908 to pack up his family and move across the country, we can only guess. Alonzo was not a railroad man , he was a house carpenter. He might have seen articles in the various newspapers of the time talking about the spurt of growth growing up around the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Or perhaps it was the news about the construction project for Dry-Dock No. 2 at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, a $2 million construction project. It would be the Navy’s largest dry-dock and the only one on the West Coast capable of handling the largest naval vessels. Of course, there were the rumors from Europe about the unrest and revolutions. That meant military projects, and wouldn’t that mean work for a carpenter?
According to history link.org “the February 1909 issue of Coast magazine described the town: “Bremerton has a population of about 3,000 souls, and is daily adding to its numbers. The business interests are large and increasing. On every hand is seen the widest activities in all lines of business. A large saw mill, ice and cold storage, lumber yards are located here and groceries, dry goods stores, boot and shoe stores, bakeries, restaurants, hotels, saloons and all kinds of business departments are numbers and thriving. New, substantial brick and concrete business blocks, public halls, several hotels, one of which is a large three-story structure, and countless numbers of residences of a lasting and permanent nature are now under construction or just being completed” (Coast, p. 112)”
Sounds to me as though a carpenter would look upon news like that as a good omen, don’t you? We’ll never know what Alonzo thought though.
According to the Bremerton City Directory, the family had arrived by 1909 because Reuben got a job as a messenger even though he was still in school. The City Directory goes on to state that in 1911, Alonzo was working for Erickson Construction. However the US Census report for 1910 shows Alonzo as “helper machinist” at the Navy Yard.
Perhaps Alonzo’s health was declining because by 1913-15 he is a janitor, and dies in 1916 at age 53. Reuben now becomes the sole support of his mother, Mary. She also contributes working as a dressmaker which she has in all the census reports I found.
Reuben is an ambitious young man: in 1913 he works as an electrical helper at the Naval Shipyard; 1915 he is associated with Regan & Berkheimer; 1917 when he registers for WWI draft he is janitor in the public schools; 1923 an inspector at the Shipyard.
He marries Anna C. Gustofson in 1919 in Seattle. In 1920 they moved to Seattle and Reuben gets a job as an electrical for a radio station.
I don’t find them in Gig Harbor until on the 1930 US Census report they are shown as living in Gig Harbor. Although his obituary states that he came to Gig Harbor in 1927. This is the first time, Reuben’s occupation is shown as a merchant. An exhibit at the Harbor History Museum shows in 1933 the Berkheimer Hardware store was located where the Threshold (Russell) Building is now located. If you recall reading Barbara Ogden Pearson’s blog, she and her sister would row across the bay, leaving her rowboat at Berkheimer’s, and go to school.
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| History map of downtown Gig Harbor - Harbor History Museum (iPhone photo) |
Did he close the hardware store in 1936 when the Novak Hotel burned down since they were adjacent properties? Did he close because of the Depression; Gig Harbor’s economy was affected too. It did not escape the financial disaster. I haven’t found the answer to that question.
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| Shows shop signs for businesses located on street floor of Peninsula Hotel. Pic-'N-Pay in right back. Grover C.Crawford on right; John Cosulich on left. John Galbraith owned Pic-"n-Pay. R.H. Berkheimer had hardware store there first. From Marie Gustafson. Harbor History Museum Collection |
In 1940 US Census he is back in Bremerton working at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard as an electrician. Despite searching I was unable to find a street address or the radio station where he was working.
in the Gig Harbor, A Century Ago blog, it is mentioned that he had a ‘six-piece orchestra’ which played at the dances at the Silver Glide. For the dances there during Prohibition in the 1920s, he must have traveled to Gig Harbor from either Bremerton or Seattle since again he was living in Seattle in 1920 and doesn’t show up in any of the records I found on Gig Harbor until the 1930 Census, though if he moved to Gig Harbor in 1927 as his obituary states he still would have missed the Prohibition era locally.
Although he spent the majority of his working life in Bremerton, he did leave his name and reputation in Gig Harbor as an important businessman in helping to build the success of this community. He also lived in Gig Harbor from 1930 until his death in 1978.
I only wish he, his wife or his daughter had left us an oral biographical history.
Notes:
- ancestry.com
- www.altoonapa.gov
- history link.org
- history link.org
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