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Books from Milwaukee's Pabst, Uihlein families pulled from trash, given to Pabst Mansion

Tom Daykin
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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Pabst Mansion Executive Director John Eastberg shows one of around two dozen old books belonging to members of the Pabst family that were donated Thursday. The books were found at the former Renaissance Book Shop, which was recently demolished.

The old books that Kathryn Thoman found while helping oversee the demolition of downtown Milwaukee's Renaissance Book Shop wouldn't be notable except for the names written inside.

Those would be Ida Pabst, the daughter and daughter-in-law of two men who were among America's best-known 19th century beer barons, as well as the names of her husband and children.

Around two dozen books, including fiction, poetry and school primers dating back to 1902, were rescued from a trash bin by Thoman and donated Thursday to the Pabst Mansion.

That's the former home of Frederick Pabst, who built Pabst Brewing Co. into the nation's largest brewer by 1874.

Ida Pabst married his son, Frederick Jr., and was the daughter of August Uihlein, who was chairman of Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. — which surpassed Pabst Brewing to become the nation's largest brewer by 1902.

Fred and Ida Pabst pose with their children around 1908.

The donated books, mainly published in the early decades of the 20th century, "have a very direct connection to the Pabst family," said John Eastberg, executive director at the Pabst Mansion, 2000 W. Wisconsin Ave.

That type of find "doesn't happen too often," Eastberg said.

And it occurred because a building was condemned.

Thoman is sales and marketing manager for Kenosha-based contractor Recyclean Inc., which was hired in 2016 to dismantle Renaissance Book Shop.

Renaissance was operated for decades by Robert John before it closed in 2011. City building inspectors said the structure was unsafe because of its deteriorated condition, and a raze order was issued in 2015.

John then sold the store's two buildings, at 830 and 834 N. Plankinton Ave., to a group led by apartment developer Tim Gokhman. 

Recyclean slowly dismantled those buildings. That project, which is nearly done, will create a development site overlooking the Milwaukee River.

As part of Recyclean's work, the roughly 500,000 books — packed from floor to ceiling — were separated into categories to be sold, donated or recycled.

Ida Pabst's books were among the older works Thoman set aside while sorting through books that had been shipped from the Renaissance building to a warehouse.

Kathryn Thoman holds one of the Pabst family books she found while helping oversee the demolition of downtown Milwaukee's Renaissance Book Shop.

But a worker mistakenly tossed the Ida Pabst books into a garbage bin, where they were buried among thousands of other titles as well as files from the book store.

Thoman reacted with some emotion after learning about this.

"There was freaking out. There was yelling. There was crying. There was swearing," Thoman said.

Thoman climbed into the huge bin and dug around carefully for two days before recovering all the historic items.

The books, some of them school primers used by Ida's children, wouldn't likely fetch much if they were listed for sale, said Andrew McLean, a Racine-based antiquarian books appraiser and seller.

But the direct connection to the Pabst family gives them some cachet, said McLean, a retired University of Wisconsin-Parkside professor who examined the books for Thoman. 

Not to mention the direct connection to the Uihlein family.

Ida Uihlein Pabst's 1896 marriage at the Pfister Hotel to Frederick Pabst Jr., joining two well-known rival Milwaukee beer families, was covered by newspapers throughout the United States, Eastberg said. 

While their fathers were direct competitors, they also were friends, Eastberg said. And Ida and Frederick Jr. likely knew each other from a very young age, he said.

Frederick Jr. was a vice president at Pabst Brewing for only one year before resigning, Eastberg said.

Frederick Jr. is better known for founding Pabst Farms in 1906, an Oconomowoc operation which produced revenue that later helped Pabst Brewing survive Prohibition, Eastberg said.

Ida Pabst didn't work outside the home. She raised seven children, Eastberg said, and lived mainly in Oconomowoc before her death in 1968.

Still, she was likely a frequent visitor to the Pabst Mansion, where her in-laws lived, Eastberg said.

"She would have known the house very well," he said.

Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com, and followed on Twitter and Facebook.

 

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