Emil and Julia Thomas Bakery

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Re: Emil and Julia Thomas Bakery

Post by cubfan64 »

Beth - yes, I can see the articles you posted.

You mentioned in one of your recent posts that the Thomas ice cream store kept it's name up through 1921 with a number of newspaper advertisements. Would you be able to link a few of those? Not all of them as you mentioned, but just a few?

Hope you and Roy are digging out from all the early snow you got! Sorry to hear you won't be at the Rendezvous this year.
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Re: Emil and Julia Thomas Bakery

Post by oroblanco »

Not to aggravate the thread owner - but to mi amigo Paul, we are sorry that we won't make it this year. I hope it will be a great one though, and wish we could be there. As far as I know, it sounds like Loke will not make it this time either.

We were pretty lucky about the storm, north of us got over three feet of the white stuff, while we got less than a foot, and it is all gone now. Pretty strange storm, started as a thunder-snowstorm, have only seen that twice in my life, and everything was still green as could be as we had only one very light frost a couple days before.

Sorry for the off-topic post, please do continue.
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Re: Emil and Julia Thomas Bakery

Post by Ozarker »

In August 1891, shortly after the shooting in front of their store, Phillips and Leggat made arrangements to purchase the entire fall harvest of Montgomery's orchards, and needed a place to store some of the fruit. Their solution was to dig a cellar beneath the store they were leasing from George Loring:


Image


(Arizona Republic, 4 August 1891, page 4 column 1)

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ ... d-1/seq-4/
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Re: Emil and Julia Thomas Bakery

Post by Ozarker »

Two days before Jacob Waltz's death, there was more unexpected excitement in the Phillips & Leggat store:


Image

(Arizona Republic, 24 October 1891, page 1 column 5)


http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ ... d-1/seq-1/
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Re: Emil and Julia Thomas Bakery

Post by Ozarker »

A sample Phillips & Leggat advertisement on the day after Waltz's death, concerning all the fruit stored in their new cellar:

Image


(Arizona Republic, 27 October 1891, page 3 column 5)

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ ... d-1/seq-3/
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Re: Emil and Julia Thomas Bakery

Post by Ozarker »

Frank A Phillips would continue the confectionery and fruit store at the George Loring building long after his partner's retirement in April 1892:


Image

(Arizona Republic, 21 April 1892, page 1 column 6)


Image

(Arizona Republic, 21 April 1892, page 4 column 2)
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Re: Emil and Julia Thomas Bakery

Post by Ozarker »

All:

Fair warning - this will be a fairly long post. If you're not interested in the details, just read these first few lines and you'll get the gist.

Something that still needs to be discussed are the three author's books that readers were told supported the Sims Ely passage on Julia's location.

The references were made in this post of 2 October 2013 (excerpted):

"I didn't write Sims Ely's book. I didn't write the Phoenix newspapers, I didn't write Bensol's Phoenix Directory, or Disturnel's Phoenix Directory, or Meyer's Phoenix Business directory, or John Mitchell's book, or Higham's book, or Joseph Allen's book or any other publication that tells the same story that Ely was portraying."


Left unaddressed, the above statement might lead some (especially those that don't have access to these books) to believe that one of these early authors made the same statements as Ely.

But it just wasn't so.

A review of these author's books shows that none of the above three authors repeat the statement that appears in Ely's book, nor do they tell even a similar story. Many of you have the three author's books and can check for yourselves, but for those that don't, the following are transcripts of what the authors actually had to say.


John Mitchell

"Lost Mines of the Great Southwest"
Paperback Edition 1984.
Reproduced from a First Edition published in 1933.
Lost Dutchman Mine chapter


On Page 129, Mitchell states this:

"Mrs. Thomas, who owned an ice-cream parlor across from the City Hall in Phoenix, sold her place, and being free, set out with Herman Petrarch and his father to look for the mine."


This is the only passage in Mitchell that has anything to do with Julia's business, and it says nothing about Julia being in the Ely location.

Indeed, when Mitchell states that Julia owned an ice cream parlor across from the City Hall, he apparently only knew of and was referring to the Thomas business located in Block 20, which would be at a point in time after Julia and Emil left the Steinegger partnership, and probably after the point that Emil had abandoned Julia, leaving her to run the place on her own. His statement says nothing about Julia's final business location though, and certainly not that it was on the south side of Washington.

[Note: In Barry Storm's Thunder God's Gold, the only reference to Julia's business also makes the same statement as Mitchell, namely that Julia owned a bakery across from the City Hall]




Charles Frederick Higham

(It's not clear which of Higham's books was being referred to - here are two that refer to Julia's confectionery business)


"True Story of Jacob Walzer and his Famous Hidden Gold Mine (The Lost Dutchman)"
Rare Book Reprint (1990) of the Original 1946 Edition
Available from the Superstition Mountain Historical Society


On Page 22, Higham states:

"The City directory of 1890, lists Mrs Julia Thomas as conducting an Oyster Parlor and Confectionery on Washington St., and living at Jackson and Mohave. In 1892, Julia Thomas was still living at the same address. In 1895, Julia was listed as a restaurant keeper at 35 East Jefferson, but living at the same place on Jackson. In 1908, the City Directory lists her as Julia Schaffer, and living with Albert Schaffer, who was a hay baler, at 137 West Jackson St."


In the above passage, Higham makes several mistakes (one of them major). First, he refers to an 1890 Directory listing for Julia (see my previous post concerning Phoenix directories). It's possible that he was referring to the listing shown in the 1892 Directory, because that is exactly how Julia's business is listed in that year. But regardless, Higham simply stated that Julia was listed as conducting an Oyster Parlor and Confectionery on Washington Street, with no specific reference to her being on the south side of the street.

The second (more serious) mistake is that Higham misidentified Julia in the 1895 Directory running a restaurant at 35 East Jefferson Street. But Julia was never listed in the 1895 directory at all (and even if she had, she would have been listed by last name Schaffer). Instead, Higham mistook the following lady (listed on Page 92 of the 1895 directory) for Julia:

"Thomas, T C Mrs, restaurant keeper, 35 E Jefferson, res do"


If Higham had looked a little closer, he also would have seen these two individuals listed near the above individual:

Thomas, Theodore C, barber, Fashion Barber Shop, res 35 E Jefferson
Thomas, J H, waiter, 35 E Jefferson, res do

This lady was obviously not Julia, but was merely part of another family unit with the last name of Thomas. Other authors either continued or picked up on this, repeating the passage in Higham's book almost verbatim (for example, see Barney Barnard). So, if you see a reference to Julia operating a restaurant on 35 East Jefferson sometime after her searches for Old Jake's mine, you'll know where it came from and that it's a bad citation.

And finally, the information that Higham gave for Albert and Julia Schaffer in the 1908 directory, was actually the information for Albert from the 1895 directory (and keep in mind, Julia did not appear in the 1895 directory, nor did she appear in the 1908 directory as Higham states).
In summary, even though Higham comes across as totally confused about the directory listings, nowhere in this book does he place Julia at the Sims Ely location.



The second book by Higham (actually a manuscript) was:

"The True Story of Jacob Walzer and his Famous Hidden Gold Mine (The Lost Dutchman)"
Charles Frederick Higham
Original Higham Draft (1956)
ASU Library - Arizona Historical Foundation

Note: This entire manuscript can be viewed here on the DesertUSA forum at the following link:

http://www.desertusa.com/mb3/viewtopic. ... ham#p23917


The following passage is found on Page 13 of the manuscript:

"The Petraschs had no room or place to accomodate Walzer who was ill from the exposure. Everyone who had a place was taking care of some victim. Finally they found a place...Julia Thomas who had a restaurant and was a customer of the Petrasch bakery, consented to have the old man placed on a cot in the parlor or front room of her home at Jackson and Mohave streets"


This is the only passage I could find in the entire manuscript that mentions Julia's business. Here again, there is nothing to support Ely's location.


A final word about Higham. The above two books certainly had their problems, but once Barney Barnard took over the ownership of the book (about 1953 or 1954), things got far worse. The lady that Higham misidentified as Julia in the 1895 Directory (see above) suffered the same fate in Barnard's version of the book, while the other two members of that (real) family morphed into Julia's husband and Rhiney Petrasch. Barnard's tale took off from there, going on to state that the restaurant at 35 East Jefferson was jointly owned by Julia and Rhiney, which they were supposed to have purchased together in 1893. The problems that were multiplied by Barnard are spread out throughout his mangled version of Higham's original work and even reach the stage of denial after a point. I only mention all of this because Higham frequently gets some of the "credit" for Barnard's later editions.

(It's a relief that Barnard wasn't cited as a source to back up Ely's book)

For background on the Higham-Barnard relationship and Barnard's takeover of the book, see the following:

http://lost-dutchman.com/dutchman/entries/high.html



Robert Joeseph Allen

"The Story of Superstition Mountain and the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine" (1971)


The only passage that appears in the book related to Julia's business appears on Page 137:

"Waltz was lying sick-unto-death on a makeshift pallet in the living room of a warmhearted black woman, Julia Thomas, who owned and ran a small store and restaurant at 35 East Washington Street, Phoenix, and who was neglecting her little business in order to see that he had food and shelter....."


That's it. That's all Robert Joseph Allen says about a business location for Julia. He lists an address that was never assigned to either the Capitol Building store on the north side of Washington (Julia's true location), or the Phillips and Leggat store on the south side of Washington (Ely's location).

(The 35 East Washington address cited by Allen was actually assigned to a furniture store in 1890, and shifted up the street to a book store in 1893. Both of these stores were on the south side of Washington Street, but neither of them were the Sims Ely location).


One other thing to add about Robert Joseph Allen's book is that it is a highly fictional account that few researchers would ever seriously quote as authoritative. The Core Works section of Doug Stewart's web site provides a brief overview of Allen's work:

"Allen's book is very annoying. Not only is it shot through with inaccuracies and misstatements of simple fact it also contains a number of outrageous fabrications. Allen's ability as a writer tends to mask just how inaccurate an account this is, appearing factual and historical when it is one of the tallest of tall tales in the Lost Dutchman genre. It doesn't help matters any that it is published by a major publisher and has been in print for years. Bottom of my list." - Doug Stewart

The above review of Allen's work can be accessed at the following link:

http://www.lost-dutchman.com/dutchman/e ... allen.html


Like before, I'll defer on trying to research the "any other publication that tells the same story that Ely was portraying" reference, since there is no reasonable way to approach it.

As for the above books, a review failed to turn up any similarity to Ely's statement. I anticipate that somewhere down the line we'll be told that there were other writings by these authors and that I simply didn't look in the right place, or something along those lines (it always seems to go down that way). But I think this is the best that can be done for now, and hopefully it clears up any misconception that these books were actually backing Ely's account.

And a final thought on this for now. Even if there was another account similar to Ely's, authored by one of his contemporaries (which there is no solid proof of so far), there would be strong reason to suspect that it was a simple repeat of Ely. For example, Dr Glover's book (The Golden Dream) uses the Ely location in its analysis of the Waltz deathbed story. But that does not make Ely correct, and it does not mean that Dr Glover got that information from a source independent from Ely. It simply means that Dr Glover's book was using the information that Ely provided, because at the time of Dr Glover's publication, the detailed research presented in this thread had not yet come to light. And what is true for Dr Glover's book today could also be true for any of Ely's contemporaries back in the 1953-1971 era (the era we are led to believe that other authors were telling the same story).

Before any meaningful assessment of possible tie-ins between the sources of Ely and the sources of his contemporaries could be conducted, we would first need positive proof that another author actually did tell the same story. I remain skeptical about the existence of such proof, but ......


Larry
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Re: Emil and Julia Thomas Bakery

Post by AshtonPage »

All,

The following is nothing more than pure speculation on my part but it is a point that may be worth considering. I’ve owned a couple small businesses and in my experience no storefront is ever ‘tailor made’ to suit (insert business type here) company.

Business owners put up interior walls to keep inventory & parts out of public view\access and in one instance I watched in disbelief as my partner knocked four foot hole in the wall separating two rooms we had leased to set up a recording studio - and the landlord never said a word. We never sought approval from the insurance company. In fact, we never thought about it. Along these lines of business owners modifying the building, it is interesting to consider is that Julia had to provide her own soda fountain.

So here’s my point -> we simply don’t know if Julia had an interior wall put up to create a back inventory room. While a door to the alley is a different matter altogether, putting in a back room is not out of the question, even if the insurance plans don’t show it.

Therefore, IMHO the real question is WHEN did the version of Waltz dying in the ice cream parlour start to be circulated? WHO started that version? It’s possible that has already been addressed and I just missed it among skimming (I confess) all the historical notes.

Best,
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Re: Emil and Julia Thomas Bakery

Post by Ozarker »

AshtonPage:

The difference in Helen Corbin's two LDM books suggests that the story of Waltz dying in Julia's store emerged sometime between 1990 and 2002.

Dr Glover also addressed this relatively recent version of Waltz's death in his first LDM book (The Golden Dream) published in 1998, so you could narrow that window down a little more (i.e., 1990-1998).

It's difficult to say how long it took for the new version to get "packaged" and ready for release to these authors, but it's not something somebody threw together overnight. Somebody put some effort into it and that surely took time.

I suggest reading pages 155-161 and pages 355-356 in Dr Glover's book, and essentially the first 20 pages of Helen's second book to gain some insight into "how" the story came to light. But you'd definitely need to read all of Helen's second book to become fully aware of the wider problem.

For about the first 100 years, the story had essentially remained unchanged that Jacob Waltz had died at (some said behind) the Julia Thomas residence, which was located at the southeast corner of Mohave and 2nd Avenue in Phoenix.


Image

Phoenix Daily Herald, 26 October 1891, page 3 column 1


Image

Arizona Daily Gazette, 27 October 1891, page 4 column 1


I don't think you'll find a published author prior to 1998 that differed with these newspaper announcements of Waltz's death.

(That's not to say that some of the more outrageous details attached to the new version of Waltz's death weren't already circulating. They were, thanks to Robert Joseph Allen and the like. But somebody had to take these details and work them into the new version of Waltz's death as well)

The new story of Waltz's death, described in the private papers used by Glover and Corbin, specifically claimed that Julia moved into the very same store that Sims Ely misidentified. That is why this discussion has gone so deep into whether Julia leased and moved into that particular store or not. If she didn't, then the papers can't possibly be authentic (i.e., they simply used Ely's location for their tale, not realizing Ely made a mistake), and the entire claim about Waltz dying in Julia's store falls apart - no matter what store she moved into, and no matter how many partitions she put up.

Larry

P.S. The relatively new story concerning where Waltz died is only one issue of many.
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Re: Emil and Julia Thomas Bakery

Post by roc2rol »

Sirs:

As that last line of the obituary been altered?
‘And he died with a blessing for her on his lips'
Those lines seem like they may been added at a later date.

I always found this to be highly suspect in an obituary

Thanks
Roc

The only way for me to verify this is
to get the original newspaper clipping
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