By Marilyn Voss Leyland
A lawn of massive trees still distinguishes Joseph Schneider's home on the corner of Moss and Dixon, now 2320 W. Moss Avenue in West Peoria. In 1868, Schneider's parents purchased fully half of the block along the north side of what was then McDougal Avenue for their truck farm. By 1885, their son had added the entire area across the street, from Sterling to what became Dixon. There he established his home and eventually a wine garden, bowling alley and more extensive truck farm.
Later generations, including the current homeowners, Mike and Jan Powers, continue to cultivate those gardening interests. Along Sterling at Moss, the area still carries the name "Wine Garden Sub-Division," platted in 1917.
The little tree was but a sapling when Schneider posed near the front door of his home in 1896. A few years earlier he had completed a term as road commissioner. His wife Regina watches from the upstairs window, while on the porch his daughter Margaret sits next to her sister Emma and holds baby Marie.
Some 85 years later, two of his grandchildren - Marie's son Eugene Voss and Maggie's daughter Romaine Oberer Franzgrote - stand in that same yard in the shade of what grew to be a mighty oak. At that time (1981), Romaine lived in the home and Gene lived across the street.
Schneider's oldest daughter, Maggie, became the family matriarch after Joseph and Regina succumbed to typhoid fever - blamed on a polluted well - in 1903. Maggie and Emma's mother, Joseph's first wife, had died in 1893 at age 34 of TB. Maggie, barely 20 years old, took charge of raising Joseph and Regina's four young children - her half-siblings - aged two months to seven years. Later that year she married Adolph Oberer, a German immigrant and baker, who'd read about the family tragedy and had come to help.
The homestead housed not only Joseph's six children plus Adolph, but also became home to two Oberer girls. To meet expenses, land was sold and subdivided in various increments, though the orphans retained partial shares.
In 1937, Maggie and Adolph deeded the home property to her daughter Romaine and husband Joseph Franzgrote. The adjoining property along Dixon they deeded to daughter Lucille and her husband William Bosch, who built their home at 201 N. Dixon.
Across the street at 200 N. Dixon stands the home of Marie Schneider, who married John Voss. His father, a contractor whose family home was on West High St. near Western, built his son's home with assistance from younger son Alfred, who learned his brick-laying skills on the job there. Alfred's brick bungalow at 1916 W. Ayres reflects certain family similarities.
John Voss became well-known to a generation of Manual students as he taught biology and math there starting in 1924 and served as Manual principal from 1938 until his death in 1948.
In 1968, after Marie died, Gene moved his family from Edna Ct. to the home on Dixon. Descendents of Bob Kupper, one of his neighborhood friends, still live on Moss in a family home - on property once owned by the Schneiders.
Maggie and Adolph remained in the homestead with daughter Romaine and her German-born husband Joe as they raised their sons Ernie and Joey there. By the 1940s, Joe's brothers Henry and Conrad were living in West Peoria. Henry and his daughters were within a block on Moss; Conrad, who had lived on Laura, eventually built at 2314 W. Heading. In the early 1950s, Henry built a new home at 2222 W. Sherman - in the back yard of his home on Moss. After he died, his daughter Clara Strassburger's family moved in with her mom and an invalid sister - another multi-generational home.
At the times of their deaths, five of Schneider's children lived in West Peoria: Maggie and Emma at home, Marie across the street on Dixon, Bertha (Sr. M. Regina, OSF), at St. Joseph's Home, and Lona Leucht at 2022 W. Alice. Their brother Edwin lived off Western on Smith St. Lucille lived at 1022 Edgehill Ct. before she and Romaine later moved to Bel-Wood Nursing Home. Their homes were generally distinguished by their lovely gardens.
A vacant lot fronting on Moss adjacent to the Schneider yard was once owned by Marie and her sister Lona and used by Gene and his friends as their jungle playground. The properties sold to Art Mehlenbeck, who built a ranch home there.
Today, the Schneider, Bosch and Mehlenbeck homes are owned respectively by Janice and Mike Powers, their daughter, and Jan's sister - truly continuing a family tradition. As children, the former Janice Marks and her sisters lived less than a block away on Moss. To accommodate Jan's aging parents, the Powers family enlarged the old Schneider homestead, demonstrating again that family trees have deep roots in West Peoria.
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