Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
History
Scope and Content
Organization and Arrangement
Index Terms
Series 1: Visual Materials 
Series 2: Newspapers
Container List

Rademacher Family Collection, 1901-2015

Descriptive Summary

Title:

Rademacher Family Collection

Creators:

Herman A. Rademacher, Jr.; Herman A. Rademacher, Sr.; and Jack Rademacher

Dates:

1901-2015, with gaps

Extent:

5 linear feet and 45 GB of electronic data

Abstract:

The Rademacher Family Collection documents the structures, businesses, land use, events, and people of Chester over more than a century (1901-2015). Through photographs, postcards, and oral-history videos, Herman A. Rademacher, Jr., tells the stories of his experiences growing up, running a plumbing business, and raising a family in a rural farming town that gradually turns into a suburban bedroom community. The collection contains primarily born-digital materials, although it also features the first few years of the Mendham-Chester Tribune newspaper from the 1930s.

Language:

English

Repository:

Local History Department
Chester Public Library
250 W. Main Street
Chester, NJ 07930
Phone: (908) 879-7612
Fax:  (908) 879-8695
Email: LocalHistory@ChesterLib.org
http://www.chesterlib.org/

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Herman Albert Rademacher, Jr, was born in 1931 to Herman Albert Rademacher, Sr. (1892-1966) (Senior), and Florence (neé Sutton). His grandfather, Theodore Herman Rademacher, came to N.J. from Germany in 1863. According to Herman’s oral histories, Theodore was the first plumbing inspector in Newark, N.J. Both of Herman’s parents were born in Newark, N.J. Florence was a housewife and raised the six Rademacher children: Ruth, Dorothy, Mary Ella, Jessie, Herman, and Walter. Senior moved the family to Chester because his wife’s family, the Suttons, had settled in town. Sutton’s Meat Market on Main Street belonged to Herman’s uncle, Paul. Senior took over Robert Call’s plumbing business and became “everyone’s plumber,” a circumstance which would befall Herman, and his son Jack, as well. Herman took over the business in 1948 and ran it for 52 more years until his retirement.

Herman’s parents were actively involved in the Chester community. Senior served in the Chester Volunteer Fire Company, and Florence served in the Women’s Auxiliary. He was Fire Chief in 1944, and was instrumental in creating the Chester First Aid Squad. Florence was Relief Director of Chester. Senior also was Magistrate, and subsequently, Justice of the Peace and Town Recorder. He also was involved in local Civil Defense.

Herman graduated from Roxbury High School in Roxbury, N.J. in 1948. He married Shirley Hildebrandt when he was 20, and had three children, John (Jack), Gregory, and David. Jack (1952-) became the third generation of plumbers in his family and heads Rademacher Plumbing & Heating, now located in Hackettstown, N.J.

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The Rademacher Family Collection (1901-2015, with gaps) includes postcards, photographs, oral histories, and newspapers. The value of this collection to researchers can be found in the documentation of Chester over time, via the visual materials and newspapers, as well as the personal recollections of a lifelong resident that span over 80 years. The video oral histories, in particular, give an object-centric, historical overview of the impact one family has had on the Chester area over generations.

The oral history recordings were produced by the Local History Department of the Chester Library in order to document the stories told by Herman Rademacher, Jr., when he deposited photographs and postcards with the library for digitization purposes. They were recorded in Chester Library during the fall of 2014. Excerpts were reproduced for viewing as part of a permanent online exhibit showcasing the video interviews and facsimiles of Herman’s postcards, which he spoke of in the videos.

The born-digital, high-definition, video oral histories focus on Chester Borough and Township, although there are some references to nearby localities, such as Dover and Morristown. The considerable use of Herman’s postcards and photographs in the videos not only link them to those objects, but help provide added dimension to the images and his stories that would not have been available otherwise. The subjects covered in the interviews range widely from daily life to special events. Considerable time is spent on Herman’s family, especially his and his father’s careers as local plumbers. Those discussions include details of many properties and families in the area. Herman also speaks at length about his experience with houses of worship in Chester, and their leaders. The oral history videos comprise 21.7 GB of data. The videos were created using a Canon VIXIA HF M32 video camera and external microphone. Edited videos for YouTube and the online exhibit were produced in MP4 format. Transcripts are available for the edited videos, and will be created for the raw files in the future.

All of the postcards and photographs in the collection were loaned to the library by Herman (deposited and digitized in 2014) and Jack Rademacher (deposited and digitized in 2013) with the specific purpose of sharing them with the community via digitized facsimiles. The original photographs and postcards were created mainly from 1901-1950, however more recent photos from Herman and Shirley’s 50^th wedding anniversary originate in 2001. The older images feature buildings and businesses of Chester, as well as some local residents and Herman’s family. There are 19.3 GB of still image data in TIFF and JPG file types.

The newspapers donation from Herman came later than the postcards, during one of the recording sessions in 2014. While the majority of newspapers are Mendham-Chester Tribunes, from 1936-1938 (including the first issue of the newspaper), Herman also donated select clippings of the Morristown Daily Record (June 24, 1950), Newark Evening News (Feb. 28, 1938), Newark Sunday News (Sept. 3, 1950), and the Mendham-Chester Tribune’s successor, the Observer-Tribune (March 9 and 16, 1966). The Mendham-Chester Tribune and Newark Evening News papers were collected by Herman Rademacher, Sr.

The papers are housed in 5 oversized boxes. The newspapers were digitized and indexed thanks to a Morris County Historical Commission grant in 2015. The digital format of the papers is PDF, and there are 6.37 GB of digitized newspaper data.

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The materials are organized into two series: Series 1: Visual Materials and Series 2: Newspapers. The Visual Materials are organized into two subseries: 1. Herman Rademacher and 2. Jack Rademacher.

The Herman Rademacher subseries includes the born-digital oral histories, video clips created for the online exhibit, and photographs taken by the Local History Librarian during the oral history videos, as well as digital facsimiles of photographs and postcards Herman loaned to the library. All of the photographs are organized alphabetically and numerically by file name and number. There are 19.3 GB of still image data in TIFF and JPG file types. The oral history videos are organized alphabetically and numerically by file name and number. The oral history videos comprise 21.7 GB of data. Additionally, accompanying transcripts in DOC and PDF formats for the edited videos used in an online exhibit comprise 1.51 MB of data.

The Jack Rademacher subseries contains digital facsimiles of postcards loaned to the library by Jack. These images are TIFF files, and comprise 2.28 GB of data.

The Newspapers series is organized chronologically both in analog and digital format. Use copies of the newspaper files are available on all Chester Library computers. The papers inhabit 5 oversized boxes in 5 linear feet. The digital format of the papers is PDF, and there are 5.9 GB of digitized newspaper data.

Preservation Note:

Some of the papers are very fragile and torn. Some flattening and conservation was required to digitize these items. The conservation work was done by the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia.

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Corporate Names/Organizations Subject:

AT&T

Auberge Provençal
Bell Labs.
Black River Playhouse
Boy Scouts.
Central Railroad of New Jersey
Chester Coronet Band
Chester Diner
Chester First Aid Squad
Chester House
Chester Institute
Chester Free Public Library
Chester Public School
Chester Volunteer Fire Company
Church of the Messiah
Community Presbyterian Church
Combe Fill South Landfill
Cooper Mill
County College of Morris
Esso gas station
Federated Church of Chester
Filiberto Sanitation
First Congregational Church of Chester
Ford Motor Company.
Grace Bible Church
Hershey’s Ice Cream
Hopler’s Store
Jenny’s
Lamplighter
Larison’s Turkey Farm
Leck’s Luncheonette
LuShan Farm
Mangel’s Candy
Maple Tree Inn
Masonic Lodge
Melrose Farm
Mendham-Chester Tribune
Methodist Episcopal Church of Chester
Muskrat Depot
Observer-Tribune
Public House
Parks Farm
Route 31
Roxbury High School
Skellenger’s Store
Sutton’s Meat Market
The Cross Roads Inn
The Herb Farm
The Twins Inn
William Savage’s Barber Shop
Williamson School

Subjects:

Fabrication.
Farms.
Fire departments.
Fires.
Holidays.
Hunting.
Justice of the Peace
Local history.
Mining
Murder.
Peach orchards
Plumbing.
Plumbing–Standards.
Post office buildings New Jersey
Restaurants.
School & Education.
Turkeys.

People:

Abeles, Janet
Apgar, Roy
Apgar, Mary R.
Barkman, Millie
Bragg, Dudley D.H.
Call, Robert
Chamberlain, Morris
Chubb family
Collis, Ed
Conover, George E.
Croot, Roy
Crum, Buster
Cypher family
Dean, Thomas
Emmons, Harry
Gabriel, Jerry
Hopler, Clyde
Hopler, Ella
Hopler, Gilbert Y.
Lee, Art
Mack, J.B.
Maysey, Larry
Mennen family
Pullman, Samuel C.
Rademacher, Dorothy
Rademacher, Florence
Rademacher, Herman A., Jr.
Rademacher, Herman A., Sr.
Rademacher, Jessie
Rademacher, John (Jack)
Rademacher, Mary
Rademacher, Ruth
Rademacher, Shirley
Rademacher, Walter
Rockefeller family
Rogallsky, Charles
Savage, William
Serbe, Walter
Sutton, Paul
Topping family
Tredway, William, Jr.
Tredway, William, Sr.
Wilcox, Lois
Zezzo, Joseph (Rev.)

Places:

Chester (N.J.)
Chester School
Chester Township (N.J.)
Cooper mansion
Crystal Lake
Flanders
Grove Street
Hacklebarney Road
Hacklebarney State Park
Henry Cooper House
Hillside Avenue
Lamerson Road
Long Valley
Main Street
Mendham
Milldale Mill
Milltown
Morris County (N.J.)
Morristown Region (N.J.)–History, Local.
Mount Arlington
Netcong
New Jersey.
North Road
Oakdale Road
Parker Road
Pleasant Hill
Pullman Mansion
Robinson’s Hill
Roxbury High School
Schooley’s Mountain
State Route 24
State Route 31
State Route 206
Telephone Hill
Town well

Genre Terms:

Born digital
Community newspapers.
Exhibits
Oral histories
Newspapers.
PDF
Photographs
Postcards
Sound recordings
Transcripts.
Video recordings
Visual resources
Web sites

Table of Contents

Table of Contents