2. WALDEMAR GOETRICK* KLEE AND JANE BARRY KLEE-

By Gerald D’Arcy Klee 

                                    Jane Barry (1853-1898), In this picture, taken in 1879, Jane was 26

I never knew my grandparents. My paternal grandparents, Waldemar and Jane (Jenny) both died young, long before 1927, when I was born. They left three young children, Caroline (Cara), the eldest, Frederick, and Bertel, who was my father. After the parents’ deaths, the three children were sent to Denmark to be raised by relatives. Their memory was kept alive by their children and by other relatives in Denmark. My father and his older sister Cara were the major contributors to the oral history that I heard, since Frederick remained in Denmark and I had little contact with him. Some letters and other documents, such as photos have been saved. I wish I had asked a lot more questions while there was a chance. Since becoming a grandparent myself, my interest in their story keeps growing. I wish I knew more about them.

How did Waldemar Klee, a Dane, meet and marry Jane Barry, a woman of Irish Catholic background in California, during the nineteenth century? Starting with the gold rush of 1849, California was a magnet, drawing people from all over the world, in search of wealth, freedom and land. Although the gold soon ran out, California’s climate and soil were more durable treasures. These are the features that would have attracted Waldemar, who published numerous works about botany, horticulture, and entomology during his tragically brief career.

Jane’s family is believed to have left Ireland , (probably from Cork) during the great potato famine of 1848. The Catholic Irish were an impoverished people, oppressed and deprived of land and opportunity by the Protestant English. With little land and few jobs, most of the Irish lived on a diet of potatoes. When the potato crop failed due to blight, there was widespread starvation and disease. Many died and millions fled the country. Within a few years the population of Ireland was reduced from eight million to four million, due to death and migration. In hundreds of years of oppression by the protestant English, the Irish believe that this was the worst that was done to them. To this day, many hold grudges against the English. It is difficult today to understand the depth of hatred between Protestants and Catholics that existed at that time. Some of the immigrants carried this hatred with them to the new world. As I heard the story, Jenny’s family disowned her for marrying a protestant. After Waldemar’s untimely death, they wouldn’t help her, and after her death, they wouldn’t help the orphaned children. This is why the children were sent to Denmark, where their father’s family took them in.

Family lore suggests that Jane’s father was a sea captain. I don’t have any evidence for or against this theory, but verbal history strongly indicates that her family sailed around Cape Horn and up to California, settling in the San Francisco area. We know little about the Barry family, but Barry is a very common  surname  in Cork, which is a major seaport in Southwest Ireland.  The name Barry is of Anglo-Irish origin.

Jane was born in 1853, and was one of the first women to graduate from the University of California at Berkeley. As far as I can tell from the sparse information we have, her father died early and her mother remarried. Verbal history provided by Caroline Klee Bang indicates that Jane’s stepfather was a harsh and abusive man. This led Jane to leave home at an early age and put herself through college, attending the University of California in Berkeley. Perhaps Jane supported herself by working as a teacher. It is known for a fact that she was a schoolteacher after graduation. The university itself had only been founded in 1868 and was moved to Berkeley in 1873, where it opened with 191 students. We have no definite information yet about the date she enrolled in the  University. While an undergraduate student, Jane wrote some beautiful and evocative poetry that was published in a volume "College Verses", from the University of California, Berkeley. The date recorded in the book is 1881, the year of her graduation. http://www.distantcousin.com/yearbooks/ca/ucalberkeley/alumni/b.html

Waldemar was a grandson of  Major Heinrich Gottlieb von Klee and Anna Elisabeth Fabritius Klee (see above) and  the youngest of three surviving children, born and raised in or near Copenhagen, Denmark. His father, Frederik A. G. Klee, was a prominent  publisher, civil servant, and author of books on science and history. Waldemar was one of twins. His twin, Carl Laurits died at the age of two. His older brother, Frederick Emil Klee became a successful physician, and his sister Elisabeth ("Elise") was married to Bernhardt Bang, a famous medical scientist. Frederick Emil Klee and Bernard Bang were medical school classmates in Copenhagen. We don’t know why Waldemar left Denmark for the new world at a young age (about the age of 19). Perhaps his father’s death when Waldemar was only eleven years old altered his future chances in Denmark. Or maybe he was simply adventurous. The new world offered great promise to an enterprising young man. In entering America, Waldemar brought with him ambition, a good mind, a gentle nature and a significant knowledge of botany and horticulture, to which he added by further study and experience.

Waldemar came to America in 1872, at the age of  19. The first letter we have from him to his sister Elise was from Chicago in 1873, and by that time he was getting established.  It is most likely that he entered the U.S. via the East Coast, but he could not have come to the U.S. through Ellis Island, since Ellis Island was not used for immigration until 1892.  After at least a couple of years in Chicago, we next learn of him at the Agriculture Experimental Station at the University of California, Berkeley. An 1884 Annual report to the University President and Board of Regents by Professor E. W. Hilgard indicates that Waldemar had been working there since 1876.

Jane (Jenny) and Waldemar met and eventually married in 1884, three years after Jane’s graduation from the University. Perhaps they met at the University, but it isn’t clear whether they met before or after Jane’s graduation. I have a strong hunch that they met at the university before her graduation. One of her published poems, THE WURMLINGEN CHAPEL , (See below) was translated from German by Jane. Waldemar would have been fluent in German, because it would have been a necessary part of his studies in Denmark. I have a romantic notion that he helped her with her German and that, in the process, these two lonely young people fell in love. That is only my fantasy, but it is at least plausible. I also have a hunch that Jenny helped Waldemar improve his English, because his writing shows that he became very accomplished in his use of the language.

Gerald D'Arcy Klee, MD (I am a Grandson of Waldemar and Jane "Jenny")