Winnix85 Out Here Doing The Lords Work - Tumblr Posts
Lewis Nixon's German teacher in high school and his summer in Germany 1934
Previously, I was digging in historic travel records and found that 15 yr old Lewis Nixon went to Germany in the summer of 1934 with several teenager friends. They were among 3rd class passengers. I searched through the passenger list but found no adult chaperone with this group of boys.
Assumption 1: Their chaperone was in 1st class (seems unwise to stay up in 1st class cabin while left a group of teenager boys running wild in 3rd class cabin?)
Assumption 2: There was no adult. Lew and his friends ran away with pocket money.
So I adopted the second assumption.
I was WRONG
It turns out that, there was a chaperone. Lew and his friends were led by their high school German teacher Dr Werner Mueller. Dr Mueller was on SS Europa Passenger List Line 360 "Tourist Third Cabin Passengers". The reason his name was not listed with his students was because Dr Mueller was not US citizen. In US custom records, US citizens and foreigners were listed separately. That's why I can't find him.
Their travel to Germany was reported in local news. Dr Werner Mueller led 4 boys (William Roth, Walter Collins, Robert Day, and Lewis Nixon) to sail from New York for Germany on 25 June 1934, and they returned New York on 02 Sep 1934:
15 yr old Lew was the youngest in the group.
It seems that Dr Werner Mueller visited Germany every summer because his family was still living in Berlin:
Dr Werner Mueller might be relatively young, because he was engaged in 1940. He taught in Santa Barbara boys school for 8 years. He studied at the University of Berlin, Munich Freiburg and Koenigsberg. He worked in the foreign language department, so I assumed that he was a German teacher. However, he was also the head of the art department of Santa Barbara boys school and he was a pianist.
After his marriage in 1940, he moved to Pottstown Pensylvania to teach in Hill school.
In summary, 15 yr old Lew spent two months of summer holiday in Germany, probably with his teacher's family in Berlin. In 1934 the street view pretty much looks like this:
