L to R: (front row) John Faber, Nancy Faber, Mrs. Guckert, Eileen Blank (back row) Anna Ehling, Mrs. Franz Walter, Heinz Guckert, daughter of Jacoby, John Jacoby, Mrs. John Jacoby, daughter of Jacoby, A. Weber, John Blank.
When I was younger and became more curious about the history of our club, I went to the souvenir books, which there were always copies of in house. I read those written histories, and supplemented that knowledge gained by asking questions of my grandmother and my dad. Sometimes they pointed me towards other individuals that could answer my further questions if they didn’t know. “You should talk to…” they would say from time to time.
But those written histories usually began with a large-type header:
A CHRONOLOGICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND
DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED GERMAN-HUNGARIANS
OF PHILADELPHIA AND VICINITY
Underneath which came a parenthetical:
(A resume of available records)
In 1960, this subheading included, “prepared by Rudy Rack,” and in 1972 for the Anniversary of Sport & Soccer the whole header reads simply, “FROM THE ARCHIVES OF OUR SPORT CLUB.”
That resume of records and the mention archives conjures images of a Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse filled with boxes, papers, crates, photos and so much more.
In 2010, the celebration of our 100th Anniversary springboarded us forward and initiated a program of more dedicated archiving of our club’s documents, photos, and memorabilia. An issue of the Monthly Progress lists the committee from that year: Marlene Fricker (Chair), Emily Fricker, Joe Hartmann, Werner Fricker Jr., Joe Reiter, Susi Hartmann, Michael Fricker, Nichole Deely, Chris Deely, Kim Walter, Jerry Lineman, & Lisa Fricker.
This original group had sessions on weekends when we were free, and we started with anything in the clubhouse itself. We brought printer/scanners from our homes along with our 2000s era laptops to scan our artifacts. Lists were made of documents and photos we found, and planning meetings were held to talk through how we would store the digital versions of what we decided to archive. We settled on what at the time was called “Picasa” but eventually became Google Photos.
We also had photo shoot days where the camera folks, Kim & Bob Walter, Joe Hartmann and the Linemans took new images of the trophies, old uniforms and costumes.
The membership participated as well, lending their family albums, bringing us boxes, and bags and folders with their personal photos, documents and copies of the Monthly Progress.
As we catalogued the many, many photographs we did so by subject mostly grouping similar events, soccer eras, and years together. But along the way we kept collections provided by individuals and club families together ensuring our archive would reflect not just the big-c Club and its history but the people, the family names, and the many members as well.
Though the formal committee from 2010 may not be directly active and meeting regularly 13 years later, the project of our archive is ongoing. From time-to-time our current members bring me photos they found in their homes or in their parents’ homes. And on occasion past members reach out to us offering up their family collections. (It is important to note that we LOVE when this happens.)
Recently we got just such a message from Jim Jacoby. He was able to ship a box to us with a variety of photos and a couple newspaper clippings and artifacts. These were from the collection of his parents John and Penny Jacoby.
You can view the whole album by clicking this link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/827EPsLGh7jGhYx58
Thank you to Jim for donating these to us, they are a great addition to our archive collection, and show an era of our club that was engaged in sport, culture, dancing, and social recreational activities. The link to the full album is available above, but I wanted to share one more item from the collection.
Below is the reverse of the featured image on this article. You can see the handwritten listing of names (with some spelling errors!). I suspect the photographer was Chris Kocher, but as to who’s handwriting this is, it remains a mystery. If you recognize it, please, let us know so we can add this information to our resume of available records.
Want More?
Find links to all our archived photo albums at our Photo Archive Access
Hi Michael,
Thanks for archiving these. I would suspect the person who wrote down the names worked for a newspaper or something as everyone at the club knew it was Jacoby and not Jacobi :). The daughter in the center is me (Karen) and the one on the right is Christine.
I have several albums of dance group photos from the 60s if you’re interested. I didn’t send them since they’re mostly our pictures but do include the other members of the dance group as well.
Karen, Thanks so much for this information! I think you are likely right about the writer being a newspaper person. 🙂