Maximilian 'Max' Hesslein:

The story of my grandfather Maximilian 'Max' Hesslein's Atlantic passage from Germany to New York City is fascinating, and like countless other immigrant families are treasures for us today to consider. Max's homeland was Germany and his new home would be America. The hopes and dreams of these immigrants seem to be disregarded by many Americans today. Yet when one disregards them and their short sightless, the reality is quite remarkable and of utmost importance to acknowledge and learn from.

The old adage of not knowing where you come from, affecting your journey forward is worthy of everyone's consideration. Max succeeded in his quest to move to America, and after a lengthy sea adventure of near 4000 miles, he settles in Brooklyn. Max eventually meets my grandmother, Blanche Rose Nathan and they begin a long life together. But the new beginning of Max's story began in Germany in March of 1902. Max was 24 years old.

Max was born in Furth (Nuremberg), Germany on August 10th, 1878. In the months starting off 1902, Max decided to head west and forever leave his homeland of Bavaria, Germany. Like many Europeans, Max knew opportunity awaited him across the Atlantic In America. Max had been living in München (Landkreis München) for some years. Munich, is Bavaria, Germany's capital. In Hochdeutsch (Standard German), the name is spelled as München and can also be written as Muenchen.

Max was single and traveled alone aboard the S.S. Deutschland leaving Hamburg, Germany, heading south past Amsterdam and Rotterdam, past Dunkirk and Calais and ended up in the English Channel. The ship ported in Southampton, England and picked up more passengers. From there the Deutschland berthed in the port of Cherbourg, France, picking up yet more passengers and waited for the ship's departure to its final destination—the Port of New York in America.

On March 24th, 1902, the S.S. Deutschland, left Cherbourg and began the long journey over the Atlantic to America. On April 3rd, the Statue of Liberty came into view and as the ship passed Lady Liberty, Max had his thoughts on his new life and all the opportunities there would be in his new country. He knew he had made the right decision and was antsy to get started.

Arriving at Ellis Island, in Upper New York Bay, was exciting and Max filed into the lines he was directed to, and waited. Ellis Island was the gateway for over 12 million immigrants to America for over 60 years from 1892, until it closed in 1954. Within days Max headed to New York City. His life had begun again, and the sky was the limit.

Max ended up in Brooklyn, NY, working as a salesman for various manufacturing companies. In 1920 he was a salesman for a silk house manufacturer. In 1939 his annual income was $1,000. This is very close to the median income ($956.) for a man in the U.S. in 1940.

On October 6th, 1908, desiring to become a legal U.S. Citizen of his new country he had come to love, Max filed a Petition for Naturalization in the Southern District Court in New York. At this time he was living at 317 W. 56th Street, City of New York, Borough of Manhattan, NY. Max took the Oath of Allegiance on July 19th, 1909 and was proudly admitted as a citizen of the United States of America.

Years after arriving in America he would meet a beautiful painter, Blanche Rose Nathan, and fall in love. They would marry in New York City on July 10th, 1911. Blanche and Max were blessed with a daughter, Bernice Lane (Erickson) Hesslein, who was born on April 28th, 1913 in Brooklyn. They were a close family and I have many stories of their days in New York City.

With Blanche and Bernice's interest in the arts, specifically as painters, and with Max's kind, very supportive nature, their time together was always unique and fun. Further enriched with the contact with the many close relatives living in the New York City area, Blanche, Max and Bernice's lives were quite content.

Two of Blanche's sisters, Winifred 'Winnie' (Nathan) Rippe and Sadie (Nathan) Ripin, along with Blanche's younger brother Edwin Nathan, all lived close by. A close family to begin with, everyone welcomed Max and Bernice to the family with ease. Max, Blanche and Bernice spent summers at the family house in Far Rockaway, Queens near the Atlantic Ocean.

With so many experiences with family and friends, and Blanche and Bernice's various painting exhibitions, it was a magical time in New York City for the three, from the 1920s through the 1950s. Max loved Blanche and Bernice and assisted in their painting shows. Bernice adored Max, and was happy he spent so much time with her. The stories of their gallery and museums visits are remarkable.

An inspiration to many in the family, was another intelligent and gentle man, Blanche and Max's nephew, Benjamin Nathan Rippe. Ben graduated from Dartmouth in 1934 and then got his Master's at Harvard in Romance languages. When the U.S. became involved in the war in 1941, Ben joined the Army and was eventfully assigned to Army Intelligence, and would be involved in the Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes, Rhineland and Central Europe campaigns. At one point Ben would find himself a commandant of an American Prisoner of War camp in Salzburg, Austria in 1944.

Ben was one of the kindest souls I have ever known and suspect his humanity and kindness had to have held out during his command in Europe. On his return to the states Ben served with Army Intelligence and was pleased to find his new duty stateside to be so rewarding. Ben was assigned to work with many of the artists and writers that had immigrated to New York City in the late 1930s and early 1940s fleeing from the Nazi oppression.

Key to Blanche and Bernice's unique art education and contacts were the many artists Ben met in the 1940s. He became good friends with Marcel Duchamp. I often imagine Ben and Duchamp at Peggy Guggenheim's "Art Of This Century Gallery" on 30 West 57th Street and mingling with the likes of Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Wassily Kandinsky, Lee Krasner, Jean Arp, Fernand Leger, Andre Masson, Roberto Matta, William Baziotes, Alexander Calder, Joseph Cornell, Hans Hofmann, Willem & Elaine de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Richard Pousette-Dart, Ad Reinhardt and the list could goes on.

The most interesting times in American art history was this period in New York City. Where European painting and sculpture mingled with the blossoming American art forms. It was this time that began the eventual shift of eyes on Paris, to the intense spotlight that would be cast on American art in the 1950s in New York City, the newest center of the art world.

Ben's father was Maurice Rippe, and was a lawyer at Frutkin, Waldie and Rippe in the Wall Street area of New York City. Maurice was a friend and Harvard classmate of Edward Kasner, the well-known mathematician. Kasner is best remembered today for introducing the term, 'googol.' In order to peak the interest of children in Mathematics, Kasner sought a name for a very large number: one followed by a hundred zeros. On a walk in the New Jersey Palisades in 1920, with his nephews, Milton and Edwin Sirotta, Kasner asked for their ideas. Nine-year-old Milton, suggested 'googol.'

Move many decades forward and the word, 'googol' was appropriated in 1996 as the name for the Internet monster, Google. Below is a card written by Edward Kasner notifying Maurice he had sent a letter of recommendation for Ben, to teach at Harvard just the week before.

Edward Kasner wrote:

April 27th, 1939
430 West 116th Street
New York City, New York

Maurice,
I wrote a recommendation for Ben as a teacher
and sent it to Harvard last week.
Let me know results.

Ed


Ben later joined his father's firm and was a partner there for 25 years, before he became a Christian Science practitioner- which he was for another 30 years.

Max had a high school education and was very good with people, making him quite the successful salesman. Blanche had a four-year college degree from Hunter College and afterwards studied at the New York Art Students League.

Blanche also studied with one of the innovators of Abstract Expressionism, Hans Hoffman at his schools in New York City and in Provincetown, MA. The Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts was first and foremost a place for young artists to learn and master the practice of working in the studio. It was not for undeveloped artists to attend, but rather an environment for educated and seasoned young artists to patiently and methodically learn the history of a particular artistic media, hone their technical skills, and temporarily escape the busy streets of New York City.

As a teacher, Hans Hofmann refused to stress any style or artistic approach over another. To learn from Hofmann was to acquire formal training through meticulous repetition; only then, he taught, could one venture out into the world and create something truly original.

Hofmann instilled in his students the importance of studio work and the Hofmann School was a place for students to master the trade of working from still lifes and models, essential skills for the development of any artist. Hofmann believed that all great artwork began and ended in the studio. The singularity of studio practice was a crucial element in any artist's education, and the only way to achieve proficiency in any medium.

The Hofmann School taught the basic principles of "push/pull," which stressed the importance of applying and combining opposing forces in one's art, whether these were color vs. shade or hard, geometric shapes vs. fluid, biomorphic abstractions. He adopted a liberal approach to media and stylistic choice; whether representational or completely abstract, Hofmann wanted each of his students to perfect their individual craft through an understanding of its ancestry, and as a teacher, never expressed explicit preference for either representation or abstraction.

Bernice soon followed in suit, studying with Hoffman, and did some modelling for Hoffman and in his classes. She also modeled for various ad agencies in the 1930s and 1940s in Manhattan. She worked as a stenographer for an advertising firm and other companies dealing in clothing manufacturing.

Blanche was an extremely accomplished fine artist. Together Blanche and Max made quite the combination! In September of 1918, the happy couple was living at 590 E. 21st Street in Brooklyn. By January 1920 they moved to another home, also in the Brooklyn Borough, Assembly District 21. In 1931 the family moved to 225 West 86th Street in Manhattan. By 1935 - 1940, they were living at 1841 University Avenue, New York City in the Bronx.

In 1953/1954, Blanche and Max moved to Los Angeles to be near their daughter, Bernice, who had moved to the west coast in 1952, and lived on Allesandro Street, near Silverlake and Echo Park. In 1960 Blanche lived in Hollywood at 240 McCadden Place.

After 43 years of marriage, Max passed in Hollywood, California on November 9th, 1954. Blanche lived the next almost 20 years in Hollywood, living near her daughter Bernice, her husband Ernest Anders and their son Mark Jon Erickson.

Blanche passed in Van Nuys, California on December 28th, 1973. Max and Blanche's only daughter, Bernice Lane (Hesslein) passed in Venice, California on October 29th, 2002. They all lived adventurous and enjoyable lives. Their spirit's soar and live on in artistic splashes of color and imagery.

(Thanks to my cousin Julie Evans for 90% of Max's biography above. She helped me bring him alive. Max is back!)

The 1945 New York City photograph:
My grandparents Max (Maximilian) & Blanche Rose (Nathan) Hesslein with my mom Bernice (Erickson) Hesselin at 20 years old walking past the Roxy Theater on West 50th Street between 6th and 7th Avenue in New York City in 1945.

In the other photograph of Max, he can be seen standing in Central Park in New York City 1940.

The Nathan, Hesslein, Ripin, Rippe & Tyroler photograph:
A beautiful photograph and a family gathering of the Nathan clan at the family home in Far Rockaway, Queens near the Atlantic Ocean in the late Summer of 1939. My cousin Ruth (Ripin) Juda was kind enough to send me years ago a letter with exact info to help me identify everyone in the photograph. She did a great job and I thank her.

Standing left to right:
My uncle Edwin Nathan (brother of my grandmother Blanche) holding his dog, my cousin Robert Ripin (son of Sadie Nathan & Seymour Ripin), uncle Maurice Rippe (husband of Winnie), aunt Sadie (Nathan) Ripin (sister to my grandmother Blanche), cousin Benet Ripin (son of Sadie & Seymour), my grandfather Maximilian 'Max' Hesslein (husband to Blanche) and uncle Jack Tyroler (husband to aunt Minnie (Nathan) Tyroler.

Sitting left to right:
My grandmother Blanche Rose (Nathan) Hesslein, cousin Ruth (Juda) Ripin (daughter of Sadie and Seymour), aunt Winifred 'Winnie' (Nathan) Rippe and aunt Minnie (Nathan) Tyroler who is the sister of my great grandfather Benjamin Nathan.

As Ruth's note says:
Missing are my mother Bernice Lane (Erickson) Hesslein, Ruth's sister Louise Ripin and our cousins Edith Rippe Weber and Benjamin 'Ben' Rippe.