- O/T Some additional biographical information about Marianne Ostier and her family Archived Message
Posted by mauriz
on August 1, 2018, 8:13 am, in reply to "Moritz Oesterreicher / Marianne Ostier"
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The New York Times from March 7, 1970 on page 21 had the following short note under the title: Mrs. Marianne Ostier Is Rewed _________________________ Mrs. Marianne Ostier, a retired custom jewelry designer, and Charles Gadd, a corporation and estate lawyer with his own own firm here, were married yesterday afternoon by State Supreme Court Justice Mitchell D. Schweitzer in his chambers. Her father, the late Heinrich Aufricht, owned an oil refinery and her first husband's family had been court jewelers to the Habsburgs. She designed the diamond tiara worn by the bride at the marriage of King Zog of Albania in the 30's and the diamond pin worn by Miss Julie Nixon at her marriage to David Eisenhower in 1968. Mrs. Gadd and her first husband, the late Oliver O. Ostier, operated the jewelry company of Ostier, Inc. here. He died in 1965, and she dissolved the company. Mr. Gadd, who had been widowed, is the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Gadd of New York. He was graduated from New York University and the Brooklyn Law School and is a director of several corporations. _________________________ Heinrich Aufricht, Marianne's father, was born November 10, 1871 in Zabłocie, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. In 1902 he was listed in the Viennese address directories as residing at Bennogasse 30 , Wien 8, being the owner of a company named Benno Altmann's Nachfolger, Payergasse 6, Wien 16. The company was classified as trading with machine oil, fats and other lubricants. Marianne's mother, Rosa Gans was born on January 25, 1880 in Prague as one of five children to Adolf and Amalie Gans. Adolf Gans established a factory for duvets and bed-sheets in Vienna in 1882 with additional locations in other parts of Austria during the following years. A photo of one of the factories outside Vienna is online:  After Adolf's death in 1899 the company was run by Rosa's two brothers Heinrich and Karl until it was aryanized in 1938. Heinrich's grandson Michael Gans commented on an article about the factories online, that Karl commited suicide when the SS came to arrest him, while Heinrich managed to escape to Palestine with his wife and son. The company exists until today and is still quite prestigious. Gans 1882 Heinrich Aufricht wed Rosa Gans on January 17, 1901. Their daughter Marianne was born in 1902, their son Ernst Otto in 1908. Marianne Ostier's maternal grandmother Amalie Gans's testament from 1921 is accessible. She left 200.000 Kronen to each of her three daughters, while her two sons inherited their mother's stake of the factories. By all accounts, the Aufrichts must have been quite well-to-do and probably lived under similar or even more comfortable circumstances than the Oesterreichers. Rosa Aufricht, Marianne's mother, died in 1931. In 1934 Marianne's brother Ernst Otto Aufricht wed Maria Elbogen, daughter of Franz Friedrich Elbogen, an industrialist, whose brother-in-law, conductor Eugene Ormandy would later help the families to immigrate to the United States, where Ernst Otto and Maria changed their name from Aufricht to Anders in 1938. Maria (later Mariedi) Anders would become an important artist manager. The Mariedi Anders Artists Management Inc. (MAAM) was for decades the only agency for classical music soloists and orchestras at the American west coast with artists like Lucia Popp or Nikolaus Harnoncourt under contract. The Penn Libraries have the Eugene Ormandy family home videos archived, amateur film shots between 1932 and 1947 which include footage of Marianne Ostier's brother, sister-in-law and nephew: http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/ead/detail.html?id=EAD_upenn_rbml_PUSpMsColl1051 The University of Hamburg has an entry about Mariedi Anders in their Lexicon of Nazi-persecuted Musicians with a mention of her parents-in-law Heinrich and Rosa Aufricht: https://www.lexm.uni-hamburg.de/object/lexm_lexmperson_00007082 Marianne's father Heinrich didn't escape the Nazis. He was arrested and deported to Theresienstadt on July 28, 1942 where he was murdered on October 3, 1942. A high school diploma was not mandatory for attending the Kunstgewerbeschule, but considering Marianne Aufricht's personal circumstances it's likely she finished secondary school before studying there. If it's true that she left the Kunstgewerbeschule after three years, as stated in one of the articles about her, this would have been in 1923. Otto Oesterreicher's and his first wife Erna's son Alex was born in February 1929. Beth provided a link to a diamond bracelet, ca. 1930 with Austrian export marks and signed MO, which either meant Marianne Oesterreicher at that time or - maybe more likely - was among the items she managed to take with her to the United States and signed later as Marianne Ostier. I wonder where she started working after leaving the Kunstgewerbeschule. Oesterreicher? Or elsewhere first? I thought about searching the marriages register for Otto's and Marianne's wedding certificate, but that would not necessarily shed light on the date of her entry in the company. (Edited for typo and misspelling and to correct notation of names) |