The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-09-28
SERVANT AMASSES
A MODEST FORTUNE
Saves $4,000 in Twenty
seven Years
TO LIVE IN GERMANY
Meets Fiancee on Steamer and They
Will Return Home-News of
Her Intended Departure
Arouses' Protest
TO LIVE IN GERMANY

Baltimore. September 27.-(special)
Hark, yet high-salaried grumblers, who
maintain that saving money Is an impos-
sibility, to the tale of Miss Clara Rents
chler, servant. who samassed nearly $l0,-
900 and is now about to go back to the
''Fatherlande to be married to the man
OF her choice.
Miss Rentschler is 80 years old and for
27 years she has been a servant in the
family of Philip Joseph, 1913 Eutaw
Place. At the age of 30 years she left her
native town of Nagold. Wnrttenberg.
Germany, came to America and sought
employment.
There was nothing so remarkable in
this part of her career, for hundreds of
other German girls come to Baltimore
annually bent on similar purposes. IT
was not remarkable either that Miss
Clara found work, for generation ago
housewives were on the lookout for capa-
Bile domestics, as they are now. SO It
was perfectly natural that she should
join the household of Mr.. and Mrs. Jo-
seph.
But there the mediocrity of her career
ceased, for, breaking the traditions of all
the world of domestics, she elected to re
main year after year without troubling
to take little flyers in pursuit of other
positions. Likewise remarkable to relate
she saved from month to month, from
year to year, and from decade to decade
a most surprisingly large percentage of
her wages and put the money in bank.
| Finally she decided she would return
| to the "Fatherland' to visit her folks.
F! This was some years ago. She went pay
| ing her own way, made pleasant visit
and returned to work with the Joseph
| family. Then she went to Germany
| again--some years MISUNDERSTANDING
as a matter of course to her Baltimore
home.
| Three Trips Abroad
| Then Miss Clara's mother, 80 years old,
became ill, and the maid bade good-by
to the Josephs amid tears, and, for the
| third time hied her back to Nagold. She
stayed there six months and nursed her
mother through the last lingering illness
| of old age, and finally saw her body laid
| in the little churchyard.
That was three years ago. There was
one, Christian Fischer of Stuttgart, Wurt-
| tenberg, whom she had known for some
time, and he renewed on that occasion
| their earlier acquaintance. Whispering
| sweet nothings" into her ears, he be-
| sieged her heart and tried to prevail upon
her to remain in Wurttenberg for the rest
of her life.
But after the mothers DEATH Miss
Rentschler felt lost in her native land
and decided that she was not quite ready
after all. to give up her Baltimore home
| So she wrote to the Joseph family, asking
| IL she might come back for a while
| Might she? Every member of the house.
hould on Eutaw Place jumped at the
chance of having with them again their
old friend and faithful servant. So Miss
Clara came back to Baltimore. but prom
| ised Christian that she would return tc
| him if he would remain true to her mem.
| ory for three years.
| So of late Cupids tardy call became in
sistent, and, the three years being passed
Miss Clara decided that she must go back
F., to the fatherland and to Christian--for she
at last pined for a real home of her own
with a husband. Y servant and other at
! tributes of domesteity.
! She broke the news of her contemplated
departure to the Joseph family, and met
a. storm of protest. The family gave her
praise of sort that caused her TO blush
with gratification: told her that she was
the most faithful woman that ever lived
and that they didn't know what they
would do without her.
Miss Clara, however, was obdurate. She