Emperor Norton's Friend the Butcher
THERE ARE many contemporaneous references to Emperor Norton’s associations with various people and places.
But, the Emperor was a public character. And, the accounts of his engagements with particular people mostly are accounts of conversations and sightings in public places: libraries, lecture halls, churches, saloons, parks, resorts, trains, ferries, streets.
Much rarer are eyewitness reports of Emperor Norton in more intimate settings, such as someone’s home.
So, it was exciting this week to stumble across the following letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, written by Josephine Groeschel and published on 24 June 1953. Groeschel had been reading the Chronicle’s coverage of its inaugural Emperor Norton Treasure Hunts, recently completed — and she had a few personal memories to share. She was 93.
Josephine Yehl Groeschel, letter to the editor, San Francisco Chronicle, 24 June 1953, p. 18. Source: San Francisco Chronicle via Genealogy Bank
No doubt, the dinners that Emperor Norton enjoyed at the Yehl home were good, square meals — for, as it happens, Abraham Yehl (1827–1915) was a butcher by trade.
The death notice for Yehl that appeared in the Chronicle did not mention where he was buried. But, the 1899 death notice for Fannie Yehl, Abraham’s wife, noted that she was to be buried at Home of Peace, in Colma, Calif. — and, indeed, the two are buried together there.
Headstone for Fanny and Abraham Yehl, Home of Peace cemetery, Colma, Calif. Source: Find a Grave
Why this matters: Home of Peace is the Jewish cemetery established and owned by Congregation Emanu-El, in San Francisco, and Emanu-El is the synagogue that Emperor Norton attended every Saturday.
It stands to reason that this is where the Emperor — middle name, Abraham — and…Abraham befriended one another.
As Josephine Yehl Groeschel notes in her letter, her parents immigrated to the United States from Alsace, France. According to the U.S. census for 1910, Abraham arrived in 1854, when he was 27. In the listing below — click to enlarge — the date is recorded in the line for Abraham. (There are conflicting records that have Abraham arriving in 1858. Apropos Josephine’s letter, this raises the question as to whether Abraham’s immigration and marriage dates were conflated at various points.)
Abraham Yehl household detail from 1910 U.S. Census, California, San Francisco, Assembly District 40, Precinct 9. Source: National Archives & Records Administration via Ancestry.com
Two additional things to note from this census record…
In 1910, the extended Yehl family — including, as head of household, an 83-year-old Abraham, as well as Josephine, her husband Benjamin (a butcher supplies salesman) and their unmarried 20-year-old son Albert — was living together at 1730 Steiner Street.
And: They had, living in the house with them, a 19-year-old male Japanese servant named Bunzabens Maeda.
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THE FIRST San Francisco directory listing for Abraham Yehl is in 1862. This lends credence to the possibility that, in fact — if Yehl’s first landing in the United States was San Francisco — he did not arrive until 1858 (rather than 1854). An 1858 marriage for Abraham and Fanny would suggest that they arrived in San Francisco at the same time.
Listing for Abraham Yehl in the 1862 Langley’s San Francisco directory, p. 412. Source: San Francisco Public Library via Internet Archive
A review of city directories from the 1860s through the 1910s indicates that, for a decade or so, Yehl was in business for himself — then worked for a series of other butcher firms, increasingly on the business side.
Here’s Yehl’s business card from 1875 or so, when he was working for the firm of Gradwohl & Cohen. Directories indicate that he was there for about a year.
Abraham Yehl’s business card with Gradwohl & Cohen butchers, San Francisco, c.1875. Source: University of Pennsylvania Libraries
As to where Abraham Yehl and his family were living when he had Emperor Norton over for dinner…
I don’t find any directory listings that place Yehl at Powell and Washington Streets in 1868, as Yehl’s daughter Josephine remembered in 1953. Nor do I find a listing for the family at this location in any other year.
Of course, the directories aren’t conclusive. It’s possible that the Yehl family moved to Powell and Washington shortly after providing residence information for a given year’s directory, then had moved yet again before providing info for the following year’s directory.
Plus: The 1866 and 1870 San Francisco directories are lost — which makes for 2-year information gaps in the periods of 1865–67 and 1869–71.
But, even if Josephine’s 93-year-old memory was not at its best in 1953, it seems extremely unlikely that she made up the “imperial house guest” dinners out of whole cloth.
What does seem likely is that, some four years after he was carrying the business card above — and just a few weeks after celebrating his 52nd birthday in late November 1879 — Abraham Yehl was among the 10,000 who paid their last respects to Emperor Norton at 16 O’Farrell Street on 10 January 1880.
Who knows? Perhaps he was among the much smaller group of 30 who attended the Emperor’s burial at the Masonic Cemetery that afternoon.
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