Behrend (Julius) family papers and photographs, 1884-2006

Julius Francis Behrend (b. in Hamburg, Germany, 2 Aug. 1863; d. in San Francisco, June 1954) immigrated to New York in 1879 and moved to Arkansas City, Kansas in 1884, where he operated a clothing store. While in Kansas, Behrend became a Freemason and joined the Order of the Eastern Star, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and the Grand Commandery (i.e., Knights Templar), as well as the Knights of Pythias. On 3 Nov. 1884, he became an American citizen. In 1884, Behrend apparently met Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce on the Ponca reservation in what would become Oklahoma. According to family members, Julius Behrend witnessed the removal of the last of the tribe from Indian Territory in the spring of 1885. In 1889, Behrend travelled with the “boomers” to the Cherokee Outlet to take advantage of the opening of the Oklahoma Territory. He applied to the federal government for a trading post outside of Tulsa. In 1895, Behrend relocated to Cincinatti and then to Chicago in 1897. In 1901, Behrend returned to Kansas to marry Carrie Reese, who was the daughter of Marietta W. Wilson and John F. Reese. Julius and Carrie left Kansas and relocated to San Francisco, where Julius was manager for the Fleischmann Company Distillery at 508 Front Street. Behrend continued to work in various capacities and at various locations for Fleischmann until 1922. When Julius Behrend died in 1954, he left behind an estate worth more than $1.1 million. Carrie and Julius’s daughter, Frances (b. in San Francisco, 13 Aug. 1907; d. in Berkeley, 12 July 2005), was married, for a time, to Jonathan Rowell, Jr. They had three children: Sharon, Constance, and Jonathan. Frances divorced Jonathan in 1942 and later married Arthur B. Burch.

The collection contains documents, scrapbooks, photographs, and photo albums relating to the family of Julius Behrend and his wife Carrie Reese Behrend. Documents consist primarily of a small number of vital records and narrative family histories written by Constance Mastores (Julius Behrend’s granddaughter) entitled “In My Grandfather’s Time” (2005) and “Separations” (2006). In addition, the collection includes a letter written to Constance Mastores by Sylvia Porter Fox (23 Jan. 1985), and an affidavit testifying to a suitor’s great obsession for Julius Behrend’s daughter, Frances (23 Dec. 1926). Most of the collection consists of loose photographs, photo albums and scrapbooks. The loose photographs are mainly portraits of various family members from the 1870s through the 1920s. There are particularly fine photographs of a boarding house in Arkansas City, Kansas in the mid-1880s and a photograph of Julius Behrend with his bicycle, circa 1890. There are three photo albums in the collection: one consisting of Reese and Wilson family portraits and dating to circa 1870 (Wilson was Carrie Reese Behrend’s mother’s surname), one documenting a family trip around the world in 1928 and 1929, and one family photo album from the 1930s and 1940s. Two scrapbooks of clippings and a small amount of ephemera document the Reese family of Wichita, Kansas (1913-1932) and the life of a young Frances Behrend in the 1920s.