FAREWELL TO REFORM 279
junior. "Aunt Johanna" developed into an expert tailoress and
eventually began a small business in the Weitling home for the
manufacture of fancy vests, an activity in which the Weitlings
joined. The head of the house probably worked for other custom
tailors in the early years of his married life, but before long the
sole source of income for the family was the fancy-vest business
carried on at home. "Aunt Johanna" was a faithful, hard-working,
kindly soul, who became a second mother to Weitling's children.
Her relationship with her sister and brother-in-law seems to have
been remarkably harmonious and close. After the death of the
elder Weitlings, the aunt was revered as the head of the family by
all the children and lived to enjoy the devotion and gratitude of
her niece and nephews until her death in New York in 1929.
For a short time after their marriage the Weitlings lived among
the Germans on the East Side on Allen Street and later on Avenue
B, Norfolk Street, and Stanton Street. Weitling's account book
shows that when they moved in April, 1856, at a cost of $11.50,
they had "four loads" and that the usual rent paid in the various
residences was $25 a month. These stray items may throw some
light on the family's circumstances, at least at the beginning of
their marriage. Life in the modest homes of the tailor-philosopher
and the two hard-working women seems to have been fairly placid
and unusually harmonious. Perhaps this demonstrates the ability
of the women to appreciate the solid virtues and kindly heart of
the head of the family, to overlook some of his childish vagaries,
and to indulge him in the activities which resulted from his irre
pressible search for new truths, however impractical they might
be. The many hours spent in study and experimentation were
hardly helpful in replenishing an always precarious family income,
and there were periods when the question of where the next
week's food or the next month's rent would come from was far
more important than the possible results of the quest by the head
of the house for a new cosmogony or a universal language.
On November 7, 1855, Caroline Weitling gave birth to her first
son, who was born at 126 Allen Street and was promptly named
barré
(Barré)
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