Ima’s Berlin Secrets: Still Secret!

This is 22 Mommsenstrasse, Charlottenburg, a suburb of Berlin, as it looks today. Ima Hogg lived here in 1907-08.

This is a page from the Berlin City Directory of 1908, listing the owners/residents of 22 Mommenstreasse. 

         Eight owner/residents are listed in this multi-unit building.  One of them was the German novelist/playwright, Felix Hollander.

         None of them is named Grandberry or Cranberry, the family with whom, according to Ima’s 1908 diary, she was living.

         This must mean that the Grandberry/Cranberry family were renting or leasing their apartment.

        

         But who the Grandberrys were, and why they (or Mrs. Grandberry, or Cranberry, as Ima calls her) were living here is a research work in progress. Ima’s diary says that she knew Mrs. Grandberry from Houston.

         The likeliest candidate is Mary Belle Grandberry, the wife of a Houston oilman, Prentiss Grandberry, who lived at 241 Heights Boulevard (a house no longer there). In 1908 this Mrs. Grandberry was 35 years old. But this Mrs. Grandberry of Houston was born October 26, 1872. The Mrs. Cranberry in Charlottenburg in Ima’s diary celebrates her birthday January 27.

Hmm.

It’s summertime! See the next blog on August 6.