Transcript: #5 Trade and functions of the embroidery houses

Sound of embroidery machines

Jeanne Devos

You have now passed some embroidery houses. Have you heard the monotonous sound of the needles going up and down? You are now on the Oberstrasse (upper street). It was built around 1907 to open the area east of the village center for embroidery. This can be seen in the construction of the houses: an almost square ground plan, a high solid base floor as a location for the embroidery machines, and above two residential floors in a timber frame construction, originally clad in wooden shingles and with a hipped roof and cross gable. The single windows could be closed with shutters. This architectural expediency was widespread in those days and shaped the character of some quarters in Rehetobel. But not only embroidery was done in the houses.

Marcel Anderwert

Yes, I can still remember my mother's stories; there was the Knechtli bicycle shop, Mrs. Vögeli's grocery store where the schoolchildren bought their sweets after school, a boarding house with hydroelectric baths, and the stove fitter Longatti. It can be assumed that the houses of the Oberstrasse were constructed according to an idea by a skilled building craftsman. The houses have the same features, are close to the road with little lateral distance. The plots on which they stand are small. Above and below the road they are laterally offset from each other so that the light and the view have always been preserved. This is a good example of the dense construction required today. To the right of the stairs to the schoolhouse is the so called «Laubsägelihus», a house built in Art Nouveau style. This house became its name because it originally had richly decorated window roofs, sawn-out supporting structures, and balcony parapets. May be that the wooden decorations which looked like embroidery should make visible to the outside what was produced inside. Hans Lendenmann's embroidery was set up here. He sticked embroidered patterns on printed and coloured cards of congratulations, mourning, and remembrance. This kind of using embroidery went out of fashion in the middle of the 20th century, and the business had to close. Today, two flats have been built into the former workroom.

Jeanne Devos

By the way, did you notice the 5 houses above the meadow? They are five identical embroidery houses, created in 1905 by the entrepreneur Emil Tanner. They were erected especially for embroiderer families, with a massive basement and a frame construction above, clad with wooden shingles. The embroidery machines were in the basement. Identical houses can be found one on the Oberstrasse across from you and three on the Schulstrasse. The outermost house was owned by shoemaker and embroiderer Fischer. Today it is unimaginable that a family of seven lived in such a small house. In those days the entire house was often used for textile production. Erna Fischer, the daughter of the embroiderer who worked in this house, remembers:

«In our house, my father first had a pantograph machine, and later a shuttle embroidery machine. He got married in 1920, and in 1924 an extension was built to the house for this machine. Since we were born, we grew up with the rattling of the machine, that was quite normal, that was everyday family life. The whole family had to help in the embroidery. My mother told me that her mother had advised her, ‘Never marry an embroiderer! You'll be a burdened woman all your life!’ But my mother replied, ‘You know, it's completely different, he's a shuttle embroiderer!’ Grandfather had always remained a hand embroiderer, and my mother then realized that life as a shuttle embroiderer was not so different after all. The whole family had to help there too. Mother fixed embroidery failures with a sewing machine, our living room served as workplace, and the table was needed for the fabric. When the father needed help, he knocked on the wall, and then the mother went down to the embroidery room to assist. We children were soon skillful enough to take away or insert bobbins, open and fill shuttles, and deliver the fabric once here once there. The older children transported the goods with a handcart to and from the manufacturer. That was everyday family life.»

Marcel Anderwert

If you now go down the stairs in front of you towards the schoolhouse fountain, you will find another embroiderer's house with an east-facing extension with a terrace on the right side. It was built in 1901. Jakob Schläpfer junior moved into the house in 1947 and produced on his shuttle embroidery machine for various companies such as Forster Willi in St. Gallen, Nello AG in Herisau, Schürpf in St. Gallen, and H.W. Giger in Flawil. Besides curtain fabrics he embroidered mainly fashionable fabrics for evening and wedding dresses as well as blouses. The highlight of his activity was in 1947 when he embroidered for Forster Willi the fabric for a dress worn by the future Queen of England, Elizabeth the 2nd. This refutes the persistent rumour that only inferior goods were produced in Rehetobel.

Jeanne Devos

If you look along the main road towards the church, you will see four identical houses on the left. Two belonged to the former guesthouse «Löwen», the others the Walser-Straub AG company. They are an example of the fact that not only production, but also independent trade was carried out in the community. In 1927 Jakob Walser-Straub set up a business with an ironing and a fabric layering machine. The textile goods were prepared for shipment to British India. Because of a trade boycott beginning of the 1930s, this business could not be continued. They started weaving hand and kitchen towels, shirting fabrics, and table linen. When the business was handed over to his son Willi Walser in 1942, the company gave up weaving and switched to textile homework and trading. Later his son-in-law Rolf Degen took over the management and concentrated the business on direct sales with field service for home textiles and workwear. Then a mail order business was added. In 2000 the business was closed.

Now cross the road on the pedestrian crossing and walk past the bus stop to the junction where the Schulstrasse leads down. There you will find position 6.