In the early 1880s his grandfather Alphonse Gottfried and his two-years younger brother Martin had emigrated from a small farmstead in Oberegg to America. “They hoped for a better life.” We visit Elmer and his wife Kathryn Greene Schoenbachler, married for some 58 years, in their neat home in Hikes Point, Louisville - previously the pastor’s house of St. Paul Episcopal Church.
Right away, Elmer starts to tell of his great trip to Switzerland that he took with his sisters in 1996. “There in Oberegg it is still more rural than in Einsiedeln. As I stood in front of the house of my grandfather, I was overtaken by emotion. The vivacious brown cows greeted us with their bells. It felt like being at home, submerged in a sense of belonging. And when I looked up over the hills towards the mountains, I asked myself why my grandfather had left this wonderfully charming place.” Having grown up as a simple farm boy in a large family, Alphonse remained tied to farm work and distributing milk in his new homeland. “I know that in the 1880s my grandfather had rented a farm in St. Matthews and was soon selling milk from his home.”
“Schoenbachler meets Schoenbachler” - the young immigrant met Josephine Schoenbachler, who was four years younger, and they fell in love. “One took extra care to check the parish books to make sure that no blood relationship was in the way of the happy union. The name of Josephine’s father was Maurus Schoenbachler, but of my grandmother we only know that most likely she too was born in Einsiedeln in January 1865; but we never talked about her family.” Alphonse and Josephine married in 1884 and raised ten children. Like all members of the family, Elmer’s father Ben Alphonse could only attend school for five years. His help was needed on the farm. At age 25 he married Julia Amelia Kitzero who was of German origin. “My father was of course also a farmer and a milkman like many of the Einsiedeln immigrants. For a time, my parents also ran a food store. I was born during the Great Depression in America, in 1931. The times were hard.”
Fire destroyed the store and we all worked hard on the dairy
farm on Illinois Avenue south of Trevillian Way. This was the location of the Schoenbachler Dairy - where the Louisville Zoo is today. Once again, they would rent the land instead of owning it. The dairy was also known as the Home Dairy. “Our thirty cows allowed us to be successful. I remember it well: at six in the morning I had to milk cows before I went to school. For many years we delivered raw milk - until we were forced to change to pasteurization. My shoes always had holes since there was no money for new ones. But luckily, we always had a garden that provided vegetables and fruits.
Even as children, we went with our parents on weekends to the famous Swiss Hall. The ‘Kaelin band’ was well known, and I was always there to learn the ‘schottische’; but somehow I never quite made it! My father still spoke Swiss German - but everything German was ostracized in the thirties, therefore he may have refrained from teaching us Swiss German.” Elmer B. Schoenbachler proved to be a good student and later would attend High School.
“But at age sixteen I had to go back home and forget school. It was just that way. I was neither asked nor given a choice. Thus I remained on the farm until my twentieth year. Then I was drafted into the air force - on the air rescue and survival staff I was ‘living off the land’, training in the Sierra Nevada mountains and later in the desert of Southern California. Returning home at age twenty-four I was in top shape, but without a diploma.” Thanks to his good reputation and the financial support of the army, Elmer was able to enroll at the University of Kentucky without a High School diploma.
First, he attended Pre-Veterinary School, then until 1962 Medical School. “During my studies I came to know my future wife Kathryn Greene. She helped me throughout those years - and I am deeply grateful to her. We raised five children and from 1963 on, I had my own practice. Many ‘Switzers’, as I call the descendants of Swiss, came to my practice. Most of these ‘Switzers’ are Catholic like myself. For my grandfather, as well as for my father, the Church was always very important. I attend mass every Sunday. That’s how we were brought up.”
