Conrad Funk, Sr.

Ross, Nola Mae Wittler, Lake Charles American Press, May 22, 1988:

Capt. Conrad Funk launched history

"Don't hurry. Don't worry. You're only here for a short visit.
So be sure to stop and smell the flowers."

        The words of Walter Hagen describe perfectly the five Funk sisters who own and operate a florist's shop on Helen Street. They've been doing it for 40 years, and the story of how these sisters came together to operate a business forms an important chapter in Southwest Louisiana history. Oma Funk, Annie Funk, Bessie (Mrs. Jack) Heflin, Della (Mrs. Carl) Vick, and Ella Marie (Mrs. Lucius) Derouen are descendants of one of the first pioneer schooner captains in the area.
        The story began when their grandfather, Captain Conrad Funk, came from the Isle of Foehr in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, in 1859. Capt. Funk landed at St. John's Island – slightly west and about three miles north of Cameron. There's no written record of why Capt. Funk chose this particular place to settle, but there are some strong clues. Capt. Funk came to Southwest Louisiana about the same time as Captain Daniel Goos. Both sea captains were from the Isle of Foehr, so it's assumed that Funk already knew Goos. And St. John's Island was the perfect place for a way station and schooner landing for vessels sailing from Lake Charles to the Goos shipping station in Galveston, Texas.
        It was in Galveston that Capt. Conrad Funk met and married Madora Goos, the fifth child of Capt. Daniel Goos and Katherine Moeling Goos. Capt. Funk and his bride, Madora, journeyed back to make their home on St. John's Island. Capt. Conrad Funk died less than five years later. "We don't know much about our grandfather, Conrad Funk," says Oma Funk of Lake Charles. "But we always heard that he was very kind and helpful to the family. Conrad and Madora Funk had three children, but only one – our father, Albert Goos Funk – made it to adulthood. A brother died when he was 17, and a little girl, who was badly injured as a baby, died when she was eight."
        After Conrad Funk died, Madora Goos Funk met and married Emile S. G. Jessen, who also came from the Isle of Foehr in Schleswig-Holstein. They lived on St. John's Island, in the same home she and Conrad Funk lived in. They had seven children – George, Christian, Margaret, Walter, Frederic, Rosalie and Daniel Goos Jessen. Madora Goos Funk Jessen had given birth to 10 children by the time she was 41. Just two months after her last child, Daniel Goos Jessen, was born, she died in New Orleans, where she was believed to have been seeking medical treatment.
        The property on St. John's Island was first patented in 1861 to William Kirkman by the federal government. "About 254 acres on St. John's Island were patented to Kirkman," says Charles Hebert of Hebert Abstract Co. in Cameron. "Later, part of it was sold to Mrs. Madora M. Goos Funk, and part to her mother, Mrs. Katherine B. Moeling Goos. In 1913, W. T. Burton bought 44 acres of the island for his shell banks. Still later, the Calcasieu Dock Board bought 72 acres for a deep-water channel which cut right through the island."
        Madora's second husband, Emile Jessen, had bought the part of St. John's Island which his mother-in-law, Mrs. Katherine Moeling Goos, had owned. Later, after Madora Funk Jessen died in 1893, Jessen bought Albert Goos Funk's portion of the property. Jessen continued to live on St. John's Island and was remarried to a young lady from Lake Charles named Georgiana Richards, who took care of Jessen's six children, plus a large family of her own. Guy Jessen of Hackberry is a son of Georgiana Richards and Emile Jessen, and he remembers St. John's Island very well. "Our family was self-sufficient," he said. "We had our own garden and a large fruit orchard. We also raised cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys. Corn grew higher than an adult's head."
        The Emile Jessen family left St. John's Island in 1912 and moved to Lake Charles. On August 6, 1918, a devastating hurricane wiped out their old home place on the island. Many years later – during the Great Depression – a son named Christian Goos Jessen moved his family to St. John's Island and lived in a smaller house on the interior of the island. There were no roads to the island, so Jessen took his children to school by boat. He fished for a living and sent his catch by the charter boat Borealis Rex to Steed's Fish Market on the lakefront in Lake Charles. Meanwhile, Capt. Conrad Funk's son, Albert Goos Funk, while still a youngster, was sent to Lake Charles to live with his grandparents, the Daniel Goos family. He attended school, then went to work at the J. A. Bel Lumber Co.
        When he was 26, Albert Goos Funk married a childhood sweetheart, Mary Ella Bonsall, daughter of Henry and Zelma Bonsall, pioneer settlers of Grand Chenier. Albert Goos Funk and Mary Ella Bonsall had two sons, James and Albert Funk, both deceased, and six daughters, Thelma (also deceased), Oma, Bessie, Annie, Della and Ella Marie. Their father, Albert Funk, was a gang-sawyer for the J. A. Bel Lumber Company, which was located on Lake Charles where the Hilton Hotel now stands. Funk stayed with Bel until the mill closed in the 1920's. After the Bel mill closed, Albert Goos Funk and his son, Albert, Jr., went to work for Southern Amusement Company. Ted Crosby remembers them as "excellent maintenance personnel, taking care of all the theaters owned and operated by Southern Amusement."
        From the time they were married on December 24, 1901, until 1910, Albert Goos and Mary Ella Bonsall Funk lived in a Bel rent house on Ann Street. Then Mrs. Funk visited a friend on Helen Street, and fell in love with that location. "There were elderberry bushes surrounding the house she liked," says Annie Funk. "The streetcar ran nearby, down Ryan Street to St. Patrick Hospital, and then went to Goosport. Our father could ride it to and from work every day. We moved here and have been here ever since. The original house was blown down in the 1918 hurricane, but father rebuilt it."
        "Our home was near Fourth Ward School," adds Della Funk Vick, "so we all went there. Mrs. Collette was our principal, and later Mr. Ford." "We moved in next door to the B&M Florist, which was run by a Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Breuer," Oma Funk recalls. "As a small child, I'd go over there a lot, watching and helping arrange flowers and run errands. When I got older, I went to work for Duflot's Florist and stayed there 10 years."
        Duflot's Florist is believed to have been one of the first florists in Lake Charles, having been opened about 1931 by George Duflot. Funk's Florist came into being because the mother, Mrs. Mary Ella Funk, had been growing lots of flowers in her yard. People wanted to buy them, so she began selling little plants, bouquets and arrangements which she picked from her yard. Then she began to use a side porch as a greenhouse. As the business grew, the daughters began working there, too. "Now we all five are in the flower shop together," says Annie Funk, 41 years after Mrs. Funk's yard flowers became popular. Together, the five sisters are writing the latest chapter in a piece of history that began when their grandfather, Capt. Conrad Funk, set sail from the Isle of Fohr in 1859, seeking a new life in Southwest Louisiana.