Susanna LEMP 1839-1917
The daily-paid labourer Konrad Lemp and his wife, Katharina nee Jung, lost four children to infant maladies; of the six survivors, four would die in Victoria. The eldest of the three girls was Maria Elisabetha born 19th December 1834; she left the village to go to Victoria in 1856 and her younger sister Susanna, born 7th December 1839, was sent with her. Their ship (aptly named “Sunshine”), left Liverpool on 5th November 1856 with the largest group of emigrants to leave from Nieder-Weisel during the mass exodus. Members of the Haub, Bill, Adami, Hauser, Geibel, Hildebrand, Belloff, Schimpf, Studt, Lenz and Klippel families accounted for twenty percent of the ship’s 196 passengers.
Arriving in Port Philip twenty-nine days into the new year Susanna went on with her sister and most of their travelling companions to Ballarat, where they had no trouble obtaining employment as domestics. The main objective of sending the teenage females out to the goldfields was to allow them to find suitable husbands but, unlike most of her companions, Susanna was in no hurry to find a partner. Maria Elisabetha married another immigrant from Nieder-Weisel, Peter Hauser, and their sister Elisabetha also married a short time after following them to Victoria in 1857. Her husband was Johannes Schuld of Butzbach, near Nieder-Weisel, and her brother-in-law Peter Hauser was in the wedding party. So, it is likely that Susanna was also there, placing her in the Yandoit area in 1862. Another Butzbach migrant was Konrad Lemp and it was he who Susanna fell in love with and married in 1864. Though his parents had Nieder-Weisel-like names – Jakob Lemp and Susanna nee Heinz – there was no relationship between his family and Susanna’s. Konrad Lemp had arrived in Victoria aboard “Undine” in 1855.
Although he was a baker by profession, Konrad was working as a digger; he and Susanna went to Rocky Lead. There, Susanna gave birth to their daughter Alice Louise in June 1864. A son was born in 1866 and took the name of his godfather, Gernand Lemp, who was Konrad’s brother. The Lemps then returned to Ballarat, as did the Schuld family, where they settled permanently. Susanna was kept busy during the next twelve years rearing three more sons and three daughters: Jakob in 1870; Catherine, 1871; Maria Susanna 1873; William 1875; Conrad Louis in 1878 and, finally, Lily Susanna in 1880.
Susanna maintained contact with Elisabetha Schuld until she died in 1875. Maria Elisabetha, married a second time, also lived in the area. Konrad was a member of the German Club in Ballarat, and this kept them in touch with their old friends. Konrad established himself as a baker and, in 1880, took out British citizenship.
In 1890, Alice Louise married and the next year a grandson arrived to begin another generation, but the pleasure that this event brought was muted by the loss of Susanna’s youngest daughter, Lily, at the age of 12. One by one, the others married and the growing number of grandchildren provided more than an adequate reward for the hard work she had invested in her children.
William took over the baking business, and Konrad and Susanna retired to live out the rest of their lives in their Ballarat East home. Susanna lived into her 79th year and Konrad died in 1918 in his 80th year; they are buried in the New Cemetery in Ballarat.
View Susanna's Family Chart
