At the start of the new company, the Vegetable Growers Supply Co., in 1918, Joseph Rengel served as the vice-president of the company. In January, 1919, Michael Leider turned down the nomination as Treasurer and instead nominated Robert F. Dilger. Michael remained on the board as an elected director. An executive committee which was formed in January 1919 included the following three men: J. P. Smith (president), J. B. Molitor (secretary), and Robert F. Dilger (treasurer). The executive committee was a subset of the 11-member board of directors. Joseph Rengel was elected by the board to serve as Vice President.

So why were Josph Rengel and Robert F. Dilger part of this close-knit founders group?

St. Henry’s Catholic Church looms large in Chicago Luxembourg history. The first St. Henry Church was a small frame house built by recent German immigrant Henry Fortmann in 1852. Peter Schmidt, Sr. (Smith) emigrated from Germany to the Rogers Park area in 1842 with Henry Forman and between their arrival in this area in 1842 and the construction of St. Henry Catholic Church 1 in 1851, masses were held in Peter Schmidt Sr.’s log cabin house.

The second St. Henry’s Church was built in 1871 and was a larger wooden structure. It was built by Franz Paul Dilger, a German immigrant who arrived in the area in 1854 at 24 years old, coming from Wittenberg, Germany and leaving his native country for political differences, according to family stories. Franz Paul came to the U. S. with carpentry skills and, as a building contractor, had built a number of buildings in Grosse Point (present day Wilmette), Niles Center (present day Skokie) and Rogers Park. Unfortunately, Franz Paul Dilger would die relatively young in 1872 at 45 years old, and about four years after his wife died, leaving several young kids as orphans.

One of those young kids was was our Robert F. Dilger, the new treasurer for Vegetable Growers Supply Co., in 1919. He lost his mother at aged 10 and father at aged 14. While his siblings married and move on to Milwaukee, WI and Waukegan, IL, Robert F. remained in Chicago, becoming a truck farmer at the old homestead in Edgewater (6058 N. Clark St., just a bit south of Roges Park, but considered in the new company’s Rogers Park district).

In 1847, Joseph Rengel’s grandfather, Peter Joseph Rengel, emigrated from western Germany (Koblenz, about 100 miles east of Luxembourg) with his wife and kids ranging from 10 to 21 years old and settled in New Trier township (north of Evanston, the Grosse Point shareholder district) as a farmer. While some of Peter Joseph’s children stay on in the Chicago area, two move on to Minnesota. Peter Joseph’s son, John Joseph, marries a immigrant who arrived in the early 1840s from Trier, Germany (very near the eastern Luxembourg border) and is farming in New Trier township with a young family in tow, including our Joseph, who is 8 years old at the time.

Our Joseph Rengel married a daughter of Koblenz, Germany immigrants who also arrived in the area in the 1870s. By the time of the formation of the Vegetable Growers Supply Co. in 1918, he is working as a truck farmer in New Trier township. And not surprisingly, in 1900, Joseph’s father is living with his daughter, Margaret without his wife (who passed in 1891), and with his son-in-law, John Evert, and their new family in the New Trier township (Grosse Point Village). They were married in 1889.

Going back a couple posts, the Vegetable Growers Supply Co. president, J. P. Smith, in 1888 married Catherine Evert, whose Luxembourger family settled in Rose Hill in Edgewater in the 1840s. This John Evert, married to our Joseph Rengel’s sister, is the cousin of J. P.’s wife, Catherine Evert!

Getting back to the original question: Why these two men for these officer roles? Three facts stand out. First, both men were born in the the area and come from families settling at the same time as J. P. Smith’s family — in the 1850s and 1850s. These were an early wave of German and Luxembourg immigrants in the area. Second, both have family or personal relationship with J. P. Smith’s family. In the case of Robert F. Dilger, it is through his grandfather’s association with Franz Paul Dilger in the building of St. Henry’s Catholic Church 2 and most likely ongoing association with Franz’s orphaned children including our Robert F. Dilger. In the case of Joseph Rengel, J.P. Smith had a family relationship via marriages with him. Third, both were now truck farmers in and around Rogers Park. They were both part of J. P. Smith’s local family connections.

I think J. P. Smith wanted to have very trusted people as trusted associates when establishing the new Vegetable Growers Supply Co. These two men were truck farmers who had deeper family associations with J. P. Smith.

Apparently, it’s all in the family — connections, that is.