The 2007 Jatho Reunion
Here are a few
highlights from the second Jatho Reunion. Click any of the thumbnail photos on this page to enlarge, then use your
browser's "Back" button to return to this page.
Friday's night's get-together at the Best Friend Bar in the Mills House Hotel started off the festivities. We picked this spot for a reason. Just across the street was 121 Meeting Street, the site of G.W. Jatho's earliest business enterprise in 1850s Charleston.
We enjoyed a spendid
dinner at the French bistro Mistral (we're indebted to Alan, doorman at the Planter's Inn, for the referral to this gem).
Saturday
morning we gathered
for a group photo after breakfast at the Hominy Grill (arguably the best breakfast in Charleston); from left: Susan, Judi, Gordy, D., Myra, George and their
daughter Laura.
The Hominy Grill is close to the ancestral Jatho home at 87 Cannon Street---which was built in 1835 as a barber shop, then
became G.W.'s shop and home, and is
now a bead and jewelry store.
Scroll down to the grey box below for a photo gallery of the home's interior; click any image to enlarge. 
We also visited the Charleston
Museum and took a walking tour of Charleston's farmer's market in Marion Square.
Across
from the weekly market is St. Matthew's German Evangelical Lutheran Church, where in 1873
Elise Jatho took her entire brood of kids to be baptized by the Rev. Ludwig Müller. If
you look carefully at the enlargement of the interior (above left) you can see the baptismal font in front of a white patterned grillwork;
the Jatho offspring (then ranging in ages from 22 down to seven) would have stood here for the ceremony.
For the next twenty years the Jathos were
closely connected to St. Matthew's, popping up as witnesses or godparents, or (as with George Jatho and younger brother
William) to be married there.
Then we visited King Street's
shopping district, where both G.W. Jatho and his father-in-law Louis Schuckmann had businesses. At right is the building where
Schuckmann's Store (dry and fancy goods---fabrics, ribbons, buttons, etc.) once stood at 271 King
Street.
The
patriotic flag that Marie Dressel Schuckmann made during the Civil War
was once proudly displayed here, and the business was passed down to son Philip Schuckmann and, after his time, to William Jatho, who brought
his younger brother C.J. in as a salesman.
An inviting walkway led to the Unitarian Church cemetery---no Jathos here but it's located next door to St. John's Lutheran Church, the oldest Lutheran church in Charleston. Its English-speaking congregation was likely more attractive to the younger Jatho contingent, some of whom were confirmed or married there from the 1880s onward. After a short rest we met up at 39 John's Street for dinner at Coast, a fabulous seafood restaurant.
From left (click to enlarge): (1) 87 Cannon Street exterior as it looks in May 2007; (2) the front showroom, very likely where G.W. had his office situated, and
where Myra and Laura shop for commemorative earrings; (3) an upstairs bedroom adapted
as a workroom for bead-making; (4) the second-floor showroom; (5) a unique use for the product: beaded brassiere straps!
Are you a Jatho?
Or do you have Jatho ancestors in your family? Our clan originated in Dransfeld in Hannover and settled in Charleston in the late 1840s. If you think your Jatho ancestors may be related to ours, please let us know. Other names associated with the Jatho clan include Dressel, Schuckmann/Schuchmann/Shuckmann, Müller or Mueller, and Sibberns. We're also running a Jatho DNA project to locate even more members of our family. Click the link if you'd like more information.