It can only be wondered what life was like for the Schmitz family during the anti-German feeling of two world wars. It is to be hoped that Swindon, where most people were incomers, was a tolerant town in which to live.
Martha Sarah Potter was the daughter of Jasper and Mary Ann Potter and married Vincent Joseph Schmitz in the March quarter of 1898. Vincent was the son of John Henry Schmidt, a watch maker born in Prussia in about 1832.
Little can be discovered about John Henry Schmitz before he married Mary Ann Phillips in 1869 but by the time of the 1871 census he was living and working at a property at 47 Regent Street. Mary Ann and their 8 month old son Vincent Joseph were living with him along with a 14 year old domestic servant Ann Tuck. Also at the same premises was John Corbishley, a Roman Catholic Priest and Ellen Bennett housekeeper, who was probably working just for the priest and not the Schmitz family.
John Henry Schmitz remained in business in various addresses at Regent Street. In retirement he moved to Boscombe where he lived with his daughter Annie Markley and her husband John. He died in Boscombe on March 24, 1925 aged 93 years old. His body was returned to Swindon where he was buried in grave plot E7511 with his wife Mary Ann who died in 1905 and his son Bernard Francis who died in 1921
At the time of the 1901 census Vincent and Martha Schmitz were living with their baby daughter Dorothea at the High Street, Wroughton where Vincent worked as a hairdresser. However, ten years later the family had moved to 56 Princes Street where Vincent was a firewood producer and dealer and Martha a shopkeeper. They had been married for 13 years and had just the one daughter. Living with them was Martha’s widowed father Jasper Potter.
Martha died in 1920. Vincent outlived her by more than 20 years and died in the Victoria Hospital in 1943. He is buried in Radnor Street Cemetery but in the Schmitz family plot. Interestingly he is recorded as Joseph Smith.
Radnor Street Cemetery 