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White Deer Land Museum

116 S. Cuyler

Pampa, TX 79065

A.A. Tiemann was a partner in Pampa's first haberdashery - 1911

(This article is taken from "Case - Tiemann Family History" by Betty Tiemann Lutz. The photos are copies that Betty donated to the White Deer Land Museum.)

Aurelius Adolph Tiemann was born of a German father, L. Fred, and French mother, Lena Lafaire, in Warrenton, Fayette County, Texas near Houston on April 5,1884. He was one of six children having two brothers and three sisters. Attending Schools near his home until age eighteen, he then migrated to Miami, Texas where his bachelor uncle, Henry Tiemann, lived. He took a job on the Henry Weckesser Ranch seven miles east of there and also drove the stage to Mobeetie for McCauly and Barrett as well as helping in the livery stable. Later he took a cattle train to Missouri and attended The Chillicothe School of Business, and upon completion of the course returned to the Pampa area.

In 1906 Tiemann (as he was most always called, or by some just A.A., or double A.) went to Shamrock, Texas and into partnership with A.B. Harmon, opening Harmon-Tiemann Gent's Furnishing Store. In 1911 they opened a similar store in Pampa in the Barnard Building, later moving the business to the Duncan Building. Tiemann was by this time eating his meals at the Old Schneider Hotel, a boarding house maintained by Mrs. Samuel Catlin Case.

Her daughter, Hallie Antoinette, was born in Garnett, Kansas November 9, 1888 and was almost two when they arrived in Sutton (Pampa). Met by her father already located there with the Santa Fe Railroad as a Section Foreman, they became the second family to settle this territory. She first attended the Catholic convent in Canadian for it was the the only school in the area at that time. She grew up with three brothers, one dying in infancy, and four cousins who came to live their childhood with the Cases after the deaths of both of their parents. She worked with her mother in the boarding house and it was here waiting on tables that Hallie met Tiemann and they were married May 12, 1912, in Amarillo, Texas. Before meeting Tiemann she had been married four years to Luther Bush, a conductor killed in a railroad accident.

In 1914 Tiemann closed the Shamrock store and added a line of dry goods to the Pampa store. In 1915 he left merchandising and went with the Pampa Grain Company and in 1919 with the Alva Roller Mills, which was bought out that same year by the Great West Mill and Elevator Company. This later became a part of General Mills, Inc., but was most often referred to as Tiemann's Elevator, and he not only bought and sold wheat at this elevator on Tyng and Starkweather, but later on wholesaled the flour to groceries in the area. At this time two other elevators were under his management, one at Laketon. During the wheat season and when it ended the elevator was the area weigh station for local and cross country trucks.

In the late thirties and early forties, Tiemann was requested by the goverment to estimate the projected wheat yields in advance of harvest for crops on the surrounding farms. He did this for a number of years as well as managing the Case homesteaded farm lands and raising his own Hereford cattle both before and after Mrs. Case moved from the area in 1913 to a Colorado homestead. After his retirement from General Mills and seven months previous to his death he served as Deputy Tax Collector for the County.

After many years of active devotion, Hallie Tiemann was named "Church Mother of the Year 1948" at the First Christian Church of Pampa. This really was an extension of her and Tiemann's way of family living, one based on the principle of hard and honest labor and untold help to others. He had been born into the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church but in his later years joined the family in baptism at the First Christian Church. Tiemann regularly cared for the homeless who stopped at his elevator or who approached him on the street. His policy was to take them to a local cafe and pay for a meal of their choice. Hungry animals were welcome, too, always fed at the back door and in one particular funny instance, Hallie questioned Tiemann (when she referred to him she always called him Mr. Tiemann) as to why so much milk was disappearing from her daily deliveries. He reluctantly explained with a grin that many cats were working for him at the elevator keeping mice away and he was supplying their milk.

Two daughters were born of this marriage, Madge La Fairre on Labor Day, September 3, 1917, and Betty Jean on Thanksgiving morning, November 30, 1922. Madge was premature and so small her mother's wedding ring would slip over her wrist and a teacup would fit on her head. They made her bed in a shoe box for she weighed only three and one-half pounds. She married John B. Zuerker June 8, 1938. After the birth of their son, Jack Aurelius, John served in World War II in the tank corps. He then went with the Mobil Oil Company, until retirement residing in Pampa on Wynne Street. They had three other children: Jill Ann, Joe Carol and Jan Case. Madge died June 10, 1981.

Betty Jean married Edmund H. Lutz, a Lieutenant in The Army Air Corp. stationed at the Pampa Air Base, then east of town. He is now a retired Lt. Col from the Air Force Reserves and retired from The Cleveland Museum of Art. They live in the Cleveland, Ohio, suburb of Euclid and have four daughters: Karen Elizabeth, Catherine Annette, Deborah Jean and Amy Jo.

The Tiemann family home is at 311 North Wynne Street, built in 1927 by Mrs. Tiemann's brother, Harland L. Case. Mr. Tiemann died in June of 1946 and Mrs. Tiemann in November of 1975 at the age of eighty-nine.  Both are buried in the Case family plot at the Fairview Cemetery.