Waterloo Region Record

Vintage Waterloo street name has a tricky family history

RYCH MILLS SPECIAL TO WATERLOO REGION RECORD rychmills@golden.net

Recently, Flash from the Past looked at some street names from Berlin/Kitchener. In a vague way, that is today’s Waterloo theme … but just one street. As students heading from home in Lincoln Heights to Waterloo Collegiate in the 1960s, we traipsed along a street whose name offered up several possibilities for male teen humour. Was it Know-curr, Know-uh-curr, Nocker, Necker? Of course, the latter is the Waterloo pronunciation of the old Germanic family name Nöcker — cross the ocean, lose an umlaut, gain an e, become Noecker.

Many years later, delving into Waterloo history and discovering the towering contributions of Dr. Charles Trangott Noecker (1862-1939), my assumption was easy. The street was named for him. Wrong!

Born to hotelkeeping parents, young Charles (a.k.a. C.T.) raced through schools in Waterloo and Berlin, then took up medical studies at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1884. Three years later, after opening practice in Waterloo, he married Roxanna Edmunds of Hawkesville and began a career of public service lasting half a century. A lovely house at 54 Albert St. was both home and medical office but C.T. had many other responsibilities: Waterloo’s medical officer of health for 20 years and Dominion Life Assurance medical director for 50 years. He helped to found — and was one of the first group of doctors at — the new 1895 Berlin-Waterloo Hospital where he was a surgical specialist. Setting aside his scalpel now and then, he found time to serve over four decades on the town’s public school board.

He and Roxy had two children: Eloise, who became a well-loved Waterloo schoolteacher for many years, and Claude, who was city engineer from 1924 until his death in 1946.

Dr. Charles Noecker died in June 1939 and most flags around Waterloo were lowered to half-staff as the cortège travelled to Woodland cemetery mausoleum.

Distinguished service to the community, indeed … but Noecker Street is not named in his honour.

Let’s step back a generation. An earlier Charles Trangott Noecker (he never used his given first name, John) arrives in Waterloo from the province of Brandenberg which surrounded Berlin in the heart of Prussia. Following three years as a Corporal in the cavalry, the 28year-old decides military life is not for him. He heads for the New World and a place named, funnily enough, Berlin. Earning enough money at George Davidson’s shop, he returns to Prussia and convinces his mother and seven siblings to come to Canada West. They settle near Glen Allen but Charles returns to Berlin before shifting north to Waterloo to begin working for Eckhardt Kalbfleisch at the Traveller’s Home/ Westside Park Hotel on King North near Young. Eckhardt dies in 1862 and not only does Charles take over the small hotel; he also marries Eckhardt’s widow. Their first child, born later that year, is named Charles Trangott, the C.T. mentioned earlier.

Through the 1860s, Charles Sr. was proprietor for several hotels in the town’s core. Much more than Waterloo’s genial mein host, he also became town assessor and served with the public school board for two decades.

In his spare time, Charles Sr. also sat on the library board. As the family (and his prosperity) grew, he bought 14 acres of land on the edge of the village across King Street from Central school.

A large house that he named “Karlsrest” sat on an enormous lot at the corner of a rough laneway and King North: it became home for an expanding family. C.T. was followed by Herman, Edwin, Alvin and Minnie. Along that laneway, Charles Sr. began selling lots for small homes and businesses. Almost organically, it became known as Noecker’s Street. Charles Sr. retired from the hotel business in the early 1880s to become “Gentleman” in late 19th-century directories. He died in December 1903 from a severe fall and is buried in Mount Hope cemetery.

Although we can trace the street name specifically to Charles Sr., three generations of service to Waterloo by Noeckers permits the entire family to be honoured.

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2021-10-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://waterloorecord.pressreader.com/article/281586653801050

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