The Guarantee Laundry Company

While following the trail of Ace and Ann, I started wondering if we had any old pictures of the neighborhood around South 16th and William Streets--as I mentioned, the area looks a trifle blighted now. Still rather charming, especially late on a sunny afternoon, when I visited, but many of the buildings are boarded up or in decay. I couldn't find any photos of that precise location, but in Omaha Public Library's digitized collections I did find a couple of pictures of the Guarantee Laundry Company in 1912, which took up two buildings at 1468-1470 S. 16th St. Note the seemingly spotless attire of these laundresses--I would expect nothing less, of course. They knew how to get their whites white.

Of course, you can't see much of the neighborhood. But I imagine it was more bustling than today. The laundry was owned by Leonhard Carl Heine (at the far right in the top picture), who owned a number of laundry companies, including the Omaha Laundry Company and the Sanitary Towel Company (no, I don't think it was that kind of sanitary towel, but I could be wrong....more research required). He married Mathilda Hamann in 1912--the same year his kinsman and partner, Charles Heine, married Mathilda's sister, Agatha. Mathilda and Agatha may be the women identified in pen in the top picture as "Till and Aggie" (here I go, off to research the Heine family and see just how Leonhard and Charles were related. No wonder I never get anything done).

Charles and Agatha seem to have run the laundry, as can be seen from an ad in the Jan. 1914 issue of the Western Medical Review (found at Google Books--and I may do a whole post on some of the more interesting advertisements in this publication).

They were actually already married at this point.

Although the Heine laundering empire lasted a good while (the Heines were also involved in many Lutheran charitable projects), the Guarantee Laundry Co. did not stay long at 1468-70 S. 16th St.--it first appeared in the city directory in 1911 at that address and was gone by 1929, to reappear some time later at 301 N. 18th St. (which was also the address of the Sanitary Towel and Supply Co.).

I haven't followed 1468-70 S. 16th St. through all the years, but I did check it out at the tax assessor's site to see how it looks now. There is no 1468 any more, but 1470 still exists--I think it may be the same building. It's certainly old enough, having been built in 1890. Fallen on hard times, I'd say. But it's still a handsome old building. Won't someone take it in hand?

I was somewhat surprised to discover that the current owner is my own neighbor from across the street--or rather her estate, since she passed away four or five years ago. You just never know who you'll bump into when exploring a city.