Christoph Lietz and the Syrup Factory.

Christoph Lietz (my brother and your great or great-great grandfather) started working in the Wine store of Diewel and Nieman when he was 16 - that must have been around 1860. He started as an apprentice in the accounting department. The business was in Suederstreet 1. There he learned the business from the bottom, and worked without a salary. Until he was declared “free” according to the old laws and then he became an associate. First with a very small salary (about 30 Rubel a month); but this was increased quickly because of his ability. During this time, several changes took place in the business, the associate Nieman left, and Diewel was left alone with help of his father, who, however, showed only little interest in the business.

The wine trade was not doing very well, so they were trying to think of some new ideas. Maybe it was the idea of Christoph, who had won the confidence of his boss, the somewhat sickly John Diewel. The idea was, to brew syrup according to a foreign recipe, since the domestic syrup was rather bad. A brew master named Quaack was there, whether he came directly from a foreign country, or just acted like he did, I don’t know. He was supposed to have been a big talker and had a secret recipe to make the best syrup in the world. At the beginning they tried it in a small way, and, surprise, the syrup was really good. Now they started thinking of building a factory; and with the money of the old Diewel they bought the land at Saulenstrasse 1, where there were already a corner house and several other places suited for a factory. Only the high factory chimney was missing. When they started building it, they first cemented in the document of the beginning of the factory with the names of all the witnesses. Then the chimney grew higher and higher to a quite respectable height. It was in the beginning of the '70s when the factory was done and the business of Diewel and Company became more active. The brew master Quaack, however, did not brew for very long. I think he was home-sick. He returned to his Germany; he probably got a good sum for his secret ingredient, and the syrup did just as well without him.

Whether the young Diewel witnessed the building of the factory, I do not know. He had become sickly because of his lifestyle, was not doing too well for a while, and died when he was barely 40. Christoph Lietz was now the only director of the factory. The old Diewel did not understand the business. He also wanted to retire in his old age, and thus he was looking for a buyer for the factory, so that he would get the money back, that he had put into it. This was a big worry for my brother Christoph. He had married Julie Tiedemann in the year 1874 (they had been engaged for 6 years); now he had his own household and the first children had arrived and now there was the possibility of great changes, including the worry of no longer having an income. He kept thinking about the situation, how he possibly could get the money to buy the factory himself.

But credit was hard to come by in those days. Finally he thought of the supplier of potato starch from Stenden, the old Mr. Grundmann, and asked him, whether he wanted to become a co-owner and help with his money. He agreed, and later on his son William joined the company. He had been studying in Dorpat but didn’t like it and preferred becoming a businessman. Around this time the old Diewel died, and the widow and her daughters left the money in the company since it was paying good dividends. However, they insisted that the company no longer carried the name Diewel, since they were rather snobbish and thought that making syrup was not fine enough. This again was a worry for Christoph. Everyone had become used to the name of the old company; it seemed that it had brought luck. But the company continued under the name of Lietz & Grundmann, and people got used to the new name. Business flourished because the syrup was good and the spirit and leadership of the company was solid.