Every employer of men and every observant person in general has noticed
that there are two totally different kinds of workers: those who perform,
more or less grudgingly, the duties assigned as their share, thinking most
longingly of the time when freedom shall be theirs again; and that much
rarer class, those whose work is a pleasure to them and who find their chief
interest in figuring out some mechanical or financial problem, and in their
busy zeal find the hours of labor all too quickly slipping away. To the
latter class belongs George Just, who for long years has been a faithful and
trusted employe of the Matthiessen & Hegeler Zinc Company, of LaSalle.
A son of Adolph and Julia (Michaelis) Just, our subject was born in Ostrowo,
province of Posen, Germany, December 7, 1843. The father, who was a surveyor
in the employ of the government, died in his native land when seventy-eight
years of age, and the mother departed this life at the ripe age of
eighty-one years. They had six children, three sons and three daughters, and
George was next to the youngest of the family.
In his boyhood George Just attended the public schools and gymnasium for six
years, gaining a fair education. When sixteen and a half years of age he
went to Breslau, where, as a clerk in a grocery, he served a hard
apprenticeship of four years. He received no wages during this
period, and his only hours of freedom were from two to six o'clock of every
fourth Sunday afternoon! He remained another year, receiving one hundred and
fifty dollars and his board that year, and was allowed from two to ten
o'clock in the afternoon and evening of alternate Sundays. Then he went to
Berlin, where he learned the drug business, and spent a portion of his time
in the mixing and compounding of paints. Here he was given two hundred
dollars a year and his board, and had his evenings after seven o'clock at
night; but he was not content and finally persuaded his father to allow him
to come to America.
On the 17th of June, 1868, George Just embarked for New York city, where he
spent three days and then continued his westward journey. Landing in
Chicago, he searched for work for some ten days in vain, and was then
advised to go to Mineral Point, Wisconsin. There he was unable to obtain
employment, and, bethinking himself of an acquaintance who was at Peru,
Illinois, he wrote to him and was urged to come to this county. His father
had given him two hundred dollars, but it had melted away for necessary
expenses until he had but seventeen dollars left at the time that he applied
to the firm of Matthiessen & Hegeler for a position as bookkeeper. He had
reached Peru and for a short time had worked at house and fence painting,
but he wisely decided that it would be better for him to seek for steady
employment in the service of a well established, prosperous business
concern. At first he was given a place as a shipping clerk, and at the end
of eighteen months he was promoted to the more responsible post of night
foreman in the rolling-mill. On the 5th of May, 1871, he was made general
foreman of the rolling-mill department, and from that time until the present
he has faithfully, punctually and creditably performed every duty devolving
upon him, and no more trusted employe is on the pay-roll of the company. The
habits of steadiness, sobriety and uprightness in word and deed which were
formed by him during his long and severe apprenticeship in Germany have been
the habits of his entire life. During the thirty-one years of his connection
with the zinc-works company he has taken not more than three weeks
altogether for his own pleasure and recreation, and by frugality and wise
use of his earnings has acquired a competence.
In 1873 Mr. Just married Mrs. Bertha Fleischer, a widow with one child,
Otto. Mrs. Just came to LaSalle in 1866. Her parents were Peter and Bertha
(Rose) Remmong. She was born in Stelle, Rhine, Germany, May 30, 1847, was
left motherless at ten years of age, and when fourteen came to America with
a family the head of which, Mr. Pagenstecher, came to LaSalle to build the
rolling mills for the Matthiessen & Hegeler Zinc Company. He was here five
years, in completing the work. Mrs. Just, came with the family as a maid in
their service. In 1868 she was first married, by which union she had a son,
now residing in Chicago, named Otto Fleischer. Mr. and Mrs. Just's daughter
Harriet is the wife of Harry Eickoff, of Peru; and their other children are
Julia and George. Their pleasant home is the abode of peace, content and
happiness.
Extracted 17 Jul 2017 by Norma Hass from Biographical and Genealogical Record of LaSalle County, Illinois, published in 1900, volume 2, pages 464-466.
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