The ship's captain took pity on Louis, who was just a young lad, and put him in the galley as an assistant to the cook.
Louis through this experience would have a life on the high seas as a cook, then becoming a chef.
The standard of Louis' food was apparently so good, the junior ship's officers would steal it before the crew and passengers could be served. Pies were a specialty, despite there being no refrigeration and limited ingredients.
There was a main meal served at midday, and he made the pies the afternoon before in case of bad weather and they were stored in the pantry for the next day. A story is told of the junior officers raiding the pantry, and Louis, tired of this, devised a plan.
Rats were abundant on the ship, and setting traps, he skinned the rodents and used their cooked meat for pie fillings. The rat-filling pies were put into the pantry and his regular pies were well-hidden in the larder.
All the rat pies had disappeared by morning. When they found out, the junior officers were going to throw Louis overboard and deliver other such punishments, but he was instead sent to the ship's captain – who thought the episode hilarious and took the side of Louis.
When a ship he was serving on docked in Greenock, Scotland, he met Annie McFadyen and would marry her in February 1869.
Their first son James was born in 1872, with Louis continuing to work on ships – one of which would take him to Wellington, New Zealand, in 1877.
"This is a nice sort of a place," Louis thought to himself, and jumped ship and walked from Wellington to Napier (a good place to hide in those days). Perched on top of Scinde Island (Mataruahou), he surveyed Hawke's Bay, that was until he saw his former ship at Port Ahuriri, and hid in scrub until it left.
Louis would find employment as a cook at Te Mata Station for the Chambers family and sent a letter back to Annie to bring herself and James to Napier.
Annie and her son James are recorded as arriving in New Zealand aboard the Euterpe in 1881. Two sons, Henry (1882) and Albert (1884), were born at Te Mata, and likely a daughter, Annie (1886), was as well.
Notice was given on June 5, 1886 that L M Schaeffer had opened a boarding house in St Aubyn St. The location was strategically close to the Hastings railway station. It is thought the location of the former boarding house would be now facing Sir James Wattie Place, situated in the Kmart Plaza carpark area.
In 1887 Louis extended the boarding house, and no doubt his food was behind his success. Family of Louis state that he had a standing order with a butchery for 40Ib (18kg) of chops, bacon, sausages for breakfast meat.
In 1893, a review was done on restaurants in the Daily Telegraph, and Hastings had now matured from "eating houses and cook shops". The first restaurant he visited coming from Napier, was Schaeffer's.
The critic mentions the popularity of the restaurant within the boarding house, which was open to the public. It was A&P show week in October, and "the guests were so numerous that they had to be attended to in relays". Louis was referred to as a "noted chef de cuisine".
As for the hotel itself, future Hastings mayor Algernon Rainbow, as a boy in the early 1890s, described Shaeffer's as "a big two-storeyed boarding house … which took in a few deadbeats".
Louis Schaeffer's death occurred in July 1897. The Hastings Standard announced it as "a tedious illness".
A family account was that Louis, some 23 stone (146kg), had the condition of dropsy – swelling caused by fluid retention.
Dr Tosswell needed to drain fluid but advised Louis' heart could not cope with anaesthetic. The solution was a pannikin of neat whiskey, and Louis was put on the kitchen table in the boarding house, an incision made, and a milk bucket of fluid was drained.
Louis, however, died two days later, and his wife Annie took over the boarding house.
When Annie passed away in 1908, aged 60, she also suffered from dropsy, being bedridden a month before her death. Her funeral was well-attended, indicating her popularity in Hastings.
The boarding house passed to their son Henry, who received a licence to operate it in July 1908.
Frederick John Spear, who had occasion to stay at Schaeffer's when it was operated by Henry, referred to it in his memoirs as a "two star house".
"I have seen, and indeed stayed in, far rougher places, but at any rate Schaeffer's was unpretentious and homely. The beds were comfortable, and the table was good, with ample solid plain meals without frills or furbelows (trimmings)."
Henry would put the property up for lease in 1909, which didn't attract anyone to take it over – nor did an attempted 1911 sale of the property.
Henry tried again in 1912, with the highest bidder to get the lease. The reason for selling was he wanted to concentrate on farming.
Charles Sudfeldt leased the boarding house and by 1914 ended up bankrupt, claiming "the boarding house was dirty, and I could not get enough boarders to make it pay".
It could not be found what the fate of Schaeffer's boarding house was after this date, but street address records in the late 1920s indicate it was either pulled down, or not operating.
Louis Schaeffer ended up in New Zealand ultimately because his father wanted him to avoid military conscription in Germany.
His son Albert (Snowy) would serve during World War I against Germany and pass away in 1920 in the Trentham Military hospital as a result of his war wounds.
A grandson of Louis and Annie's first born, James, would also serve in World War I. He was named for his grandfather – Louis Martin Schaeffer and nicknamed "Bunny". Twenty-one-year-old Bunny was killed at the Battle of Messines in September 1916.
Both men are on the Hastings Cenotaph.
There are many descendants of the Schaeffer family still in Hawke's Bay.
- Michael Fowler (mfhistory@gmail.com) is a contract researcher and commercial business writer of Hawke's Bay history. Follow him on facebook.com/michaelfowlerhistory
