Age: 63
Served 27 years, 1898 to May 23, 1925
OFFICER
Joe was born in Ohio during July 1861 to German immigrants Joseph and Eliza (Gatterdam) Vonderheide. His father immigrated in 1850; probably due to the failed 1848 rebellions in Europe. His mother immigrated later in 1854. Eliza and Joseph married on October 21, 1860.
Not much is known about Joseph Jr.’s earlier life in Cincinnati. He was the oldest of 9 children and the family lived at 59 Harrison. Joseph Sr. owned the bar at Pearl Street and Broadway and the younger Joseph worked there beginning in his teens and into the late 1890s.
On May 7, 1896 he married Margaret Julia Crowley, originally of Connecticut. He and Margaret lived at 405 Pearl.
Probably not coincidentally, about the time Joseph Sr. got out of the bar business, Joseph Jr. took a position as a merchant policeman about 1898 in the same area as his father’s bar. His “beat” was essentially the east portion of “The Bottoms”; the most dangerous region in Cincinnati.
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