The Bergdoll Women

Emma Barth Bergdoll was the matriarch of the Bergdoll family and primary owner of the great Bergdoll Brewery in Philadelphia following the death of her husband, Louis C. Bergdoll in 1896. She continued with her brother, Charles Karl Barth as brewmaster, manager, and then president of the brewery during its heyday in the first decades of the 20th Century.

Emma doted on her youngest son, Grover, while she also provided generously for her other children, buying them mansions, and land, and investing heavily in their businesses and sporting ventures. When she sided with her draft-dodging sons, Grover and Erwin, she packed a pistol in her bosom and fought off the law trying to capture her sons for years. She was hounded by federal agents and the press, becoming a spectacle and a celebrity in Philadelphia for her unwavering effort to keep her sons out of the war with Germany.

Berta Franck Bergdoll married Grover in 1926 with an elopement to Russia while he was hiding as a fugitive from justice in Germany. An attractive woman from Weinsberg, Berta lost her only brother in the Great War battles in Belgium. Berta and Grover started a family in Germany and increased their brood even while Grover was hiding in their great stone mansion in the Wynnefield neighborhood of Philadelphia for years at a time.

Traveling often between America and Germany to be with Grover, wherever he was hiding, Berta finally convinced her husband to surrender when it appeared that another war with Germany was imminent in 1939. While Grover was sent to prison, Berta lived out the years of World War II on a large farm in Chester County, Pennsylvania, an effort to avoid the glare of the press and legal/financial wrangling in the Bergdoll family. She stayed with Grover nearly to the end, until his mental condition forced them to go their separate ways.

Emma and Berta were the most influential women in Grover Bergdoll’s life, protecting him, transferring his hidden gold to cash, and forming and making social, legal, and financial decisions for him during the many years he was America’s number one draft dodger. In the book, I portray the dramatic details of Emma’s many scrapes with law enforcement and Berta’s long, loving relationship with Grover, despite his habitual cruelty.