Camden People - Robert Gess

ROBERT GESS was born in Pennsylvania in 1887. He more than likely was the son of Robert and Dora Gess, The elder Gess appears in the 1890-1891 Camden City Directory as a cabinetmaker living at 1923 Fillmore Street in Camden.

Robert Gess worked for many years at the Howland Croft Sons & Co. textile mill at Broadway & Jefferson Street in Camden NJ, one block from the Fillmore Street address. He became a foreman at the plant about 1918. At the time of the 1920 Census, Robert Gess was living with wife Annie and daughters, Dorothy, Anna, and Mary at 333 Liberty Street. His widowed mother and brothers George and Frederick lived in the next block, at 427 Liberty Street. Six houses down, at 413-415 Liberty Street, lived Reyquew Hyghcock, who would gain notoriety in the 1920s as Camden's "Voodoo Doctor".

At some point between 1920 and 1927 Robert Gess remarried. He appears in the 1947 Camden City Directory as living with his wife Rhoda at 920 North 19th Street in the Cramer Hill section of Camden.

On June 28, 1950 Robert Gess suffered a fatal heart attack while at work. He was survived by his wife Rhoda, who remained at the North 19th Street address into the 1970s. She passed away in November of 1975.