Blocki is a perfumery, but it is also a family, and the perfumery has always been a family business. Our fragrance creations and packaging design include fragments of family history. To end the year, I am starting at the beginning and sharing the story of the Blocki family’s life before immigrating to the United States.
It is told in the voice of our founding perfumer, John Blocki, and helps us get into historic context when analyzing vintage perfume finds and creating new fragrances. These stories help transport us into John’s nose. Since we do not have a formula book for his original fragrances, we rely on combining his childhood scent memories with what we know about perfumes from the relevant era.
When we discovered that John created Bouquet Kosciuszko in 1903, we knew the story of the legendary freedom fighter of that name, and we were able to include the scents of the forests surrounding the feudal estate of John’s childhood based on stories from his mother. Emma Blocki’s memoir written in 1872 resembles a pastoral painting of feudal life in Pomerania.
Reading her memoir made me eager to learn more about this fascinating family. As the in-law and self-appointed Blocki family historian, it is time that I write down and pass on what I have discovered. Tyler wants to make perfume like his great-great-grandfather, but I want to tell this story. This first installment provides the background narrative for our perfumery.
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Our beloved piano dangled over the massive clipper ship. Its precarious position perfectly tuned to my parents’ emotions. Buzzing around them were six sons, two daughters, a tutor, a governess, and several attendants. Loading the piano was a major undertaking but necessary since there were none available where we were going. The year was 1850 and my family was leaving the turbulence in Prussia for the United States.
The piano being hoisted onto the ship had been made by Wiszniewski, royal court instrument makers in Danzig (Gdansk). It was a gift from my father, and mother recalls him presenting it with this touching message: “Today, on our first wedding anniversary, let’s play a serenade for ourselves on the piano and flute. Meanwhile, we probably will be surprised by a solo of a child’s voice.” She noted that soon they heard the sleeping infant, my oldest brother, who was awakened from his sleep by the music.
The ancestral lands of the Baltic people were home to generations of our family long before the arrival of the Teutonic Knights. In the sixteenth century, Walenty Blocki joined the cavalry and fought to repel Tartar invaders. For this effort, in 1574, we were given the right to use the House of Leliwa coat of arms. At this time, nobility could be earned through service without birth right. This is how I came to be born in a feudal castle in Hanswalde near Königsberg (Kaliningrad).
Daily life on the estate hummed to the rhythm of nature and the demands of managing a large agricultural property. Farmland, dotted with fields of wheat, barley, and rye, stretched to the horizon. We woke to the clattering of horse hooves on cobblestone paths as workers loaded carts to feed the sheep and large animals. The fresh and slightly sweet smell of hay in the barns is one of my fondest memories.
As children, we assisted with feeding the hens and collecting eggs but most of our morning was spent in lessons with the tutor. In the afternoons, the meadows and forests were our playground. The scents of the countryside filled our senses: freshly plowed earth, sweet blooming flowers, and the herbal scent of the surrounding forests. In the fall, we dried flax and prepared sugar beet syrup and marmalade.
Occasionally, we were allowed to wander on the Von der Osten’s estate. Our family had ancient roots, but the Von der Osten’s were aristocratic. My grandfather was the director of the synod for their estates, and my mother grew up on the property. She described an allay of poplar ending in a stand of chestnut trees that led to the property on the east side. There was a terrace on the west side that led to a formal garden and an orangery. Rivers dotted with small islands wound their way through the property.
Mrs. Von der Osten was a widow with only one young son left and was widely respected for managing the vast estates by herself. My mother noted that though she was still a young woman, her full, curly hair had turned grey from grief. As a young girl my mother would keep her company, so she took it upon herself to educate my mother by enrolling her in a school set up by Queen Louise – a kindness she never forgot.
The manor castle was magnificent and hosted my parents’ wedding guests and nuptial eve celebration. My parents met for the first time on the estate when my father was there cultivating the farmland. Once he became independent, in May of 1830, he proposed. The entire family traveled to the Dominican Fair in Danzig (Gdansk) to purchase supplies for the trousseau. St. Dominic’s Fair dates to 1260 and is one of the largest cultural and trade open-air fairs in Europe.
My mother’s memoir describes the extraordinary poetry of their wedding. The guests gathered at the castle to surprise my parents. When they arrived, a trumpet signaled, and someone yelled “a courier.” The castle steward entered dressed as Mercury’s messenger to greet the couple. He wore an elaborate costume of wings and a wooden leg. My uncle dressed in heraldic uniform to announce the guests. Each guest dressed in a costume representing the needs of a household: butcher, baker, gardener, tutor, cook, doctor, hunter, trader, merchant, and the like.
There were many presentations but the most meaningful to my mother was “Faith, Love, and Hope.” Mrs. Von der Osten wrote a poem for each of these traits and relatives recited the poems dressed in matching costume. A group of masked performers played music during the gathering. They removed their masks at the end of the night to reveal that they were guests who had declined the invitation so that they could stage a surprise.
The next morning began with a band of miners playing a serenade. When the mines in the south closed, the miners travelled north to play music in the villages. The wedding followed in grandfather’s parish with an orchestra for music. My mother’s wedding gown was light blue moiré to appear like a blue sky dotted with silvery clouds. A calash drawn by the most beautiful black horses anyone had seen carried them to Old Stettin (Szczecin) for their honeymoon.
Why leave this seemingly idyllic pastoral life? The tradeoff for our privileges was military service, which meant fighting in frequent territorial disputes and defending against raids. The few members of father’s family that were still alive were too far away to attend the wedding. His only guest was a military leader, Major Eduard von Bonin, the owner of the estates he leased. My parents' desire to save my siblings and I from this ancestral fate and own the land they worked set in motion the plan for our transatlantic journey.