In researching the history of Eastern Market, I have come across multiple uses of the space outside of its original duty as a place to sell groceries. The basement being used as a rifle range during the WWI era certainly counts, but that is not something that I have any interest in bringing back. Using the upstairs overlooking the main hall for a cafe? Now that I could get behind.
That this space was used in this way is certain. Sadly, the historical record is not very good in saying much more about it. The best description comes from a 1902 report by market master Benjamin Graham. It was reprinted in the Washington Evening Star on August 23, 1902:
[T]he cafe is a large room which overlooks the lower space. This room was originally intended for an office for the market master, but was converted some years ago into a face, which adds $72 to the annual rental of the market. It has never been empty since it was instituted.
That year’s city directory indicates that two men ran “dining rooms” in Eastern Market: Walter Humphreys, who ran his establishment from stall 21, and Charles L. Ruppert, about whom the directory simply writes that he is in Eastern Market. It is therefore most likely Ruppert who is upstairs in the old market master’s office.
Sadly, Ruppert seems to have kept pretty quiet for most of his life, and his name does not appear much in the newspapers of the time. What little can be gleaned from him is to be found in the censuses of the time.
Charles L. Ruppert was born about 1860 somewhere in Germany. He emigrated to this country in 1892. Around the same time, his future wife, Martha (though oddly enough she is listed as ‘Pearl’ in one census) also emigrated. The two, who married in 1894, had ten children, though only five survived infancy. They lived right around the corner from the market, on the south side of the 600 block of C Street SE – a building that was long ago knocked down to make way for the SE post office.
Ruppert and his wife (whose job in the 1920 census is listed as ‘assistant lunch room’) ran not only the cafe in the original market building, but continued to do so after the market was expanded. Once again, they were located upstairs, this time in the new center hall, an area that was much later used as a pottery studio.
Outside his work, Ruppert was active in the German Beneficial Union, and was elected their vice president in 1907. Four years later, he represented this society at the National German-American Alliance, run at the time by Charles John Hexamer (whose picture is above, and who was my great-grandmother’s brother-in-law) when they had their convention at the Willard Hotel in downtown D.C. The Rupperts were still running the cafe in 1923.
Somewhere along the line, the Rupperts moved from the Hill and out to Silver Spring, and it was there on June 19, 1944 that Martha died. She was followed half a year later by Charles. Both had their services held at Chambers Funeral Home and were buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery.