OTREMBA

Mary Otremba married Paul Hesch in October of 1873, in Buckman, Minnesota. She was born in Gushwitz, Silesia, Prussia on 6 December 1856. Gushwitz is SW of Opole, Poland today, but was in Silesia then. It was just NE of Bohemia.



(Map from this GREAT MAP SITE --check it out!)

Marys' village was similar to Pauls'--a cluster of homes and farm buildings with fields stretching away behind each of 'em. This map is from 1799, so it probably wouldn't have changed much by the 1850s. Besides, I'm only trying to illustrate where they came from relative to each other.

The Otrembas emmigrated in 1868, and the Heschs in 1870. Mary and siblings came here with their parents Anton and Catherine (Schalwig) Otremba. At the time, in Buckman, Paul was a single guy whose parents weren't nearby to vouch for him. Still, taking a chance on marrying Paul evidently worked out ok, hm?

From what we can tell, there were Heschs who emmigrated to Canada, and another branch who settled out east and in New Mexico and St. Louis, Mo...but in Buckman, there was only one Hesch. However, there were LOTS of Otrembas settling in Pierz, and in those years, families were large. I have 93 Otrembas on my family tree.

An interesting and sad side-note: In searching for the name online, Larry found an artist named Richard Otremba who had a family history IN Europe. One of the pictures there was a concentration camp file photo of his uncle, who was in the Resistance in Poland. When I put that picture next to Marys, the family resemblance was startling. He would have been born 50 years after her, but they looked like siblings.