The Waumandee Connection

Waumandee (WA-mun-dee), Wisconsin is across the river and directly north of Winona, Minnesota. It's about 24 miles by road, and that's why we found so much Hesch information in the Winona newspapers back then. It's interesting, too, to note where the black lines run on the map--they're the railroads.

To recap: The ancestor who came here from Bohemia with his wife (Maria Schlinz) and sons (Paul, Mathias, and Anton) was Johann Hesch. He was born in 1818 and immigrated in 1869. We believe sons Paul and Mathias arrived earlier, but we haven't found them on a ships list...giving some credibility to a family story saying Paul, at least, "Came here in an apple barrel".

Paul settled in Buckman, Morrison Co, Minnesota, while Mathias settled in Waumandee, Buffalo Co, Wisconsin, about 230 miles away. Evidently, emmigrant families often tried different places in the US, depending on how many brothers there were...lol

In our case, when Johann, Maria and Anton arrived, they travelled as far as Waumandee, and settled there. Mathias married Agnes Trachofsky in 1879, and the first of their 10 children (Valentine) was born in 1880. The last child, Clara, was born in 1899, also in Waumandee.

Val married Lena Dittrich in 1907, and they lived in Waumandee all their lives. They had 5 children: Rudolph, Edna, Leonard, Lucille, and Elizabeth.

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Rudolph Hesch married Lucille B Dworschak in June, 1947. They had five kids, too, four of whom live in that area today.

[And ALL of whom we'd LOVE to see at the Reunion!]

Some family names have a greater "online presence" than others: partly depending on when and where they lived, or on what they did for a living. Some (priests, nuns and those who never married), sorta fall off the charts, since they have no descendants.

It's true for this family as well. Pictures of proud Ordination Days, but lost names, and girls who are listed on censuses for 1910 and 1920, but then, never again.

Still, some become "Sr Laura", and the Waumandee Heschs married into lots of them: Rudy's wife, Lucille came from a family of nuns and priests, a Bishop, and an Abbot of St Johns Abbey in Collegeville, Baldwin Dworschak.

We never knew he was related.

The newspaper description of his Uncle Leo's ordination, tho, solves the "Ordination Angels" question once and for all:

Newspaper articles from THIS SITE.