This branch of the Austrian Hesch family is descended from Johann Hesch and his wife Marya (Schlinz) Hesch, who came to America from Oberschlagles, Bohemia with three sons: Paul, Mathias, and Anton. +++Johann & Marya settled in Buffalo County, Wisconsin but moved to Pierz, Mn in about 1885. .+++Mathias settled in Waumandee, Wisconsin and moved to Pierz in 1911. +++Anton never married but farmed with his dad in Agram Township, where he died in 1911.+++And Paul, my great grandfather, settled five miles away, in Buckman, Minnesota. He died there in 1900.

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Sunday, October 18, 2009

Dimey and Queenie

             (Just a picture of a team--it's nobody we know....)

In the 1930's, if you owned your own team of work-horses, you were set. If you had your own farm, you had the necessary horse-power, and if you didn't, you could make money by hiring-out with the team.
Before WWII, my dad owned a team he was proud of. When he enlisted in the army, tho, he had to find a "temporary" home for them, because he knew he'd want them back once he got home.

A farmer west of Little Rock, Minnesota--Paulie Gangl?--agreed to take care of them till dad got back. I suppose it was unspoken that Paulie could use them for work, and if dad didn't come home, then the team was his.

I imagine that once he was discharged, he went home to see his family, and then directly to see Dimey and Queenie, the horses.
On Sundays when we were little girls, the family would pile in the car and 'go for a ride' pretty often. I remember going to see Dimey and Queenie regularly (probably once a year). By then, dad was working at the VA, in St Cloud, and he knew he'd never need the team again.

The last time I remember going to see them, Queenie had had a colt! We stood at the fence watching them run in the pasture, and dad had tears in his eyes.

(Hmm. Would foaling have been possible? The youngest Queenie could have been then (1955-56) was 11 or 12, if dad bought them in 1943 or '44).
What brought them to mind, you ask? I was reading THIS ARTICLE and recognized where dad probably got the name "Dimey"...lol

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