Center Valley, Minnesota--1920's and yesterday!

I finally MET Sue yesterday--she's as nice as a Hesch gets ☺. She drove up from the cities and we went to see Buckman/Pierz/cemeteries/farms/houses/buildings/Aunt Jeanette. All that and MORE!

Keep an eye on this gas pump in the following pictures. Someone had captioned it "The lonely gas pump", so it must have been installed first, before the buildings.

If you recall, Sue's descended from Grandpa Anton's brother John.
This is part of his obituary from 1926..."the Centre Valley store"...

Sue remembered going to see what was left of it when she was a kid, so we went to find it again, yesterday. It was SO MUCH FUN!! We felt like archaeologists, because her mom had pics which Aunt Jeanette positively identified as the Centre (Center) Valley store.

See the false front on top? It's in the next picture, too....

See where the gas pump is in this pic? It's still shiny and new, and they're building the store.

The picture doesn't really show how much of a valley it is, but the road dips substantially there. The store used to be just beyond the triangle sign ahead to Sue's right...

I expected a bit of grown-over rubble along the road, but no! We found the foundations of at least four buildings there, in someones' pasture...look:

(I know the composite is bad, but this is sorta what it looks like. 'Course there's more, but I couldn't get it all in).

Oh, man...THIS had to be the front of the creamery's foundation! Looked like there were footings behind it, too, but not solid concrete like this part.

That four strand wire fence might have been electric, so we didn't try going closer.

This had to be the stores' foundation. Aunt Jeanette grew up within a few miles of Center Valley, so she remembered it well. Coming down the hill from the south, you crossed the Soo Line tracks, and in a bit there was the creamery, an ice house, and the store, before the creek at the bottom. Without walking back there, we couldn't tell what the other buildings might have been, but a shed or garage makes sense, too.

( See the gas pump on the left? The store had to be just beyond it).

That sturdy foundation would have been the loading dock--you'd drive alongside it and muscle milk cans inside thru that lower opening in the middle, and get empties back thru it too.
This little diagram is speculation, but probably close to what was there:
So, what happened? How come it's no longer there, even as empty relics of buildings? Our amazing MASTER REASEARCHER LARRY found this report from the Winona newspaper in May, 1955.

Was the store operating then? Center Valley was still a long way (7 miles) from Pierz in '55, but without a creamery out there, you'd have to take the milk into town now. Maybe the store was damaged by the fire...or maybe it wasn't open any longer anyway...we don't know. But with Larry on the case, we STILL might find out more!

YAY SUE and YAY LARRY!!

How we're related

Oh, boy...try to connect folks in Buckman/Pierz with Heschs WITHOUT a diagram.

Paul had 11 childen, and they adopted two.
Rose, John, Frank, Theresa, Anton, Joe, Paul, Theo, Math, Mary plus Lucy and Paul.

Mathias had 10 children.
Valentine, Elizabeth, Katherine, Mary, Agnes, Rose, Ann, Lillian, Clara and John.
Of those, Rose and Clara died young.

In Paul's family, those who had kids were Rose, John, Anton, Joe, Theo, Math, Lucy(?) and Paul.
In Maths family, Val, Katie, Elizabeth, and John had kids. We're not sure of the others.

SO...if you're descended from:
Rose (Louie) Gottwalt
John Hesch (Ket Mueller)
Anton Hesch (Elizabeth Sand)
Theodore Hesch (Rose Dehler)
Math Hesch (Mary Tetiva)
Lucy (Max) Klein
Paul Doyle (Ilia)
Valentine Hesch (Lena Dittrich)
Katherine (Frank) Walek
Elizabeth (Valentine) Sendelbach
John (Huntz) Hesch (Cecelia Otremba)

...then YOU and yours should be at the REUNION!

A few uncles & aunts...

Wow! They were so young here. Wearing boutonnieres probably meant it was someone's wedding--maybe the guy in the middle, huh?
Uncle Henry Hesch, Uncle Eddie Janish, and dad, Mike Hesch. Probably late 40s?

-----

In this photo, Uncle Henry's wearing the same suit and tie, so it's probably the same day.

Uncle Henry with Uncle Tony. Oh, and there's the wedding car!
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Same cars and barn in the background...same day! Does anyone know who 'Bernice' is?
(Uncle Eddie said Bernice was a friend of Aunt Rosie's, from the cities ☺  Another mystery solved!)
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Awww! This had to be earlier: Looks like a photo booth picture, huh? If you number these four left to right, they are:

Aunt Irene Janish, Uncle Tony Hesch, Aunt Rosie Hesch and Uncle Eddie Janish.

#1 and #2 married each other, and so did # 3 and #4. Our family had two brothers and a sister (Heschs) who married two sisters and a brother (Janishs).

Took me years to figure that out.

Thanks, Judy!

Pete Blake

From "The History of the Upper Mississippi Valley" published in 1881, available online at Google Books


I know I've heard of Pete Blake in Buckman. Was his wife Christina MUELLER? Maybe I'm thinking of this couples' son... And, now, I'm trying to remember who mentioned Pete Blake to me lately....
It's a tough job, but somebody'd gotta do it...lol

More Mystery Pictures

A smiling couple who lived in Montana...it was Mother's Day...and she didn't realize the hem of her dress was coming down. HE looks so familiar! The photo was in Sues' moms collection, and Louise doesn't know who they are either.
Do you?

This picture came from Irene. We know the kids' names and the year:
Virginia Pewaush and Ramona Benjamin. It was 1943.
The picture was with Sr. Laura photos. These two girls would be in their 70s now. I'd like to think that someone'll google those names and find the photo here.

Louis Paul Tetiva 1901-1988

In 1972-73, we bought Zenner's Store in Buckman from Killian and Adella Zenner. Their calling-card was their wonderful smoked sausage. They taught us how to make it, of course, so once a week was Sausage Day.
There was a small back room with a sink, butcher block, counter, stove, hand crank sausage stuffer, and an electric meat grinder.

Louie Tetiva was "Halka's" brother...Math Hesch's wife Mary...and by the time I knew him, he was a widower in his 70s living east of Buckman. He wasn't a large man, and he didn't talk much in the best of times. He could stop in at the store, pick out what he wanted, pay for it and leave without saying one word. But, when he needed the sausage grinder, he had to ask...lol

It was late fall--furnaces were turned on already by the time Louie realized he wouldn't have a 'good day' to grind his horseradish at home. He told me that he usually opened both doors in his house, on a coolish windy day, and set up the grinder in the windward doorway. THAT fall, no day like that happened, and he found himself with.....

...great HORSERADISH roots that needed grinding. He was distressed. Could he...ya know...umm....possibly use our grinder?

(Go to your fridge, right now, and put some horseradish on your tongue. Notice how it makes your mouth and throat burn...and how it feels in your sinuses?? Are your eyes watering yet?)

Horseradish is EVIL stuff, and I had NO idea what I was saying yes to. Louie sounded way too grateful.

The next day, he parked next to the store and came in with a box of roots. Hmm. So that was horseradish? Looked innocent enough, like fat white carrots....but he had a trunk full, and a backseat full, too. Mysteriously, he had a farmer hankerchief tied around his neck, like a bandit would wear. Wha...?

LOL...he/we could take the fumes only about 10 minutes, even with the hankerchief tied around his face. I'd hear the door close, the grinder start up....and shortly, Louie'd stagger out with tears pouring down his face, gasping for air. Then, he'd go to the bar for an hour....wash, rinse, repeat...it took him two full days to grind that stuff, and to put me off horseradish for the rest of my life.
Just typing about it now, almost 40 years later, my lip and nose tingle and my eyes are watering.
But what a GREAT story, huh?

John Docken

Remember the farm Math Hesch and Mary Tetiva rented as a young couple? It was the Docken place, just west of the Hesch homeplace. Civil war hero John had died a year before, at the age of 77.
They'd moved to Little Falls, so I expect that's where they're buried.

And yes, the book even had a picture of them:

Pretty cool.

Diagram of the OLYMPIC

I've noticed that people are googling for this illustration, so here it is, in a clickable form.
The website Larry found it on seems to have removed it, so this is a public service...lol

(Hesch background: This is the boat Math and Theo took, round trip, to Europe in 1914. See "Diary" on the "Labels" sidebar.

The Olympic was the Titanic's sister ship, meaning it was built to the same specs, but improved some. Math and Theo returned home in June, and WWI started in August of 1914. A few months later, the Olympic was re-fitted as a troop transport ship).

BTW, I'm referring to this pair of brothers as 'Math and Theo' to distinguish them from their twin nephews, Math and Ted.

You're welcome!

"Relative" Strangers

Looking for Johann and Maria Hesch in Minnesota in 1885, we found them in 'Little Falls' (Agram, really), but Maria's husband was listed as "Charles", and their children were 40, 30 and 10 years old...whew. How could that be?

Now, you have to realize that I tend to believe the printed word. I assume fact-checking (WHY??), and being proven wrong...well, I don't prefer it.

Still, I'd never heard of a Charles Hesch, and the age range of their kids was amazing if I took it at face value...lol

I asked a genealogist friend, Jean Marthaler, what she thought. Jean suggested that Paul and Rosalia were visiting that day, and perhaps no one would talk to the enumerator except 10 year old Rosalia, who in any case was probably the most proficient in English among 'em.....?

Jean suggested I look to see if Paul (40) and Rosalia (10) might have been listed elsewhere in their OWN family. They were...

Well, then I wondered why this enumerator didn't have a feel for German--he had such confident handwriting, and most often, enumerators around there had German names (each page is signed at the top). HA! J. D. LaChance signed these pages. NOT a good German boy.

At the time we were puzzling over this, I'd never heard of J.D. before, but since then we've found his name in Little Falls society columns of the day, and in history books from...well, 1881, for instance:

LOL...can you imagine that little episode?

A buggy pulls into the yard, and a man in a suit gets out with a large book under his arm. It's early June, probably a hot, sunny day, and the man looks frazzled.

"Another German family--why me??", he thinks.

And John says, winking, " Rose, Sie gehen sprechen mit ihm, wir sind beschäftigt. Sagen Sie ihm, dass wir Englisch nicht sprechen....Vermutung wenn haben Sie dazu! "

("Rose, you go talk to him, we are busy. Tell him we don't speak English.... Guess if you have to!")

Damn, this is FUN!!

Frank Nelson

A minor but interesting thread running thru the blog so far has been all the portraits that were taken at Nelsons over the years. The earliest logo here was from about 1890, and the latest was in the 1940s.


From Larry and the MNHS website: look--even THEY misspelled Pierz!

An apology to the ancestors

All my life, I thought that the early Hesch family in Minnesota was too busy surviving to bother with education beyond what was necessary. Well, I was WRONG.

There's a website called VIVARIUM , and if you click it, you'll see a page of HESCH references from school newspapers at St Johns and St Benedicts, starting in in September 1894....with Frank Hesch. (They're mostly lists of commendations for good deportment during the last month, but still...) Turns out, both Frank and Paul (Grandpa Anton's brothers) went to high school at St Johns.

And then, in 1907, there's this:

Wow. Paul was class of '03, and Frank was class of '97?

BTW, don't miss checking out the other collections on VIVARIUM. Click "HOME", upper left.

(Wanna guess who found this page?)

Additions

Just so you know, I added to the sepia school picture from 1897...I think there were two Sand sisters there.
It was posted May 15. Scroll way down, or go to the LABELS sidebar, and click "Buckman".

So, who's this Larry guy?

I've probably gone over-board on extolling the virtues of the internet here, but it IS amazing. Almost every post here has been found or enhanced or transmitted over the 'net, and 99% was due to Larry's research skills.
Some things you should know about him:

--He's been collecting his own family history since he was a kid in Hawaii, and he has notes in his little-kid handwriting to prove it...lol
--He grew up Catholic, too, so he understands.
--He and his wife Jan live in Georgia.
--We met when I answered a question he posted on his blog five years ago.
--His own family is Pennsylvania Dutch, Portugese and Swiss, but he's learned to decipher old German and Suetterlin and Polish and some Czech right along with me.
--He's funny and irreverent, and he's VERY VERY patient...
--He hates to fly, so he won't be at the reunion. (Besides, if he came, no one would talk to me...lol)
--Larry has an incredible ability to think around a search query...if I mention Guinea fowl, before I know it, he has a list of anyone in Buckman who owned a flock in 1902!
--We talk on Instant Messenger almost daily.
--He knows a LOT about Heschs, Otrembas, Sands, Rauschs, Dehlers, Gottwalts, Jansons, Nabers, Muellers, Brandls, Suesses....OMG! And he knows who connects with Buckman.
--WE owe him, big time!

So, now you have a face to remember when I say,

"THANK YOU, LARRY!!!"

Spring in Minnesota

Most of these are from my yard...can you smell 'em? They make our winter worth it, huh?

John Schmolke

One of the interesting features of the biographies in "A History of Morrison and Todd Counties, Minnesota" is the startling list of skills our ancestors evidently had....lol This gentleman, John Schmolke, began as a shoemaker, like his dad. But just look at all the other things he did!
Just think of all the training we'd require these days for all those professions. He went into business with Joe Hortsch, built creameries in five towns, built a hotel, and dealt in farm lands. But look--he had time to marry, and have kids, too:
Wow...is that really a black chauffeur listed with the Schmolkes?

Remembering the women

It's a fact of our culture that we trace ancestry thru our fathers. It works. Still, our mothers can get "lost" if we don't know who their fathers were, or if we can't find her family of origin.

We have a good record of Mary Otremba--we have pictures, and even her obit:

But of Mary's mother-in-law (Paul, Mathias and Anton's mom) Maria Schlinz, we have little information. She's traceable thru ships lists and census forms once they were in the United States, but only as the wife of John Hesch.

In the church books from Horni Pena Parish, in Bohemia, we have this from Paul's birth:

On the birth records of Mathias, Anton and Bartolomeus, her mother was recorded only as 'Elizabeth, born in Ratibotschitz', too. It's possible Elizabeth "didn't have" a father.

Hmm. I haven't gone looking in the church books for awhile! Maybe by now, we can find out more about her family.

Stay tuned...lol

(Edit: The books we think we need are in the parish of Rosec, but they're still working on the "N" parishes......L M N O P Q R...only 4 letters to go!)

Hesch Memorials

It's Memorial Day weekend, 2009.

I'm thinking of going up to the cemetery in Sauk Rapids where Mom and Dad are buried, just to say hi and clean the in-ground stone a little. What a tradition, huh? But it's the last permanent place we can go to "visit" ancestors.

Here's a short virtual walk thru the "Hesch Cemetery"...

Johann and Maria Hesch...born in Bohemia...lived there till they were in their 50s...then sailed to a new world and two homes, in Waumandee, Wisconsin and finally in Pierz, Minnesota...4,500 miles from their births. (You can see where they lived in Agram in the post from yesterday).

Their sons:

Paul Hesch, and Mary Otremba...from Bohemia and Poland....they met and married here, in Buckman. Their son Anton is my Grandpa.

Mathias Hesch and Agnes Trachofsky...both from Oberschlagles, Bohemia...they emmigrated to Waumandee, Wisconsin, married there and had a family. They eventually moved to Pierz with their youngest 5 kids, and are buried in Pierz with two of their daughters.

Anton Hesch, Johann and Marias youngest son, who never married but stayed with his parents all their lives. When he died in Pierz in 1911, his brother Mathias moved here and took over the farm in Agram township, passing it on to his own son John (Huntz) Hesch, who'd been born 250 miles away, in Waumandee.

Paul's son:

Our grandparents, Anton Hesch and Elizabeth Sand, buried in Royalton, Minnesota. Royalton is about 14 miles from where they were born, in Buckman, Minnesota.

Anton's son, my dad:

What we owe these stoic people is incalculable.

Agram Township, 1892

Now, THIS is cool. It's 1892, five years before our great-great grandfather Johann Hesch died (me, dad, Anton, Paul, Johann). This map is from the Morrison County Plat book, and the village of Pierz (Rich Prairie) is just off the top right corner.

Click it to biggify. Recognize any names?

There were 57 pages in the book, and on page 56, this "List of Patrons" included the name of their farms, and what they specialized in.

Ok, so John didn't name his farm, but he's listed as "Farmer and Stock Breeder". Close enough.


From the same page, here're the Buckman patrons. I wonder: did Frank Mischke pay extra for all that?

Again, note that these are not ALL the farmers, just the "patrons". Ka-ching!