Q--WHAT is this thing?

It's made of copper, stands about 30" high...the various boxes fit in the tray at the top, and there's a shelf inside at the level of the bottom of the windows.  It was intended to be portable as it has a handle on top and wheels underneath.  Any ideas?

No, I don't know either--that's why I'm asking.

Cathedral High School Girls Drum & Bugle Corps, St Cloud

They say a Drum Corps girl is hard to beat,

Shes's just a hundred per from head to feet,

She's got that style, that smile, that winning way..

No matter where you go you'll recognize her and you'll say,

"Now there's a girl I'd like to know

She's got that good ol' Drum Corps pep and go, and

Just to look at her is quite a treat, It's hard to beat

a Drum Corps Girl"!

I was trying to find pictures online of the CHS Drum Corps that Marion and I belonged to in the 60s.  There's almost no mention of them, and that really makes me sad. 

We won Aquatennial Flags year after year, never realizing we were almost  the ONLY "Ladies Drum and Bugle Corps" in the five state area . (The VFW in St Cloud sponsored a corps too, but those poor girls just weren't as COOL as us)..  Still, we were good, and deserved to win if for nothing else than we marched with straight ranks and excellent diagonals in 98º heat, wearing wool long sleeved uniforms with panty hose, majorette boots, hair nets under dorky hats, and white gloves.

Oh, man.  We need more info about the Corps online--I believe the Drum Corps was organized in the 1920s at Cathedral and disbanded in the 1970s? If you find this and have more facts or memories, let me know, or leave a comment!

(Yes, this qualifies as history!)

Addendum:

Trivia--see the 'stuff' around the boots of the girl in front?  We used plastic bread bags to keep the white parts white as long as possible.  It worked.

Larry FOUND this photo (below) online, altho he didn't specify from where.  He said the Drum Corps participated in a Brainerd Butter Days Parade in 1951 or 52.  Ok, I'll take his word for it.

(See the bass drum there, in the middle?  I'm sure it's the same drum I carried right before we invested in new sparkly blue drums in...1966?  Gawd, we were GOOD!)

Fascinating OLD news

I've been perusing the old newspapers online at CHRONICLING AMERICA from the Library of Congress, in particular, the St Paul (Daily) Globe, published  from 1884 to 1905 (it was a daily for only part of that time).  There was also a Minneapolis paper at the time, and certainly Der Nordstern would have been subscribed to by the Hesch family, but the Globe was American, and provided a view of the broader non-German world.  I suspect some issues trickled to Buckman. 

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What's so mesmerizing to me tho, is the background--what was humorous to them, what was newsworthy (even as a filler), and what other facts we can glean from those articles.  For instance:

1905-- For years, loggers went to the northwoods, cut logs, and sent them floating downstream to the saw mills.  This photo shows the advent of logs-by-rail, and also, the use of photographs in newspapers rather than drawings.

1890, May--We've debated HOW Paul Hesch arrived in Minnesota since we can't find him on ships lists from American ports.  (They're probably not all online, right, and the chances of his ship being omitted are...?)  Still, here's one possibility, through Canada.

1898--By now, the Globe did a 'humor' page--most of which doesn't seem clever or funny now, but it must have appealed then...lol  It seems to be the precursor to our funnies.

1898--I hope their artists were paid well, but I doubt it.  The header on a December 4 page, one of 32 that day.

1886, April--The cyclone devastation in Sauk Rapids.  It's a pretty close copy of a photograph we found elsewhere, except there was a rotund man and a boy in the foreground there.

Rice's Station, 14 April, 1886

From the St Paul GLOBE newspaper, 16 April 1886, this account of a wedding party in the path of the cyclone at Rice's Station (now Rice, Mn).

As I wandered around the public cemetery in Rice today, I was looking for names from the above list.  Two were tucked into the sod, almost invisible, and the third is a monument with the actual date on it.

                       John Souer, died 1886

Martin Souer, died 1886

"Mary A., daughter of John D and G?

Trabent

Died

April 14, 1886

Aged

10 Years, 11 Months and 2 Days"

..............

 John D Trabent's father was injured that day, and his mother was killed, but they're not buried at Rice, tho John is. He died in 1890, as inscribed on the front of the stone.

Peter Sand 1823-1894

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Monday, I stopped at the Benton County History Museum in Sauk Rapids to ask about a conundrum we've been researching: Where are Peter and Angelique (Stoltz) Sand buried? (These are Michael Sand's parents, and my grandmother Elizabeth's grandparents. They emmigrated from Schoenfels, Luxemburgh in  1857).

We knew they first settled in Iowa, then moved to Le Sauk township, Stearns Co, Minnesota three years later.
Le Sauk township is the west side of Sartell roughly at the blue square on the map, above. Larry found the census from 1870, below, and subsequent censuses show they were neighbors of the Sartell family. (Peter's daughter Kate later married Linton Sartell).
So, I went to the Sartell Public Cemetery and the Catholic Cemetery next to it. The middle of the public cemetery is the Sartell family plot, but I couldn't find Linton or Kate, tho they must be there. I thought, too, that her parents would be there, or nearby. They're not.
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Now, THIS is SO cool: Larry was looking at the Globe Newspaper online at the Chronicling America website, Library of Congress.
In April of 1886, a really horrible cyclone swept thru St Cloud, Sauk Rapids, Rice and Buckman. If you click the link, you'll see the reports and descriptions of the devastation. But look--the middle column on the front page on April 16th has a list of people who lost property in St Cloud. Ninth from the bottom is "Peter Sand, house....$300".
Incredible! In 1886, Peter was 63--did they retire to St Cloud? We know Angelique died in 1886, but not necessarily from the storm.
Then, wow, in the St Cloud city directory of 1894-95, Larry found this:
Ok, so, 8 years after the storm, Peter Sand lived near the pro-cathedral, Holy Angels, and what would later be Cathedral High School. I'll need to go see if there's a very old house on that corner one day soon!
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Back to what I found at the Benton County Museum....on a microfilm of the Sauk Rapids Free Press newspaper published 4 January 1895: Peter died at the home of a daughter in St Cloud. Maybe 414 8th Ave N was the home of his daughter?
Then, from a family tree Larry discovered online, we found that Angelique (aka Angeline) was buried at Calvary Cemetery in St Cloud. A quick call to the Stearns History Museum gave me the info I needed to go find the graves: Block 6, lot 82, space 1.

Another family mystery solved, and a truly interesting bit of our history is no longer forgotten. Yay!

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

Andrew Suess 1867-1962

Thank goodness for the Works Progress Administration. In 1937, out-of-work writers were given jobs recording biographies of local pioneers and early settlers. What an invaluable legacy they created!

Here, John Schmolke interviewed Andrew Suess:


Who was Andrew Suess in HH? He was a widower who married Ket (Mueller) Hesch, the widow of John Hesch, in 1927. Later, his son Joseph married Ket's daughter Agnes, and they had two children--Joan and James.
And, Joan was the mother of our SUE!

Cake Toppers from 1906

These have nothing to do with Hesch History, they're just cool.

I have a 96 year old client whose parents were married in 1906. She said these figures were originally about 6" tall and made of frosting. She was allowed to handle them as a child because her mother knew she'd be careful. Just think: cake toppers that've survived for 103 years!

Such incredible detail. Looking at them makes me think about where they've been over the last 103 years--originally tucked in tissue paper in a cardboard or metal box...touched and marveled over by at least one little girl.....almost being tossed out when mother died....being rescued, and stored in a curio cabinet in a shaving mug, next to the straight-edge her dad used and the brush her husband used...and how easily they could have been lost.

"Buffalo Frank" Otremba 1844-1925

This article appeared in the 25th January 1908 Little Falls Daily Transcript newspaper:
Frank Otremba was born in Groditz, Tillowitz, Schleisen, Prussia on the 11th of October, 1844.

He was the son of Johann Georg Otremba who died when Frank was 3.

How does he connect to our Mary Otremba, the wife of Paul
Hesch? Well, Frank's brother Anton was Mary's father, so they (Mary
Hesch and Buffalo Frank) were first cousins.

I love the fact that he tried to cross buffalo with cattle. Here's a SHORY HISTORYof others who tried it, too. Evidently he didn't know this part:

It was found early on that crossing a male buffalo with a domestic cow
would produce few offspring but that crossing a domestic bull with a buffalo cow
apparently solved the problem. The female offspring proved fertile but rarely so
for the males. Although the cattalo performed well, the mating problems meant
that the breeder had to maintain a herd of wild and difficult-to-handle buffalo
cows.

Family Portrait-Mike F. Hesch

Over the last year or so, I've added to a file in "My Pictures" of individual faces in the HESCH family--mostly copied from larger photos. I want to share them here, but without a lot of explaination, so I thought I'd do individual families.

Hmm, it's tougher than I expected.

This is Paul's son Anton's son Mike's family, so far...
Added later: I really have GOBS of pictures, but can't put any other families together this way. Kids were never consistently IN pictures, so I have Judy at 5, Shirley at 17, Butch at 12, Gary at 7, Tommy at 15, Patty at 45...etc. If YOU can put a photo tree together for your family, let me know and I'll post it, ok? Thanks!

All those old photos!

Since it snowed here last night and today's turned blustery again, I decided to sit down and actually identify the old pictures I have here. There are only two shoeboxes (one B&W pics, the other, color)...but oh MY, I'm so easily distractable! I've had to stop and scan some...sort them into "Dad" and "Mom" sets...put the connected ones together (like those I know were taken on their honeymoon)...and I'm doing it in pencil, because I realize I can be...wrong.

THEN, Sue sent a picture commemorating something that happened 50 years ago this Monday: the wedding of her uncle Jim Suess to Mary Jane Levandowski. Sue's mom, Joan, is third from the left, and her dad is third from the right. Cool, huh?

THANKS, Sue....
and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to Jim and Mary Jane!

Wedding flowers

Having been a florist for 38 years, I naturally notice flowers in old photos--I can't help it.
With all the Hesch wedding pics posted here on HH, I thought it'd be fun to do a little quiz: can you tell what era each of the boutonnieres below are from? (10 years is an era for this). So, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s....? Bonus points if you name the chest they're pinned on...

Of course, there were some lovely bridal bouquets, but some of our brides wore corsages, and anyway, the flowers below don't correspond to the boutonnieres. Whose bouquets were these, from what 10 year period?
I'm pretty sure they've ALL been posted here in a larger size. The winner will recieve 3 times what dad paid us to help trim the poplars.

Old pictures of St Cloud, Minnesota

Buckman and Pierz are about 40 miles from here, and I lived in Buckman for only 2 years out of my life. The town that's most familiar to me is St. Cloud.

We were talking about St C one day, and, as usual, Larry was googling as we (I) talked...lol He found these images of St Cloud at the California Historical Society website...who knew?

The library I knew as a kid--St Cloud's Carnagie Library.

Barden Park, where the St Cloud Municipal Band played on summer evenings. I remember sitting in the car as a kid, in our PJs, and honking the horn after every song--wow, that was FUN!

The St Cloud Hospital waiting room, and yes, it was exactly that hushed and austere. I remember 'S'ter police' and itchy upholstery.

These two buildings faced each other across the street (Holy Angels school, above, and Holy Angels Church, below). Cathedral High School's South Building blocked most of this view when we went to CHS. The church, below, is now a very nice performing arts center, but with a shorter steeple.  The original church was gutted by fire in 1933.  It was rebuilt, but not to it's former elegance.

AND, here are a few St Cloud pics from a favorite site called Minnesota Reflections .

(Notice, below, that Immaculate Conception Church (the German Catholic church)  originally faced north).

THIS news report concerns the town where I live now--St Joseph, Mn. It was published in the July 30th, 1906 edition of the Duluth Tribune.

I love the idea that so many newspapers are available and searchable online!

Hesch History In Running For "Top 40 Genealogy Blog" VOTE!

Hi folks, Larry here.
Marlys would probably be too shy to come out and say this, it would sound just too self-promoting for her, but this very blog you are reading now has been nominated for inclusion in Family Tree Magazine's Top 40 Blogs list.
Marlys puts a lot of work and thought into this project so I'd like to personally ask the folks who read this blog and have perhaps learned more about your family or enjoyed an old picture or hard to find document from a musty archive in Eastern Europe to express your appreciation by following the link below, looking in category 10 and voting for the Hesch History blog.
My understanding too is that you can vote as often as you like so go back to that page when you think about it and, as they say "Vote early and vote often"
http://www.familytreemagazine.com/article/40BestVoting

Thanks for reading this post and thanks in advance for your vote!
Larry

A mystery and a half

Two new old pictures, courtesy of Sue...and they include questions. We have other pictures that positively identify this woman as Mary "Girlie" (Hesch) Block, daughter of my Grandpa's brother John Hesch, and Katherine "Ket" Mueller.
It stands to reason that the man with her is George Block, her husband, but we have no 'for-sure' pics of him, so that's ONE question...
The second picture is another question: Is this Girlie with her four oldest kids? According to my family tree, they'd be Richard, Florence and Doreen in front, and William in Girlie's arms...and judging by the age of the baby, this'd be fall of 1943.
Sue wants to know if it really is Girlie and her kids....and not some neighbor or relative.
LOL...I think it is!
Oh, and the half-question? The goose picture says "Special" on the bottom. Was that the gooses' name, and did they have him for Thanksgiving?