HESCH HISTORY: Our Honolulu Otremba

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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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Our Honolulu Otremba

In my files are two newspaper clippings regarding Franz Otremba, the woodcarver, who lived in Hawaii at the turn of the last century. We don't know much about him, or even how closely he was related, but here they are, for posterity.

It's interesting, I think, that a Polish immigrant who was a professional woodcarver tried managing a coffee plantation. Don't you wonder how that came about?

Evidently, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition was held in Seattle in 1909, and Franz loaned a carved chair but didn't get it back. (Wow, check the link!)

This article was from February, 1910. Hope he won.