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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Monday, February 27, 2012

Henry Sauer, Logger


Here's another photo from the Morrison county atlases.  We have no particular connection to 'Henry Sauer' (that I know of), but the photo intrigued us. Larry and I figured it's a logging camp.  See their trusty whetstone in the foreground?  There's an arrow, which was invisible in the book, pointing to Henry himself!  Cool, huh?
 I imagine this was the cook shack/dining hall.  Where else would there be enough long benches to accommodate 22 men?  The left end of the photo has a stove, tho it looks like the kind for heating, not cooking.  Probably the kitchen end of the room was to the right, or was a separate shack altogether.  The photographer probably set up next to the open door on a sunny day--to get the additional light.  Wow, there's an oil lamp hanging behind them, and a sled in the rafters.  Hmm...why?  Researching online, it was evidently called a logging sled (duh ☺), and probably what we can see was a spare.  That runner was one of a pair, used like in this next pic.  Logs would be stacked on the horizontal bed of the sled, and those same two horses were able to pull a huge load because it was winter, and the trails were iced. Weeee!
While I was looking for pics on google, I found this next one, which was too awesome to not show you.  This was Vermont, but it was done the same way all over:  the loggers would stack logs along rivers, and when the ice went out in the spring, those logs would load themselves into the stream.  
I'd guess the wood stacked near this mill was local, not from up-stream.  Incredible, don't you think?


7 comments:

  1. There is a logging camp museum in Cass Lake that I went to the other summer. The cabins look exactly like this, and it had the cookhouse and all. Those guys really lived minimalist, and worked really hard. Dad did it at least once, so I looked for his name in the registries, but didn't find it.
    That could be a research project that would be a nice tangeant back to Hesches. I really like this blog, and I get a warm feeling of home and familiarity at the end of the day. Thank you both so much for your constancy! I heard once that everybody's favorite research project is themselves, and it works for me!

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  2. Me too! (See - she's not the only one who adds comments. She just gets all the attention cuz - well, you know why.)

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  3. You're two of my favorite sibs, ya know? ☺☺
    Uncle Tony said Grandpa Anton worked as a cook in a logging camp for a winter or two...so that would have been between 1900, when he was 17, and 1910, when he got married. Somehow I can't imagine that slow-moving, taciturn man doing something high-pressure, can you?
    Curly was in the Civilian Conservation Corp during the 30s. If he was born in 1913, and the Depression began in 1929...he was probably 18-22. I dunno if he did that for more than one year, but I think they "joined" the CCC for a 2 year stint at a time. They would have done logging and brush clearing in the winter, then park and trail building in the summer. He said they were paid $30 a month, with $25 of it going home to support their families, and $5 for them. It must have been a good time cuz whenever he talked about it, he smiled, remember?
    Thanks for both your comments and for being related. ☺

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    1. I'm wondering if this is the Henry Sauer that's related to me or from a different Sauer family? My grandpa Janson had a 1st cousin named Henry Ferdinand Sauer b. 1900 Buckman, d. 1972 Morrison co. He was the son of August & Elizabeth (Broker) Sauer. August being a brother to Maria Anna/Mary Ann (Sauer) Janson.

      And talking about CCC camps, I have many pics from my grandpa's time there, doing what else . . . logging. :) I can't remember where my mom said he was (Northern MN I think) but yeah like you said, he sent almost all that money home to his parents.

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  4. Does the CCC have records? I say go for it. How do you remember the salary details from so long ago? Also, I know he liked the experience, as it figured largely in the Grosse Schwartze Bear stories that had to do with the forest. I could tell when it was real experience, because he would go off on tangeants for Allan describing how pumps worked or something.

    You have to give PT a little attention; well, you know why.

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  5. Hi, Carrie!
    It's entirely possible this Henry is yours--the B&W pics we've been posting lately come from the "Pictorial Atlas of Morrison County, Minnesota" books. I have three--1970, 1978 and 1988--borrowed from another Buckman connection. People were asked to submit old family pics as well as current ones. Most of the photos in the books are 1 by 2 inches or so...lol...but they seem to enlarge just fine. The problem is that the caption you see on his pic is all the info we have. BUT, Henry's logging camp was definitely NOT a CCC camp. That pic was much earlier--the 1910s to 1920s, I'd say.

    The CCC was a Depression era program. It was set up like a military camp, and run by officers. They wore uniforms and lived in barracks and so were pre-trained when WWII came along.
    Men enrolled because they were desperate for a way to provide for their families back home. They knew they'd be paid $30 a month, and that $25 of it automatically went home to mom. For most of those guys, five bucks spending money per month was just fine--it was way more than they could earn at home, and it was guilt free.
    Oh, and Kath--evidently the CCC kept records, but it's too soon to publish them. And, does "Reamer" sound right for where Dad was?

    Hey, Emmet! You know why I'm saying hey....☺

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  6. Thankyou for posting this. I'm searching for information and photos of my family and I am related to the Sauers. Elizabeth Sauer was my great grandmother though, I'm not sure how I'm related to Henry yet.

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