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, January 28, 2013

The Editor of the Pierz Journal

As we peruse the issues of the Pierz Journal that're online so far, we've had the feeling that the editor was a nice guy and definitely a Pierz booster who also saw the villages' shortcomings. When we realized there were three different men in that position between 1909 and 1916, not to mention the one given credit on Minnesota Reflections, F L Preimesberger....who's name never shows up on the paper's masthead...(what's with that?), we started looking closer, as we do ☺.





 From what we can tell, H.C.Bailey started the Pierz Journal in 1909 but left 15 months later, in September 1910.  He'd sold the operation to two well-known citizens of Pierz: Anthony P. Stoll, a cashier at the bank, and Edward H. Kerkhoff, a local doctor and surgeon.
  
What did they know about editing and publishing a newspaper?  Evidently enough, because the paper continued every Thursday without pause.  We noticed that, after Stoll & Kerkhoff took over, Math Hesch's Buckman news became "Buckman Correspondence", and it was most often on the top of page 3.  
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

A year+ later (November 1911), Dr Kerkhoff seems to have bought-out Tony Stoll to become "Publisher and Editor" himself.
  
(OH! Minnesota Reflections just added two and a half more years!!)    

Turns out, Dr Kerkhoff died November 15, 1918, with the obit appearing the next Thursday.  Mrs. Kerkhoff placed the Notice to Subscribers (left) and two months later, the announcement (right) of new ownership.








I assume Minnesota Reflections has listed "F. L. Preimesberger" as the publisher cuz he did it longest (?)  We only have 1909-1919 to go by so far...but YAY, we have 30 additional months to explore now ☺.
Here's a bonus:  The Ed Kerkhoff  bio from 
A History of  Morrison and Todd Counties, Minnesota. 
Never let it be said that we're not thorough.




One more thing--Larry found this in one of the early PJ issues.  I've saved it for months cuz we thought it was cute ☺

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