Comes the dawn, again

Finding newspaper articles about the Hesch clan in the last couple of years, we sometimes would find a name that didn't "fit" as far as I knew.  We'd just make a mental note of it and go on, confident that the the connection would be made eventually.  This time took longer than usual....

The Q:  Who was Mary Conley?

(There'll be a quiz, so pay attention)...

I know we found the name Conley or Connley in a Buckman obit ot two, and in a mention of Grandpa's brother Frank visiting them in the cities.

Ahh, thanks to clever sleuthing and Anna's obit on Find a Grave.

Cecilia Dehler and Mary Connelly were sisters, 

daughters of Billy Meyer and Anna Otremba, 

so they were first cousins of the other four, above.

All their mothers were Otremba sisters--

Mary(Hesch), Martha (Hortsch) and Anna (Meyer).

TaaDaa!

A couple more Peter Sands

 This one was born in Meire's Grove , Minnesota in 1880, but Larry found him in Washington state, specifically his draft card from the "old man's" draft:

"On April 27, 1942, the Selective Service conducted the fourth of  six draft registrations. Also called the “Old Man’s Registration” or “Old Man’s Draft,” this registration collected information on the industrial capacity and skills of men born between April 27, 1877, and February 16, 1897 (ages 45 to 64).  This draft registration was not intended to be used for military service but to provide a complete inventory of  manpower resources in the United States that could be used for national service during World War II."    (SOURCE).

So...how does this Peter Sand relate to out great grandfather Mike Sand?  And, what was he doing in Charleston, Washington in 1942?
(Elizabeth Sand was my dad's mother, daughter of Mike Sand and Louisa Rausch).

We know that Mike's father was Peter Sand, born in Schoenfels, Luxembourg in June, 1823, and that Mike had a brother named Peter, who was born in Sartell, Mn in 1864 (wrong town, wrong county, wrong year).

So, ok, who was ◄this Peter?  Well, if we check the 1925 Grove township plat map, there are Sands who lived in the SE corner--Henry, Herman and Nicholas.  (Click the map below--it's nice and large).

(Interesting sidelight: When you biggify the map, you'll no doubt notice that there were a whole lotta MEYERS living around MEIRE'S GROVE--so why the different spelling?  "Meire" must be a German spelling because Wm. Mitchells' "History of Stearns County" from 1915 says "The village takes its name from one of the earliest Catholic settlers in the township of Grove, Henry Meyer".
Go figger.

 OK...but we still don't know who this Peter's father was.

Ahh, checking the 1885 census, there's a 5 year old named Peter in the Nicholas Sand family, in Grove township, Stearns Co, Minnesota.
Ok, chances are good this is our Peter. He would have been a first cousin to Mike Sand.
 I'm curious to know what family stories there are about--why Washington?  And did grandma's brother Charlie know of Peter...and his son that Larry just found,  Fr Peter Sand?

Below are two clippings from the Washington State University website about the place where Peter Sand worked--the Pullman Airport.

COOL stuff, huh?

Why it pays to clean the garage

It's Labor Day, so I thought I'd spend a bit of it cleaning the garage.  Yeah, I found this photo out there:

WHY was it in the garage rather than an album?  Well, the original photo is an 8 X 10, and there are 63 men pictured, so that makes some pretty tiny faces.  Still, dad made a frame for it, and I remember the thing hanging in his garage.  I think it was in moms garage at the condo later, and I had little connection to it by the time I got it after mom died in 1996. There was no good place for it in the house, so it spent another 14 years in MY garage.

 Gawd, how patient can one photo be?  It's 68 years later!

When I first scanned and enlarged it, I thought the crouching guy on the left was dad--he has the ears, and he looks like my son Josh at the same age (dad was 29 in 1942).  But then, as I was counting the men, I realized nope, dad was in the second row, 5th from the right.
The legend at the bottom reads:

2ND PLATOON CO. A  2ND BN, CAMP WHEELER, GA AUG. 42

LT. CLARKSON, SGT ABERCROMBIE-CPL WENGER-CPL MCEWEN

Here's some info about Camp Wheeler and about the 9th Infantry, dad's eventual division.  I believe Camp Wheeler was where dad learned how to fix tanks.
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Later: Larry found this film about Camp Wheeler on youtube!


You'll find other training films on youtube too, if you're interested.