John and Veronica Wintermeyer

I'm a volunteer photographer for Find a Grave. (Genealogists appreciate having a pic of great grandpa's grave, even if it's in a state they've never visited.  That's where we volunteers come in ☺). It's actually fun to wander around in a graveyard--they're serene, well kept places that are sorta bleached by sorrow.  They mostly remind me of the cemetery scene in "Our Town"; a place where the dead learn to forget life.  


So, yesterday, I found myself in St Cloud with a couple hours before my next client.  I have the list of requests in the truck (I know, don't say it) so I headed to Assumption Catholic Cemetery and then Calvary Public Cemetery.


Strangely, someone's been requesting priests' graves lately, but the amount here in Catholic Stearns county became overwhelming, so I quit accepting em.  Still, I figured there'd be a Clergy section even if some are buried in regular sections all over the cemetery.  Yup, and it even included the bishops. 


Finding a grave in either cemetery involves calling the historical society to get the plot location, which is STILL iffy.  The person I was looking for at Calvary was supposed to be in section 5, Row 4, grave 2.  She'd died in 1901.
  
I looked first where the map said she should be, then ALL up and down every row in section 5.  When I gave up, I was on the north edge of section 5, and the truck was on the south.  Ok, one more quick sweep as I walked...and WOW...look who I found:

Veronica R and John B Wintermeyer.  She was Grandma Hesch's sister Vernie (Sand).

Both are in this picture taken in 1947.

 Incredible, huh?

Hesch Memorials

It's Memorial Day weekend, 2009.

I'm thinking of going up to the cemetery in Sauk Rapids where Mom and Dad are buried, just to say hi and clean the in-ground stone a little. What a tradition, huh? But it's the last permanent place we can go to "visit" ancestors.

Here's a short virtual walk thru the "Hesch Cemetery"...

Johann and Maria Hesch...born in Bohemia...lived there till they were in their 50s...then sailed to a new world and two homes, in Waumandee, Wisconsin and finally in Pierz, Minnesota...4,500 miles from their births. (You can see where they lived in Agram in the post from yesterday).

Their sons:

Paul Hesch, and Mary Otremba...from Bohemia and Poland....they met and married here, in Buckman. Their son Anton is my Grandpa.

Mathias Hesch and Agnes Trachofsky...both from Oberschlagles, Bohemia...they emmigrated to Waumandee, Wisconsin, married there and had a family. They eventually moved to Pierz with their youngest 5 kids, and are buried in Pierz with two of their daughters.

Anton Hesch, Johann and Marias youngest son, who never married but stayed with his parents all their lives. When he died in Pierz in 1911, his brother Mathias moved here and took over the farm in Agram township, passing it on to his own son John (Huntz) Hesch, who'd been born 250 miles away, in Waumandee.

Paul's son:

Our grandparents, Anton Hesch and Elizabeth Sand, buried in Royalton, Minnesota. Royalton is about 14 miles from where they were born, in Buckman, Minnesota.

Anton's son, my dad:

What we owe these stoic people is incalculable.

Graveyard monuments

When John Hesch died in 1897, his son Paul was 50 years old. I assume Paul had a say in the style of headstone they bought for the grave, since it's so much like the one used on his own grave 3 years later, and Antons' in 1911. (And also, for Pauls' son Paul, when he died in 1907).

Years later, when Mathias' daughters died (1917 and 1930) the "family" style was changed to a larger stone that would accomodate more people:

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Johann and Maria Hesch, in Pierz

Evidently, once you were in America, your parentage wasn't as important as it was in Bohemia, or maybe there was less of a sense of connection.

By the time John died in 1897, it might have been more PC to say he was from Austria, or possibly more people had an idea of where Austria was...in any case, Oberschlagles was/is less than 10 miles from the boarder with Austria.

By these records too, we see how names were sometimes spelled according to the way the priest heard it--or, he knew the tombstone said "HASH" and he was trying to connect Mary with John in an oblique way. Who knows?

Below are two opposite sides of the same monument: It says HASH on the bottom of the east face, JOHN HASH on the south face, and MARY HASH on the north face, but the dates are right. It has to be them.

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