Die alten böhmischen Heschs

 Photos you'll recognize if you've been paying attention, this is Agnes Trachofsky Hesch and her husband Mathias Hesch.  Their story is HERE, and in the masthead, above.  I was scrolling thru my myriad photos and realized that I never posted the beautiful sepia one below.
Agnes died in 1929, and Mathias in 1931, so the photo would have been from the 20s when they were in their 70s. Looks like Josh gets his "tallish forehead" from the Hesch side!

The SS Ohio

A family story we heard from Roger about Heschs in Waumandee, Wisconsin was that Mathias Hesch wasn't allowed to marry Agnes Trachowsky in Bohemia, and that they had to come here to marry.  I assumed it had to do with their nationalities--she was Czech, he was Austrian--people who traditionally didn't get along over there. But now, looking closely at these two  parts of the same ships list Larry found, there's a sweetly different reason evident:

On June 4th, 1869, the SS Ohio arrived in Baltimore with the Trachowsky family from Bohemia.  The parents were Thomas, 45, and Elizabeth, 41.  There were five children: Agnes, 16, Franz, 9, Maria, 4, Theresia, 3 months, and Elisa, 19.  The disparity in ages intrigued me for some time--was Elizabeth Thomas' second wife?  And, was Elisa maybe Theresia's mom?  Pure speculation, except that Elisa here is certainly the one found in California in 1892.

 This page was discovery enough for me, but Larry thought like a young man in love and searched every page of that ships list to find...YES...here he is ☺:

Sure, the name's wrong (Anton, not Mathias).  Maybe Mathias tried to be incognito on board.  Thomas would have been pretty protective of his daughters on a crowded ship, and perhaps in his mind the biggest threat was left behind in Europe.  Cuz look--Agnes was only 16, and "Anton"--well, he was lying about his age--he was actually 20.  
In any event, maybe Thomas found out about Aggies' suitor being onboard--because once they arrived in Wisconsin, Mathias worked for a farmer in the next town, according to the 1870 census, and the lovebirds were STILL not married until 1879.  
         Half the fun of genealogy is speculating about stuff like this, right?

Added in March, 2013: 
WOW!  We just heard from Mathias' great grandson, John, who says that their family too had a stow-away legend--about MATHIAS. Since we've found that family stories are usually true in some way, it'd make sense if brothers Paul and Mathias left together.  Maybe Anton, listed above, was really a cousin and really 18...and maybe Mathias was hidden until the ship was in international waters, but my prob with both legends is the obvious:  the authorities could add.  They knew an 18 year old would be 20 soon, and they were well aware of who comprised every family because of the seigneurial (landowner) record keeping system.  In other words, if the authorities WANTED to keep young men in Bohemia, they would have.
Here's what John found online re: the conscription laws in Prussia when Paul and Mathias left--
"Under the von Roon Reforms passed in 1867, the conscript's service started on 1 January of the year in which the individual completed his 20th year, and was to last for seven years from the date of enlistment. Of this seven years, only three were served with the colors (unless the conscript was a cavalryman and then it was four years) with the remainder being spent with the regular army reserve. After the seven years was completed, the soldier passed to the Landwehr lists where his name remained for a further five years for a total of I2 years." 

Oh, but the government didn't conscript every 20 year old. This was a lottery system where you became eligible January 1st of your 20th year and every year after that--so you waited with a sword over your head, not marrying, not having children....THAT would have been an awful twelve year bellyache.   
THANKS to cousin JOHN ☺

WOW--another Wisconsin Hesch Connections!!

This weekend I heard from a woman named Anna Rose Hesch whose father was born in Buffalo County, Wisconsin, but (unlike our first contact Roger Weaver), she IS online..hooray!
She said her dad found HH and realized it was HIS family--isn't that cool?

Here's how she fits:

Anna's dad is John
John's dad was Rudolph
Rudy's dad was Valentine
Val's dad was Mathias

...so Mathias Hesch and Agnes Trachofsky are her great-great grandparents.  I figure that makes Anna Rose and me first cousins, about 5 times removed...lol

ANYWAY, she sent pictures from the parallel Hesch universe in Waumandee, Wisconsin:

This is the house on the farm in Hesch Valley where Rudy was born, so Valentine and Lena's house.  This place would have been the scene of the gatherings that were reported in the Winona newspaper back then.

The wedding of Rudy Hesch and Lucille Dworschak took place in Waumandee, at St Boniface on June 11th, 1947.  I don't know why, but I love wedding pictures of family members.  I suppose cuz it's a photo that THEY thought looked like them, ya know?  This was as good as it got...lol  Oh, and cuz the florist in me still looks at wedding bouquets...and Lucille's was gorgeous.

Now this photo (c 1958) surprised me--Rudy and his whole family had blue eyes?  Wow.  It must have been Agnes and Lena and Lucille's influence, because Paul's descendants are more likely to be brown eyed, and those with light eyes seem to be gray or green.  Still, Rudy had the widows peak hairline and Hesch hands, while John, on the right, had my dad's ears...lol. What a beautiful family!

Oh, here's a sweet story Anna shared about Rudy and his sister Lucille:
"Grandpa didn't like heights - and for some reason he bet Lucille that she couldn't climb to the top of the rope in the barn. He bet her a nickel. Well - she climbed it... and he said he would give her a nickel to get down right away. She giggled as she told the story. Her beautiful Hesch eyes lit up. I asked her if Grandpa ever paid up - she said no, but she was sure he had a nickel waiting for her in heaven".


LOL...I think he owes her a dime PLUS years of interest!

THANK YOU ANNA ROSE!!!

What did they do for fun?

Larry found this ad in the entertainment section of one of the newspapers in Winona, Mn. He wondered if Hesch-Weaver was a band, playing for a wedding dance? And, had I ever heard of Hannon's Pavilion?
But woohoo--This was Edna Hesch** and Theo Weaver's wedding dance in 1937! With a little research online, we discovered a whole LOT:
--Hannon's Pavalion was a very popular place between Arcadia and Waumandee, Wisconsin, in the 1920s and '30s. There are some 280 ads in the local Winona papers during those years! Many were for the big 4th of July celebrations, or for when the Carnival set up at the pavilion, but lots of those ads were announcing regular or wedding dances.

--Some of the wedding dances charged admission, but that helped the newlyweds because they got part of the proceeds.

--A FREE wedding dance was multi-purpose. Some people brought gifts, there were more people AT the dance, it was a good and fairly safe place to meet girls, and having a wedding dance at all prevented a Shiveree--remember those?

--The way it worked at a dance hall like Hannon's was the hall hired the band and promoted it, people came and paid admission (which paid the band), and the concession stand did big business if people had a really good time...lol

--We found an Arcadia Area History Tour brochure online, and one of the stops was at the Hannon's Pavilion site. A few pages from the brochure:

(Written by 88 year old Alice Hannon about her fond memories of the place).
This particular ad included a description of where the place was. Sounds like a lotta fun to me!

** Edna was the daughter of Mathias' son Valentine Hesch. Val stayed in Waumandee when his parents moved to Pierz, Mn in 1911. Edna's husband died in the early 40s leaving her with two sons, Roger and Francis Weaver.

For what it's worth....

When Roger Weaver sent me pictures of Mathias Hesch's family in Waumandee, Wisconsin, he included this one. It's not only too dark to distinguish faces, but we have no idea WHO any of them are...lol
But, thanks to the miracle of online photo editing, we can see them now. Still no idea WHO!

Since Roger sent the picture, tho, one of em almost has to be Mathias, and maybe his sons Val and John, too, right? Click the pic to biggify--I'm voting #7 is Mathias, only cuz he has a beard.

Your guess is as good as mine. Ooo, and look: #8 seems to be wearing

Laptop Posting

 I've been reading a book about Waumandee, Wisconsin by LaVerne Rippley, an expat from there. It's "an affectionate portrait" of the beginnings of Waumandee to the present. And, he seems to corroborate most of our assumptions about the immigrants from Bohemia--that they followed each other to the same places in the new world, that they spoke a German dialect peppered with Czech, that they mostly left because of economic hardships and to avoid military service for a ruler they didn't believe in.
Mathias and Agnes show up in the transcripts he did of St Boniface Parish church books...it's so COOL to find children being baptized EXACTLY when we thought they were...lol
Larry and are almost experts now on what other families the Heschs knew back then...who their neighbors were, who they married, where they shopped, even where the farm was.....
G'head...ask us!

(31 days till the reunion!)

Waumandee, Wisconsin 2008

Last spring, Kathy and I drove over to Waumandee to see where Mathias had lived. This was my first impression: a little town on flat land between major hills:
We went to the cemetery because at the time, we thought maybe Johann and Maria were there...but no, they're buried in Pierz, which was as much "home" as Waumandee to them.
Rudy and Lucille are here, but we couldn't find Valentine and Lena. Last week, their grandson Roger told me that the other side of Rudy's headstone has their inscription. We never looked.

Kathy knew there was a "Hesch Valley Road", so she showed me...lol It's beyond the town, halfway to Montana, Wisconsin.

Social Butterflies in 1947 Waumandee

When Larry first found this clipping from the Waumandee news in the Winona paper, I only recognized the HESCH name, but now I understand all these relationships:

In my head, I know who was who's kid, and that it was Thanksgiving the year after Val died. I have faces in my imagination, and they look vaguely like us...lol With any luck, we'll find out for sure in August, at the reunion!

The Waumandee Heschs

A little re-cap here: Three brothers came here from Bohemia: Paul, Mathias and Anton.
Most of the blog so far has been about Paul, who settled in Buckman and died in 1900.
Anton, the youngest brother, had no kids, and died in 1911.

Mathias settled in Waumandee, Wisconsin, married and had 10 kids. In 1911, he inherited Anton's farm, so they moved to Agram township, west of Pierz with 5 of those kids. The oldest 5 had families of their own, in Waumandee and nearby towns.....

Valentine Hesch, (1880-1946), married Lena Dittrich.
Elizabeth Hesch (1883-1962), married Val Sendelbach.
Katherine Hesch (1884-1968) married Frank Walek.
Mary Hesch (1886) married Ed Wagner.
Agnes Hesch (1886) married Ed Berndt.

John J Hesch (1890-1977) married Cecilia Otremba, in Pierz.
Rose Hesch (1893-1916), died at 23 in Pierz of "lung troubles".
Anna Hesch (1894-1968) married John A Rauch, in Pierz.
Lillian Hesch (1895) married Wm. Block, in Pierz.
Clara Hesch (1899-1930) died at 31 in a hospital in Minneapolis.

It's interesting that in those days, if someone was sick (Rose, and Clara), you simply kept them at home and tried your best to cure what ailed them. If that didn't work, a hospital was where they died. Clara's obit says
Here's Elizabeth's obit from after a whole lifetime we didn't know about:

-------------------
June 14, 2013 addition:

YAY!! We heard this week from Kathleen, a Waumandee/Sendelbach connection ☺.  Here's a little insight she included about a couple who lived and died there. ( "Elizabeth Hesch" here was Mathias' daughter, so Big Grandpa Anton's first cousin).

"My Great Uncle Valentine Peter Sendelbach married Elizabeth Hesch on 09 Feb 1904.  I remember visiting Elizabeth & Valentine a few times when I was quite young.  My father was very fond of Valentine and Elizabeth.  As I recall both Valentine and Elizabeth were very special warm people.  Valentine was tall and quite slim and Elizabeth was very short and rounded, quite the cute couple.  They seem to always have such loving concern for the other.  When Elizabeth passed away 14 February of 1962, family members said that Valentine missed Elizabeth immensely and couldn't go on without his wife of 58 years.  Valentine died 2 March 1962".  

WOW, thank you Kathleen!

The Waumandee Connection

Waumandee (WA-mun-dee), Wisconsin is across the river and directly north of Winona, Minnesota. It's about 24 miles by road, and that's why we found so much Hesch information in the Winona newspapers back then. It's interesting, too, to note where the black lines run on the map--they're the railroads.

To recap: The ancestor who came here from Bohemia with his wife (Maria Schlinz) and sons (Paul, Mathias, and Anton) was Johann Hesch. He was born in 1818 and immigrated in 1869. We believe sons Paul and Mathias arrived earlier, but we haven't found them on a ships list...giving some credibility to a family story saying Paul, at least, "Came here in an apple barrel".

Paul settled in Buckman, Morrison Co, Minnesota, while Mathias settled in Waumandee, Buffalo Co, Wisconsin, about 230 miles away. Evidently, emmigrant families often tried different places in the US, depending on how many brothers there were...lol

In our case, when Johann, Maria and Anton arrived, they travelled as far as Waumandee, and settled there. Mathias married Agnes Trachofsky in 1879, and the first of their 10 children (Valentine) was born in 1880. The last child, Clara, was born in 1899, also in Waumandee.

Val married Lena Dittrich in 1907, and they lived in Waumandee all their lives. They had 5 children: Rudolph, Edna, Leonard, Lucille, and Elizabeth.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Rudolph Hesch married Lucille B Dworschak in June, 1947. They had five kids, too, four of whom live in that area today.

[And ALL of whom we'd LOVE to see at the Reunion!]

Some family names have a greater "online presence" than others: partly depending on when and where they lived, or on what they did for a living. Some (priests, nuns and those who never married), sorta fall off the charts, since they have no descendants.

It's true for this family as well. Pictures of proud Ordination Days, but lost names, and girls who are listed on censuses for 1910 and 1920, but then, never again.

Still, some become "Sr Laura", and the Waumandee Heschs married into lots of them: Rudy's wife, Lucille came from a family of nuns and priests, a Bishop, and an Abbot of St Johns Abbey in Collegeville, Baldwin Dworschak.

We never knew he was related.

The newspaper description of his Uncle Leo's ordination, tho, solves the "Ordination Angels" question once and for all:

Newspaper articles from THIS SITE.

Waumandee heard from!

Whoa--I just got off the phone with Mathias' son Valentine's daughter Edna's son, Roger. He's a FONT of Hesch Genealogy, from the Waumandee perspective, while I see the Hesch clan from the Minnesota perspective. We made connections like crazy...lol

He and his wife Mary winter in Florida, but once he gets home in April, he'll send pictures of his great grandparents (!) and his grandparents, so I'll post pictures of Mathias & Agnes' family, as well as Valentine & Lena's. BTW, he said Mathias always wore a big black beard, and had curly black hair and brown eyes.

In exchange, I told him about the CESKEARCHIVY and finding both our great grandfathers' birth records there. I'll send him copies of the pages where they appear, with the translations, AND the reunion invitation. Sounds like they just might show up...lol

He's about 10 years older than I am and has been at this for years--finding relatives and connections the hard way, without the internet. Whew! He said the next time I'm in Winona, he'd show Kathy and me around Waumandee: the original homestead where Johann & Mary settled, where Math & Aggie settled, etc., and the Hesch Land Trust there, out on Hesch Valley Road.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was missing two of Mathias' daughters, namely Lillian and Anna, right? He said Lillian married William Block, and Anna married John Rauch. Odd, there are people he knew who are only tombstones to me, but they're related to us both.

Oh, and he knew exactly who Hunzie Hesch was!

The Waumandee Connection

A quick review:

Three brothers came to America--Paul, Mathias and Anton Hesch, with their parents Johann and Maria.

Paul settled in Buckman, Minnesota around 1875, and the others settled in Waumandee, Buffalo county, Wisconsin. In about 1885, John, Mary and son Anton moved to Pierz (the census that year called rural Pierz 'Little Falls', but they lived just west of Pierz in Agram township).

Mathias and his wife Agnes had 10 kids, two or more of whom stayed in Waumandee when Math and Aggie moved to Pierz in 1911, after Anton died.

THIS photo is from HISTORIC MAP WORKS , a site that publishes and sells copies of old rural directories, among other things. Larry found it in the 1966 Buffalo County, Wisconsin, directory there. Rudy was the son of Valentine, Mathias' oldest.

According to the 'Waumandee News' in Winona's papers of the time, Val made many trips to Pierz before he died in June of 1946. Val's sister Elizabeth married Valentine Sendelbach there, and stayed in Waumandee, too. Their descendants still live in and around Buffalo County. I'd really LOVE to meet them and all Mathias' descendants. The reunion in August is intended to gather descendant of Paul and Mathias. (Anton was a lifelong bachelor).

Okay?