This is the way they spelled CHICKEN

The St Paul Globe newspaper featured this story on September 9th, 1900.  It must have been a slow newsday, and no, great Uncle Math was only 10 years old, so he didn't write it..lol.

Larry found it, of course, and noticed all the familiar names.  They're not only familiar from "up home", but from state history.
(Looks like some of the hunters were residents of St Paul or Minneapolis and were maybe land speculators too?  Ok, it's possible some of the names are familiar to Larry and me only because we're so into Minnesota history).  Still, names like Staples, Lindbergh, Hartman, Weyerhauser, Morrison,  Newman, and Dr Roy are pretty familiar, no?

It was probably a fairly dangerous weekend to have a picnic anywhere near Little Falls or Pierz.

The story made both Larry and me think of the adventures of our former vice president.

☺
Just in case you want more info about the grouse's mating ritual, watch this, and then the Native American Prairie Chicken Dance competition (yup, that's redundant...lol) .....aren't they both COOL?




We figure the human dance was for the same purpose as the birds dancing.  Whatdya think?

Gull Lake memories : a history of the town of Gull Lake, Saskatchewan

Just LOOK what Larry found!  After all these years, we finally have a photo of grandma Lizzy's oldest brother, Joe Sand.  It says he died in 1967, so the photo is older than that, but isn't it COOL?

Wow....just WOW.

Oh, I almost forgot--here's the link to the Gull Lake book..  It was published in 1989. 

THANK YOU, Larry!

ANOTHER 25th of the month!

Sheesh!  I remembered to post a Christmas pic 2 whole months in a row, and here it is, the third month, and it's the 28th.  Luckily, I can post retroactively!

This was Christmas last year--all three of the grands--Kendall, Josie and Mason.  Their cheerfulness and giggles are the best gift a gramma could ask for!

Which one was he?

Last night, Larry mentioned that we still have a mystery concerning Grandma's brother, Charlie Sand.  He's the most elusive for a number of reasons:

What we know about him for sure is that he was closest in age to Elizabeth (Grandma), and they were children of Mike Sand and Louisa Rausch. ( In the photo, Elizabeth is second from left, and Charlie is on the right). He was born in December, 1887 and she was born in December 1889, according to the 1900 census, below.
(I always thought grandma was born in 1888!).

We know too that Charlie left home as soon as he could.  We found him next in the 1911 Canadian census in  Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, but now he had a wife named Elizabeth.  He was 24 and she was 19.  Who was she, and how did they meet?  Well, the World's Best Researcher found her death certificate in Wenatchee, Washington where we know they eventually settled and owned an orchard...

Name: Elizabeth A. Sands
Death Date: 02 Nov 1943
Death Place: Wenatchee, Chelan, Washington
Gender: Female
Race:
Age at Death: 51 years 11 months 24 days
Estimated Birth Year: 1892
Birth Date:
Birth Place:
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Charles S. Sands
Father's Name: Frank Colwell
Father's Birth Place:
Mother's Name: Alelene Roberts
Mother's Birth Place:
Occupation:
Street Address:
Residence:
Cemetery:
Burial Place:
Burial Date:
Additional Relatives:
Film Number: 2024170
Digital GS Number: 4224850
Image Number: 1804
Volume/Page/Certificate Number: 166
Collection: Washington Death Certificates, 1907-1960

WOW!  So Larry checked Minnesota census records for Frank Colwell , and found him, his wife Addie and oldest daughter Elizabeth in Popple township, Itasca county, Mn in 1905, when Elizabeth was 13.
So, when Charlie left home, it looks like he went to the logging camps up north. Evidently, Charlie and Elizabeth decided against Saskatchewan, cuz here they are in Mn:
In 1918 when men signed up for the WWI draft, we had a problem--there were at least six 'Charles Sand' registrations in the US, and more than one was  born December 18th.  Wow. So, which one was ours?  If this one is Grandma's brother, why did he say he was born in 1885?  Ahh, because that would make him OLDER, and perhaps less eligible for fighting a war.  (Cook is in St Louis County, near Duluth, Mn).

We know Charlie and Elizabeth were working for a mining company in Idaho in 1920--he was a foreman and she was a cook in their boarding house.  Here's a description of the company they worked for, we think.  The "town" in the 1920 census is Continental Divide, Idaho.

Oh, and look what else Larry found:

 ITASCA CO
Certificate No C-67
Date of marriage 1/22/1911
Groom's name CHARLES SAND
Bride's name ELIZABETH CALDWELL

Wow.  THANKS to Larry!!!

Internet marvels

There's always something  incredible online.  I wasn't even looking for most of it.  WOW!

For instance, we live in a three dimensional world, where a square can be expanded into a cube (3 dimensions). But how would that look if there was a fourth dimension?  We can't imagine it because we only know 3, but scientists have a theory called a tesseract.   (It's not a new idea--it's only that I found it this week...lol)
Here's how Carl Sagan explained it, too.

------------------------------

THIS animal has fascinated me for months.  It's in a column of photos  that Minnesotastan, the author of a blog called TYWKIWDBI , intends to write about.


-----------------------------


Another cool thing on the internet is TinEye, a reverse image search engine.  Duh--I tried the picture of the steer, and it found 31 copies of it online.  Ok, so I'm not as fascinated by TinEye now. (I thought it would find similar animals, NOT the same pic).  Oh, well!

Our Delightful ALASKA Contingent

HOORAY!!  The blog's turning into a virtual reunion ☺!

This weekend, I heard from a daughter of  this man...but here's the quick version of  how they fit:

Paul Hesch & Mary Otremba had a son, JOHN (in 1878)
John married Ket Mueller and their third child was PAUL (or FRANK) (b 1908)
Paul F. &  Anna Valentine  had a son named RAYMOND ( in 1931)
Raymond had two daughters, Elizabeth and OUR new connection, DEBORAH! (1955)

Raymond didn't talk much about life in Minnesota, and sadly, he died when Deborah was 18.  She really had no idea any of us existed, until she googled HESCH!

If anyone has more photos or recollections of John & Ket's son Paul, or Paul's son Raymond, please send them to me--we're building a pretty cool record of Hesch History right here on the internet!

WELCOME to the family, Deborah and Elizabeth!!

Where is Parent, Minnesota?

Storm warnings in Minnesota today--it's been a hot stormy summer so far--radar shows green, blue, red, orange and yellow patterns whipping along I-94 from Fargo toward St Cloud.  It seems like most of our summer storms follow either that path, or they arrive from Nebraska/Iowa along the bottom of Minnesota, aiming at the twin cities.

THIS summer, we've had storm systems taking weekly turns at pounding us.  Funny tho, how you can tell when theres a new weather person on duty at the radio station: they have trouble with Kanabec,  Lac Qui Parle  and Kandiyohi counties, and they include those "towns" that are only signs on the railroad or highway: Vawter and Gregory in Morrison, and Parent in Benton Co.

They're talking about weather that's trying to kill us, as Garrison says.  Is it picky to want them to get the place names right? ☺

(BTW, Parent, Mn is between St Cloud and Foley on Highway 23.  It was a town at one time, but now it's only a marker on the RR tracks).

Old News

Here're a few articles we found in various newspapers while researching.  They're from different years, they're mostly unrelated to each other or even to this blog, but they're interesting for some reason.  

► This one, from 1959, had Sr Laura listed as a "dignitary" at a conference in Fergus Falls in 1959.

Here's evidence of the venerable tradition of Catholic blessings of various sporting ventures.  I know what you're saying: "but this was serious hunting, for food for the family."  (Did any kids like venison?)  And yes, the church also seriously blessed tractors and farm equipment....as well as snowmobiles and boats.  It kinda depended on what excuses the men needed, I think.

A fire at Zenners?  Wow.  The building was a tinderbox by the 1970s...good thing the fire was minor.
Herman Otremba didn't fare so well.  Those stoves were dangerous!

This article was from another paper entirely--Milwaukee, I think--but it tickled Larry and me.

An ad from Technical World Magazine in the 1910s about the virtues of Postum?  Eww.

...And if you've ever been to Treasure City in Royalton, it's possible that THIS article from Billboard Magazine in 1957 was some sort of impetus for the "man eating clam" out front of the store...lol


And below is an article Larry found in the Winona paper in 1919--the farmer is one Anton HASCH.  It's not our family, but it's a good story anyway!

A project to collaborate on:

A comment was left on the 1920 Plat Map post requesting more info about the Paul Hesch home place a mile west of Buckman.    I remember the house, and that the barn was standing when I was a kid.  The person who lives there now would love more info about it--COOL, huh?

Here's the way it looked from the air in June, 1940 (top farm).  The other farm here is the Anton Janson farm (my other grandpa).

If anybody has info or pictures of the Hesch farm, for instance when Math and Holka lived there, send them along, ok?  I'll post what people send, and we'll keep looking for other goodies ☺!

Why finding records can be a problem

Larry found these records on Family Search...they're definitely our family, but just LOOK at the variations in spelling, especially Agnes Trachofsky's name (our spelling of her name is from the church books in Oberschlagles, Bohemia):

Groom's Name: Mathias Hesh
Groom's Birth Date:
Groom's Birthplace: Austria
Groom's Age:
Bride's Name: Agnes Drachofzki
Bride's Birth Date:
Bride's Birthplace:
Bride's Age:
Marriage Date: 19 Aug 1879
Marriage Place: Waumandee, Buffalo, Wisconsin
Groom's Father's Name: John Hesh
Groom's Mother's Name: Maria Hesh
Bride's Father's Name: Thomas Drachofzki
Bride's Mother's Name: Agnes Drachofzki
Groom's Race: White
Groom's Marital Status: Unknown
Groom's Previous Wife's Name:
Bride's Race: White
Bride's Marital Status: Unknown
Bride's Previous Husband's Name:
Indexing Project (Batch) Number: M00352-9
System Origin: Wisconsin-EASy
Source Film Number: 1275780
Reference Number: 00780
Collection: Wisconsin Marriages, 1836-1930


Groom's Name: Francis Wallek
Groom's Birth Date:
Groom's Birthplace: T. Burnside
Groom's Age:
Bride's Name: Catharine Hesh
Bride's Birth Date:
Bride's Birthplace: Waumandee
Bride's Age:
Marriage Date: 29 Apr 1903
Marriage Place: Independence, Trempealeau Co., Wisconsin
Groom's Father's Name: John Wallek
Groom's Mother's Name: Anna Bancz
Bride's Father's Name: Mathias Hesh
Bride's Mother's Name: Agnes Frahowski
Groom's Race: White
Groom's Marital Status:
Groom's Previous Wife's Name:
Bride's Race: White
Bride's Marital Status:
Bride's Previous Husband's Name:
Indexing Project (Batch) Number: M00338-5
System Origin: Wisconsin-EASy
Source Film Number: 1275782
Reference Number: item 1 cn 02265
Collection: Wisconsin Marriages, 1836-1930

Groom's Name: Valentine T. Sendelbach
Groom's Birth Date:
Groom's Birthplace: Waumandee, Wis.
Groom's Age:
Bride's Name: Elisabeth Hesch
Bride's Birth Date:
Bride's Birthplace: Waumandee, Wis.
Bride's Age:
Marriage Date: 09 Feb 1904
Marriage Place: Waumandee, Buffalo Co., Wisconsin
Groom's Father's Name: Michael Sendelbach
Groom's Mother's Name: Rosina Neth Sendelbach
Bride's Father's Name: Mathias Hesch
Bride's Mother's Name: Agnes Drashowsky Hesch
Groom's Race: White
Groom's Marital Status:
Groom's Previous Wife's Name:
Bride's Race: White
Bride's Marital Status:
Bride's Previous Husband's Name:
Indexing Project (Batch) Number: M00338-5
System Origin: Wisconsin-EASy
Source Film Number: 1275782
Reference Number: item 1 cn 02378
Collection: Wisconsin Marriages, 1836-1930

Still, these are pretty cool documents, huh?  The "source Film Number" and "Reference Number", etc,  will identify these documents at the LDS research library.

Ancestors

       --Alice Walker

       Via

More about Waumandee and Buffalo County, Wisconsin

Ok, here are maps of the Hesch part of Wisconsin:  Buffalo Co is right across the Mississippi from Winona, Mn.

This map ► is the whole county, in 1914.  Waumandee is in the lower half, in yellow.
Now, this part of Wisconsin is nothing like the Hesch part of Minnesota.  The farm land is in large valleys, between bluffs and ridges...the roads are winding, sometimes in the valley bottom, sometimes halfway up the side of a huge hill.  And sometimes, the roads are narrow, with "limited sight distance" ahead.  It's beautiful, and feels almost uninhabited, or similar to what Kentucky hollows must be like (just my impression, ok?  But let me recommend street view in Google Earth, on the drive from Cochrane (near the river) to Waumandee to see what I mean). ☺

These maps ought to enlarge a LOT when you click on them.  This is still 1914, but just Waumandee township.  Valentine's land is way in the top corner, and there's land next to Val in the name of "M Hesch"...I assume it was land his dad Mathias still owned, and which became trust land?

◄ 1914

                                                          1920 ►

◄ 1930

Circus, Circus !!

I have no idea how this subject came up, but Larry and I were talking about circus trains, and had I ever seen one?  (He grew up in Hawaii where there were no trains--can you imagine?)  But yes, when we lived in St Cloud, we were about a half block from the Great Northern tracks, and once or twice we saw real circus trains.

This pic is from a town in Wisconsin, but it's basically what we saw, tho I don't remember many people around, and the cars seemed to be more scruffy and faded than these are.  Still, it brought memories.....

In about 1956 or 57, dad took his 4 daughters to a circus at the old Rox Ballpark in St Cloud.  It might have been to give mom a breather (Allan was born in August, 1956 ☺).  I remember understanding that this was an "economy" circus, not a 3-ring affair....there was one act at a time, out in the middle of the field: a man with dogs, a man with a tiger, a woman with birds...no ringmaster, and almost no props....lol  The last act we saw was a woman wearing a net skirt over a bathing suit.  She came out leading a large monkey, and the act seemed to be getting him to do fairly stupid tricks. The monkey was more and more reluctant to do what she wanted, until finally, he pulled her skirt off, and darted for the stands. NOW, the drama began.  Was the monkey real?  Or, was he a man in a monkey suit?  And, would/could a monkey hurt little girls?
LOL...we carried on till dad took us home...even he wasn't sure if it was real or not.
(BTW, this was a traumatic event for me--and poor Larry had heard it all before, so he was googling "Circus, St Cloud, Mn 1955-1957".  INCREDIBLY, he found a copy of Billboard Magazine from July 1957 with ◄this article!
I don't know if "Gil Gray" was the circus we saw or not, but TG we never went to a circus again.

Oh, and here're three photos of the Rox Municipal Ballpark in St Cloud.  It was torn down in 1971 to make room for a shopping center.

(Remember when there were TREES along Division Street?)

============================
Posted a month later: Larry was looking thru another Billboard Magazine, this time from August 1945, and look at the amazing pic he found there:

This would have been just north of Little Falls.  Below's the article that went with it:

Sioux, Sault, Soo, Sue ☺

Ha!  Just when I think I can find ANYTHING online...it turns out not to be true...lol


If you live in the Upper Midwest then Sioux, Sault, & Soo are familiar and pronounced the same: Sue.  You eventually learn to distinguish what each one refers to, and why you'd use that spelling here but not there.
............................
Sioux are a Native American and First Nations people. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many dialects. ...


The Sioux was a named passenger train of the Milwaukee Road that operated between Chicago, Madison, Wisconsin, and Rapid City, South Dakota, via Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin and northern Iowa. The train operated coaches, diners and sleeping cars though most of its history.


Sioux Falls, Sioux City, the Fighting Sioux, and the controversy over that name as a school team....
..............................
Ok, so...Sault?  We're familiar with it as  Sault St Marie in Michigan, and also in the name of the railroad that served Genola, Pierz and Center Valley--the St Paul, Minneapolis and Sault St Marie, where it was abbreviated as Ste:


Here's the definition from the Oxford Dictionary
SAULT (plural saults)
A waterfall; a rapid.
(obsolete) Assault.
A leap or jump, especially one made by a horse.

Hmm!  So Sault St Marie was a waterfall?  Sure! It was the original connection between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, a 20 foot drop that's been transformed into locks by the Army Corps of Engineers.  

............................

OK!  We're getting there!

Then, what is SOO?  

Soo is the lazy way of spelling/saying Sioux or Sault, especially when you're not sure which spelling would apply.  

The Sooline overpass, the SoolineTrail....

And, of course, we have Sue, the cousin and SUE, John Hesch's Great Grandaughter.

Taa-daa!

Otrembas in Poland

Here's a wonderful Falkenburg site Larry found recently.  There are photos of the sort of crop land Anton Otremba knew there, and if you poke around (try different links on the left)  you'll find more pictures and facts.

It's so COOL that local people over there are posting this kind of history for us.  Sure, it's not JUST for us, but it helps to make a great-great grandfather more real,huh?

If you remember Maths diary from their trip to Europe in 1914, then you might remember they got off the train in SABIN, the nearest station to Guschwitz.  Sabin is bottom left, see?  THIS was the Otremba homeland.

BTW, here's where SCHMOLKEs came from, in case you're interested!

Google News comes thru again

Did you know that Google has old newspapers as well as old books?  And happily, Larry remembers to check once in awhile to see if there's anything we haven't seen yet ☺ YAY, Larry!

This was in the February 26th, 1957 issue of the Milwaukee Journal.  Here's the whole page, just for fun.  It says Dolores Hesch will marry Art Eben on "Sunday", which would make it March 3rd, 1957.

Now, I remember mom and Aunt Jeanette talking about some trip they went on, with young babies...and how there were no cribs in hotels...something about dresser drawers?

Well, I suspect that was Dolores' wedding weekend, cuz  Allan (my brother) would have been 6 months old, and cousin Galen Janson would have been 3 months old...lol  Both moms were nursing, but how could they miss Dolores's wedding?  She was dad's first cousin, and a close neighbor to Jansons...and it would be a FUN wedding, for sure!

Adeline (or Helen?)...Louise...Dolores the bride.....Holka (lookit that face!)...and Laura, I think.

Oh yeah, they had a good time...lol

-------------------------------------------

Added later:  more online stuff about Dolores!

So, Larry started investigating online--where did Dolores go to school, what was she doing in Waukesha, Wisconsin, etc.  He found her in a a yearbook from Crookston, Minnesota, and we finally figured out that Dolores was the school nurse there, in 1953-54.  Cool, huh?

Dolores left after a year, I guess.  Here's the notice ► from the local newspaper, but isn't it odd that they rarely use the school's name?  

Ahh, it was the.....

Northwest School of Agriculture High School Crookston, MN

------------------------------------------------

(We still don't know why she was in Waukesha, but it was probably a nursing job, and to meet Art...lol)

Family conundrums

A recap:  Mathias Hesch and Agnes Trachofsky (above) emigrated from Bohemia to Waumandee, Wisconsin.  They married, had 10 kids, and later, moved to Pierz, Minnesota about 1910.

Mathias' brother Paul had died 10 years before (1900).  Paul and his wife Mary Otremba had had 13 kids, one of whom was named Mathias Hesch....of course.  The photo below is Great uncle Math, his wife Mary (Holka) and their seven daughters, in about 1955.

Both men referred to themselves as "M.E. Hesch"....no real problem there, right?  They lived 5 miles apart, after all....

Except that uncle Math Hesch wrote the "Buckman news"  for the Pierz Journal and Little Falls Transcript newspapers beginning in about 1907, he said.
So, when he needed to add inches to his column by listing 'who was there' at some event, you can't really tell if he meant himself...or his uncle M.E. Hesch.  If they were both there, he'd use both names: Math Hesch AND M.E .Hesch. ..and sometimes you know he wanted it to SOUND like  lots of people attended, when it was really just Sunday dinner at his own house...lol

The hill south of Center Valley

I had a chat with Eddie Hiemenz yesterday, and he told me about how he and his buddies would ride their bikes to Jake Kinzer's store in Center Valley.  (Eddie was born in 1927, so this memory is probably from about 1940 or so).  He said Jake promised the boys a free ice cream cone if they could start by the store and ride all the way to the top of the south hill without stopping.
OMG.
I asked if any of them ever made it, and Eddie said he didn't think so, but Mr Kinzer eventually gave them cones anyway.  It probably made Jake tired just watching them try...lol

THANKS for the story, Eddie.  
....Oh, and Happy 83rd Birthday ☺

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!!!