Weyerhaeusers, the Luce Lines and a new Hearse--Woohoo ☺

(Sitting here with closed curtains and most lights off.  I know, I know...but there are only a few kids in the neighborhood and they're probably at the school party.  Yeah, I bought a little candy, just in case: honest to gawd rice krispie bars, but as small as the fun size candy bars.  Just right, I'd say ☺ )
Ok, what does a person do when she's avoiding trick-or-treaters?  Post, of course!
First, an interesting clip about the Weyerhaeuser wedding (Charles Weyerhaeuser and Frances Maud Moon--such familiar names here in Minnesota because of the endowments they left, such as the Maud Moon Weyerhaeuser Studio at MPR).
Also, an item about an elegant hearse for Pierz and vicinity..

 No, this isn't the hearse...it's just one I found on google ☺.

And HERE's evidence of a controversy we've touched on before--the wonderful promise of a railroad coming to Buckman.  There were meetings and investments, and no one seemed to figure out the zig zag route it would have had to take to connect all the little towns that were hoping for it. 

Finally, the last two articles below must have been hard to swallow for our relatives, huh?

Innovation in church heating, 1907 style

Hmm...yes, we've seen this place before.  It's St Joseph's, the Catholic church in Pierz, Minnesota.  You're saying to yourself, "Good grief why, AGAIN?"

Vell.  Vee haf a nifty new mystery!

When you gaze at the pic, what part seems odd to you, or out of place?  Theres a church on the left, a school on the right, and a smokestack on the ground in the middle. Wha...?

That weird chimney is something cool that's probably totally forgotten, except for two obsessive researchers 105 years later who happened to pick up on a stray thought in the "Pierz" news in the Little Falls Herald. 

(For the life of me, I can't find the first article I saw that mentioned it, but St Joseph's tried an innovative idea for heating the place--a separate, central, underground plant with duct work running to the church, school and rectory. At the time, the church had no basement, btw.  That first article was a sort of editorial, mentioning civic mistakes--ideas that people originally thought would work, or would save money--but which cost considerably more in the long run.  That heating scheme lasted one winter because it didn't work at all. Damn I found it! See below ☺).  The Historic Places application we published awhile ago states that the basement was excavated to create a winter chapel, but it was also cuz the church needed a furnace UNDER (not beside) the area to be heated.

And here's a bonus article about the church, since you made it this far ☺

Onions for lunch

There's probably a certain point in any publicity/propaganda campaign when you totally run out of ideas.  This was late in WWI:

"Eat onions to help America hammer the Hun"
is a slogan now being sent out by the Minnesota Food administration to encourage the consumption of Minnesota's surplus onion crop.  Minnesota has more onions than can be taken care of by storage or shipment this fall.  A serving of three or four medium onions or one third cup of escalloped onions contains as much food value as two slices of Victory bread, two small baking powder biscuits or two tablespoons of sugar, all of which are things Americans are trying to save for the sake of the boys "over there".  Therefore, the food administration makes the appeal to Minnesota people to substitute onions in part for these things in their diet, release foods for shipment abroad and prevent waste at home.  This is a good war policy and a good home policy.

How was Anna Steinbauer related to us?

When Larry found Louisa Rausch Sand's obit (reprinted from the St Cloud Journal) in the Little Falls Herald of December 16, 1921, there was new info about when she and Mike were first married as well as some (mis-)information about her sibs.  C'mon, it was 1921...who did fact or grammar checking then?

According to this, Vernie (Wintermeyer) and Frank lived in St Cloud, Joseph lived in Canada;  Charlie lived in Cass lake (*) and the Buckman kids were Angie (Hiemenz), John, and Lizzie (Hesch). Lena (Block) lived in Pierz. Sr Severine was teaching in Brandon (?) and Sr Teresita in Gilman. (Only a few glaring mistakes in the original there).

We didn't know that Mike and Louisa lived in Sartell ("LeSauk") for a few years when they were newlyweds, or that Louisa had a stroke in May and lingered until December.  Wow.

Also, the last sentence, about visiting her brother and sister in St Cloud?  Nope, she would visit her kids, but her sibs were Mary (Meyer), in Buckman, August, a priest in Nebraska, John who'd settled in Arkansas, one sis who'd stayed in Poland, and another who married a blacksmith named Robert Harnish.  (According to Grandma Lizzy's WPA bio, they moved to Pierz later, but I haven't found them yet).  I assume the info was given to the reporter by one of the sons, perhaps Charlie, who mentioned his own brother and sister.

* Charlie and Elizabeth lived in Continental Divide, Idaho, in the 1920 census, so we assumed they were still there. We know too that they adopted her brothers' son, William, but he wasn't born till 1936.  Evidently, they were trying Minnesota on before they went back to Washington state for good.
(BTW, if you look for this part of the SAND family on Find a Grave, much of the info is wrong in terms of John vs John Peter and who had which kids because someone else posted them, not me).

But as to the Subject line Q up there--we're looking for Mike Sands siblings, one of whom was Anna (Sand) Steinbauer.  We had to find Peter Sand's obit for the rest of the story ☺.  At that time, 1894, this is where the sons and daughters lived:

J P Sand, in LF

Michael, in Buckman

Nicholas C Sand, LeSauk

John, in Graham, Benton

Joseph, in St Cloud

Mrs Michael Steinbauer, St Cloud

Mrs L L Sartell, LeSauk

Mrs Ben Seitz, St Cloud

(June 2015 addition: Larry found a book listing deaths in Stearns county, starting in 1870.  It says Peter and Angelique Sand had a baby girl in August, 1873.  They named her Sophia, but sadly, she died 17 days later).  

Mary (Sand) Seitz lived in St Cloud with her husband, Ben, and Kate (Sand) Sartell, mentioned above, lived in LeSauk township (Sartell), Mn.  Anna and her husband Michael had five kids, and Kate and Linton had 8 kids.  I don't know if Ben and Mary had kids, but just look at all the possible relatives might be out there that we've never acknowledged--wow! ☺

For some reason, I'm not able to answer the comment from this morning (not in the "Comments" anyway).  So, I'll add it here--the Q was, how come we highlighted Anna Steinbauer rather than other sibs.  Well, we know a reasonable amount about the brothers, and we were aware of Kate Sartell and her family, so that leaves Anna, and Mary Seitz.  As I said above, we don't know if Mary and Ben had kids (meaning potential 2nd and 3rd cousins to hunt for), but Anna did have kids...they're all names to watch out for, ok?

(Thanks for asking, Anon!)

Magdalena Ferschweiler Sand makes the news, again...

Look what Larry found at the online site of Prairie Public Broadcasting, North Dakota's  public radio service.  This is from October 4th, 2013 and they did the story because of the Cassleton, ND connection.  Yeah, some of the info came from Hesch History--we basically did the research for them--but we thank them for acknowledging it.
We realize they left some meaty parts out of the story, but the piece had to fit a time constriction, I suppose.
Oh, you want to review it?

HERE's what happened to Magdalena after her return to Little Falls...and HERE'S the earlier stuff (scroll down, the news articles are even transcribed for you).    Yah, you're welcome ☺

The Reverend Sigismond Suszczynski

Wow, a priest who paid to be included in 

the History of  Morrison and Todd Counties, Minnesota in 1915

and who was able to provide a portrait, too.  

I read thru his bio and thought, Hmm, what if a great grand niecphew googled the name and didn't find him?  I'd feel so guilty.

Iffy career moves by Deputy Sheriff J P Sand

Two interesting newspaper articles, one BY J P Sand, and the other about him.  The first had to do with horses stolen from J P's brother Mike Sand (yup, our great grandpa).  Evidently, JP's nose was out of joint because of an article in the Little Falls "Sun" newspaper, which we don't have and probably don't need.  Thing is, it's kind of amazing that he remained deputy when he was so publically  snarky here about Rasicot.  This was in the Little Falls Transcript on September 21, 1883:

Evidently, JP was a better (or at least more trusted) deputy four years later, when this account appeared in the Little Falls Herald  (September 23, 1887).  Now he was a hero--cool!

Watershed years in the Paul Hesch family

1874  Paul Hesch & Mary Otremba are married.

1876 Rose Hesch is born

She married Louis Gottwalt in 1895.  They lived in Rice, Mn, and eventually had nine kids.  Rose died in 1951.






1878 John Hesch is born

He married Ketrina Mueller in 1902.  They homesteaded in ND and later moved back to Buckman.  They had five kids. John had rheumatism and tried for years to find relief. He died in 1926.

 1880 Frank Lewis Hesch is born

Frank worked on the railroad most of his life.  He married Elizabeth Kelly in June, 1920.  He died in 1922 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and Elizabeth inherited the home farm, a mile west of Buckman.

 1882 Theresa Hesch is born

She joined the Benedictine convent in St Joseph, Mn and made her perpetual vows in 1910.  She most notably was a missionary to the Ojibwe at Mille Lacs Lake after years of teaching school around Minnesota.  Theresa (Sr Laura) died in 1972 and is buried at the mission in Vineland, Mn.





1883  Anton August Hesch is born

Anton married Elizabeth Sand in 1910.  They lived in Buckman, Little Rock and finally Royalton; adopted two boys from the orphan trains, and had ten more kids, two of whom died as infants.  Anton died in 1974.
This lucky couple were my grandparents ☺.






1885 Joseph Hesch is born

Joe married Anna Heurung in 1912.  They lived east of Buckman and had eight kids, the first of whom was supposedly adopted.  
Joe died in 1926 of a gunshot wound to the head.






1887 Paul Hesch (Jr) is born

Paul attended school in Buckman, and then St Johns in Collegeville, Mn.  He interned on the railroad as a brakeman.  He died in 1907 in Sand Point, Idaho by being crushed in the connection between two cars.  He was 20 years old, and is buried in Buckman next to his parents.





1888 Theodore Anton Hesch is born

Theo married Rosalia Dehler in May, 1920.  They had two daughters, and lived in Minneapolis, where Ted worked for the railroad.  Ted died in 1982.







1890 Mathias Hesch is born

Math married Mary Tetiva in October 1920.  They bought the home farm from Frank's widow and raised seven daughters there.  Math wrote the Buckman News for the Pierz Journal, Royalton Banner, the Little Falls Transcript.  He died in 1979.





1893 Stephen Hesch is born & dies

1895 Mary Hesch is born

Mary was amazing for her time.  She moved around the US and finally married Joe Peterson of Bruno, Mn after 1926.  They had no kids but spent a lot of time fishing and "doing as they pleased", which horrified/tickled her sibs.  She died in 1965.






1897 Lucy is born in NYC

Lucy was adopted by Paul & Mary as a baby.  She married Max Klein and they lived in Langola township, Benton Co., north of Rice, Mn. They had one daughter.
Lucy died in 1953.






1900 (Great grandfather) Paul Hesch broke his back falling out of a wagon.  He died three days later.  He was 52.




1906 Paul Vincent Doyle is born in  NYC

We don't know why Mary adopted a child after her husband died, but 4 year old Paul showed up in the 1910 census as an adopted son.  He married a woman named Alia and they had one son.  Paul died in 2004.


 1917 (Great grandmother) Mary Otremba Hesch died.
1920 Three Hesch brothers got married (Frank, Theo and Math) in 1920.  I've always wondered if there was a proviso in Mary's will re: inheriting upon marriage within three years...or else it was just time for all three of em ☺. 
1926  Young Paul died in 1907, and Frank in 1922...then two more brothers (John and Joe) died in 1926.  That left Rose, Sr Laura, Anton, Ted, Math, Mary, Lucy and Paul.  Rose and Lucy died in the 1950s, so I never knew them. We stopped to see "Aunt Mary in Bruno" whenever we made a trip to Duluth, but we kids waited in the car because "Aunt Mary didn't like kids". I don't recall ever meeting Theo or Paul Doyle. Too bad.

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!