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!

Billy and Anna Meyer family photo

William "Billy" Meyer married Anna Otremba circa 1875.  Their first child, August, was born in 1876.  In the 1885 Minnesota census, the young couple lived with Katherina Otremba (Anton's widow) and some of Anna's sibs.  Anna was a sister to Mary (Otremba) Hesch, Paul's wife, and our great grandmother, ok?   To grandma Lizzy, they were Aunt Anna and Uncle Billy ☺.

Back to 1885: Billy and Anna had 5 kids by then: August, Mary, Katherine, Willy and Anna (different and unusual names, huh?)  Twenty years later, in the 1905 Minnesota census, the additional kids were Katie, Maggie, Joseph, Anton, Cecilia, Lizzy and Mathias.

So, trying to figure out what year the above photo was taken, would you say the youngest kid looks about 10?  Then this was about 1900.  Billy would have been 49, and Anna, 43.

There are two especially cool things about this: 

1) the photo I found in the Atlas was tiny--3 inches by 2 inches--but just look how clear it is.  We were meant to find it ☺! And

2) We first ID'd Billy Meyer and Anna Otremba on the right in this picture.  We figure it was summer, 1925.  By summer 1926, both John Hesch and Billy Meyer were gone...John in January and Billy in March of 1926.

Credit: Family Search and The Pictorial Atlas of Morrison County, Minnesota.

Mary (Rausch) Meyer 1837-1911

August and Veronica Rausch married in Shedliske, Falkenburg, Prussia about 1830.  They had four daughters and two sons by the time they came to America in the early 1870s.
Two of their daughters were Louisa and Mary.  Louisa was our great grandmother.  Her sister Mary Rausch married Florian Meyer.  Last night, Larry found this photo of Mary online, along with a family history from the standpoint of John Meyer, their son.  It gives a few more facts than Grandma Lizzy gave to the WPA.

One interesting "fact" given in this account was of how Florian died.  According to his son, Florian was at a District 19 school meeting near his home when he was (inexplicably) stabbed "in his side near his heart" and died a week later. (See link above for a different account of what happened that evening).

Florian had been in the USA for only about four years by then.  His wife Mary had just turned 40 when he died.

She raised her kids and, fifteen years later, sold the farm in Pierz township and bought 120 acres a mile-and-a-half east of Buckman, which she eventually sold to her son John.  She'd been married to Florian for 20 years, and was a widow for 34 more, when she died at John's home in October, 1911.

Florian was buried in Pierz, but Mary was buried in Buckman.  Among their children were Charles (Karl), Louise, Martha, Florian, John and William (Billy).

And look:  In 1900, John was head-of-household, living with Mary, his mom, and 3 other of his sibs, AND his grandmother, 'Varonica Rausch' (August died in 1885).  But look too at the numbers after Mary's name--9 children born to her, and nine still living....then why did her son John say he was the fifth of six children born to Florian and Mary? Hmm!

Yes, I know you want to compare the sisters.  Louisa looks to be maybe 40 here, and Mary looks more like 70 or so.  According to my family tree they were born on separate continents, 17 years apart.

Nick C. Meyer 1900-1969

Here's an obit from October, 1969, for Nick C. Meyer.  The Meyer family (lucky them) are related by marriage to dad's family ( Heschs, Rauschs, and Otrembas) AND thru mom's family, the Jansons.

This particular obit gives us lots of genealogical  information--but doesn't include who his parents were.  Still, we have his nine siblings listed: Brothers Peter, Christ, Gust, and Joseph and sisters Mrs. Lena Diederich, Mrs. Mike Meyer, Mrs. Leonard Janson, Mrs. Alfred Janson and Mrs. Marguerite Faust.

The question this brings up, tho, is that censuses between 1890 and 1930 show NINE different "Nick Meyers" in central Minnesota, born from 1861 to 1909...lol

HOW to sort them out?  I figure someone will google "MEYER, PIERZ" one of these days and let me know who was who...lol

(Thanks in advance ☺).

Florian Meyer 1833-1878

It's so much fun to recognize an extended-family name in another source, especially when it's not expected.  Sure, you might expect to find familiar names in a history book of the county in question, but what other historian devotes pages and pages to early accidental/violent deaths and suicides?  Nathan Richardson did.  He was writing in 1880, so this stuff was fresh as well as tragic.  They're interesting accounts, too.

We'd just this week been puzzling about the Meyer family, as it connects to Pierz and the Otrembas, and by marriage to the Heschs.  Billy Meyer is on the far right there►, right behind grandpa and next to his wife Anna Otremba, see?  I know gramma mentioned him, but I don't recall the context.

It turns out Gramma Elizabeth (Sand) Hesch was related to Billy thru her mom's sister Mary, who had married Florian Meyer.  ◄Here they are in the 1875 Minnesota Census, and there's little son William...who was 2 months old, NOT 24.
(Yes, there was another William Meyer at the same time two farms over.  The son of Nic Meyer, that William was 9 in 1875, so he would have been locally known as William or Bill, and the younger cousin would have been Billy).

OK, got all that?
Larry and I searched census records for those years, but this is the only census Florian (b 1833) is mentioned--so, why wasn't he in the 1880 census?


The book I mentioned at the top surprised me with a paragraph about Florian, Billy's dad: 

Florian Meyer, a German farmer in the town of Pierz, attended a party in his neighborhood on the evening of February 11th, 1878, at which several of the guests indulged quite freely in drinking beer, which was furnished in abundance.  Mr Meyer, as usual for him on such occasions, became boisterous and abusive to those against whom he entertained any hard feelings.  There being several such persons present, a general quarrel ensued, and a fight commenced in the house.  Those engaged in it were pushed outdoors and during the affray Mr Meyer was stabbed in the left breast, apparently with a small knife.  The cut proved fatal, and he died.  At the two terms of court that have been held in this county since the affair occurred, strenuous efforts were made to discover the man who committed the crime, which have only resulted in throwing suspicion upon two different parties, whom I do not feel at liberty to name.  

 (A big Hearted Paleface Man, page 311)


I know, I know--it's hard to believe crankiness in one of our ancestors, but there it is.  Mary Rausch Meyer was a widow by 1878, when Billy was almost 3.  He probably barely remembered his dad. 

The August & Veronica Rausch family

"The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions to carry out public works projects".  Today, genealogists' appreciate the New Deal and that most useful WPA project:  the pioneer interviews done by out-of-work writers.  They're archived at your county historical society. In our case, that's the Weyerhauser Museum in Little Falls, Minnesota. 

 There are definitely mistakes in these biographies, but there are also invaluable facts that could have been lost otherwise.  Especially in a taciturn family like ours.

We've posted this particular bio before on HH, but this time, I've transcribed it  (so it can be translated by readers overseas).  Now, we're looking closer at some of the connections mentioned.  

(If you already know who these people are, skip this part:

August Rausch had a daughter

Louisa Rausch, who married Mike Sand, and they had a daughter

Elizabeth Sand, who married A.A.Hesch, and they had a son

Mike Hesch, who wisely had ME for a daughter,  

so August Rausch was my great-great grandfather, ok?)

RAUSCH and Simpfhen

Buckman, Minn.

Given by Mrs. A.A. Hesch

Recorded by N. Meyer

February 1937

Louisa Rausch was born in Oberschlesien, Germany on January 2nd 1854.  Her father, August Rausch, was a blacksmith and also owned a 30 acre farm in Germany.  August Rausch was married to Veronica Simpfhen in Germany. There were six children born to them, two boys, August and John; and four girls, Mary, Hedwig, Veronica and Louisa.

The August Rausch family came over to the United States and went to Little Rock, Arkansas, to the home of the oldest son, John, who had come here several years before the rest of the family.  Here in Little Rock, Arkansas the family lived for several years.  The country was wild and the people were lazy in this warm state and Mr. August Rausch took sick with yellow fever.  As he recovered, all of the family except John left to go north to St Cloud on the Great Northern Railway, which at that time went only as far as St Cloud.  As they came to St Cloud, they were met by John Otremba from Pierz township in Morrison county.  They went along with Mr Otremba with his ox team hitched to a wagon at Pierz.

Before the Rausch family came to Pierz, Mr Otremba arranged to have a farm for them to settle on.  This place is now owned by Julius Marshik of Pierz township.

After living on this farm for several years, Mr and Mrs August Rausch moved to Pierz village and sold their farm place to Wenzel Marshik, Julius Marshiks father, and it was afterward bought by his son, Julius.  After living in Pierz village for only a short time, Mr Rausch died in 1879.  One day he came home from St Cloud with his friend, John Otremba, and as he was almost frozen from the long trip of almost 30 miles by oxen, he went in his house by the stove to warm up and he suddenly fell over and was dead.

John was married and lived in Little Rock, Arkansas.  August Rausch was ordained priest in Cleveland, Ohio and had a parish in Franklin, Nebraska where he resided all of his life.  Mary Rausch was married in Germany to Florian Meyer at the age of 16 years and also came to the United States and settled in Pierz township, two miles north of Buckman village.  Hedwig Rausch was married in Germany to a baker by the name of Weiss, and Veronica Rausch was married in Germany to a blacksmith by the name of Robert Harnish and came to settle here in Pierz township.These were the brothers and sisters of Louisa.

Louisa Rausch came across with her parents and was married to Mike Sand who lived as one of the pioneer settlers of Buckman township.

Mike Sand and his wife, Louisa, soon became well known settlers in Buckman township.

We found the family arriving in Baltimore in January 1876.  August and Veronica appeared in Pierz township in 1880 and 1885, so "several years" in Arkansas was 3 or 4.  We've found various spellings for Veronica's surname: Simofhen and Simpfhen are only two of them...but we'll need to go back to the Kattowice (Poland) directories to find the correct name.
  

It turns out that Otrembas,  Hortschs, Rauschs,  Meyers, Schmolkes,  Mischkes and Kleins all came from the same part of Falkenburg, Schleisen (present day Poland, near Opole).  I imagine the connection between August Rausch and John Otremba was from their childhoods in the old country.

August (Augustine) Rausch is buried in St Joseph's Cemetery in Pierz, Minnesota,  but he died in Nov 1885, not 1879.   Probably Veronica is buried there, too.

John Rausch was still in Arkansas in the 1900 census.  Most likely he and Anna spent the rest of their lives there.

We did a post about Louisa and her brother August in May 2009.

Did Hedwig stay in Germany after she married Mr Weiss?  We don't know, but it'd be cool to find out.

Another mystery is Veronica & Robert Harnisch.  They're in the 1880 census in Pierz, with 3 children: August, Martha and Joseph.  More than that, we don't know yet.

An interesting connection, tho, is Mary Rausch, who was married in Germany to Florian Meyer at the age of 16 years, and also came to the United States and settled in Pierz township, two miles north of Buckman village.  

Of course we looked for Florian Meyer, who was indexed in only the 1875 Census, as Flora. M., but with a son named Florian, and a wife named Maria (Rausch, I assume).  They also had a son called William, or Billy.
This Billy later married Anna Otremba.  But, how did Billy and Anna come to our attention?  Because of THIS PHOTO, and now we've come full circle.  When we figured out who those people had to be, in a family photo from 1925, I recognized the name "Billy Meyer" but only from having heard it among relatives.  I assumed he was related because his wife was an Otremba, but now we know he was connected thru the Rausch side as well.
(Oh, and look at the name of the WPA worker who recorded the bio.  I'd bet most of the interview was done in German, Gramma talking to her cousin).


Knowing all that is just NEAT. ☺