Math Hesch in the news again, sorta...

 St Michaels Church Bazaar in Buckman, Mn is held every summer on or close to the feast day of St Michael the Archangel (August 29th) and it's a really fun event.
The bazaar is a homecoming day for friends and relatives who've moved away or lost touch somehow.  This year was no different--and it made the Little Falls newspaper again, too.  
If you've been keeping tabs on the blog, you'll remember Paul Vincent Doyle, the adopted son of our widowed great grandma Mary (Otremba) Hesch.  Paul Vincent and his wife Aila had one child, a son they named Kenneth. And Kenneth had one son--another Paul 😊 who lives in the cities but didn't know about any of this--woohoo!  Finding Hesch History online was pretty amazing, and "young" Paul determined to make connections.  Here's the Little Falls Record story about it--recognize anybody else?

New Paul Vincent Doyle stories

Paul at 10 in 1916

 A delightful email came early this week from a woman (Ann) who'd been reading "Orphan Train", a novel by Christina Baker Klein.  Because of the book, she remembered her elderly former neighbor who'd said he was an orphan.  She googled "Paul Doyle"...and found HH, with posts mentioning him.  Wow--and now, thanks to Ann, we know much more about Paul Doyle. ☺

Ann said he was a joker, and so, when he told stories about his youth, people in the neighborhood never knew if they could believe him.  He said he ran away from the farm when he was 16 because he had to work too hard.  He thought 'Hesch' sounded Jewish, so he picked a name that he liked better, thinking he'd have a better chance at jobs that way. Certainly, he didn't realize that 'Doyle' sounded Irish...plenty of prejudice there, too.  Ann said she thought he headed for Chicago when he left Buckman.  It was 1922, mid-Prohibition. 
  
So, Paul was called Paul Hesch as a child, and when he eventually returned to Buckman with a new name, they used it.  For sure, "Paul Vincent Doyle" distinguished him from the other Pauls in the family, and it sounded sorta elegant, too, so it stuck.

Ann said, "he prided himself on keeping in shape. He showed us the exercises he did everyday in his 90's. He wanted to show us how he could stand on his head, but I said "No!" He'd shovel snow all during storms. Sometimes he'd wear 2 different shoes, loved his same old chair. He kept a shot gun by the door to scare off solicitors, but I think it was more talk than anything else. Said he kept his blood pressure down by letting his nose bleed...he took no medicines. He was a favorite in our neighborhood...."  Isn't this wonderful?

She said Paul really loved his wife Aila, and that he talked about her all the time; he said she could make bread on the stove without an oven, which even now seems like a good skill.  They had one son, Kenneth, and a grandson who gave the eulogy at Paul's funeral.
Paul had dementia later, and could never remember Ann's name, but he must have known he was welcome there as he visited often. She forwarded our emails to the other neighbors to see if they have any other stories about him. I'll post em if they do...

Paul V. Doyle, age 97, of Mpls. Born in New York City on August 12, 1906. Life-long member of the Teamsters Union. Preceded in death by his wife, Aila in 1981. Survived by son, Kenneth Doyle & his wife Carol; grandson, Paul A. (Kimberly) Doyle and granddaughter, Diane C. (Leonard) Berg; great- grandchildren, Patrick and Hannah Doyle; as well as other relatives and friends. Service Thursday, 7:30 PM at the Morris Nilsen Chapel, 6527 Portland Ave S. Visitation Thursday from 5:30 PM until the time of service. Interment Friday, 10 AM at Oak Hill Cemetery. The family would like to thank the staff at Bloomington Health Care and to all of Paul's neighbors and friends for all of their care and concern shown to him. Morris Nilsen Chapel.

THANK YOU SO MUCH, ANN!

The Orphan Trains

This week, we heard from dad's first cousin Laura, who, along with New Years greetings ☺, was wondering about the kids adopted by Paul & Mary Hesch, namely, Lucy and Paul. We know they came from New York City on the orphan trains.  
There's quite a bit about Lucy here already (type "Lucy" in the search box, top left) and some about Paul Vincent Doyle (type "Vincent" this time).  Hmm...we have very little about him, probably because he seemed less "family" than Lucy does.  I mean, we don't even know her birth name, while PVD was allowed to keep and use his birth name all his life.  He arrived in Minnesota as a baby, so he couldn't have had much say in the deal. Was keeping his name a qualification for his adoption, maybe? In fact, did he ever use Hesch as a last name? (We learned later that Paul changed his own name as a young man.  He thought Hesch sounded Jewish so looking for jobs would be harder.  He kept Paul, but added his birth name, "Vincent Doyle" ☺.  Evidently, he was Paul Hesch up until that time).
For the record, there were two more orphan train kids in the family: George and Henry Godfrey, brothers who were adopted by our grandparents AA and Lizzy Hesch before dad was born.  We know even less about them. Henry left the farm as soon as he was of age according to dad.  George was still on the 1930 census with the Heschs (at 26), but that's the last we know of him.

As Larry and I talked about it last night, we realized, as much as we've perused the PJ and the LFH, we'd never seen anything in the newspapers about the trains or about adoptions--no announcements about anyone going to St Cloud to pick up kids, or about new family members in town.  And, how did families find out about the possibility, if not the newspapers?

Once we started using "New York Foundling Hospital" and "New York Children's Aid Society" as search words, a few ads showed up.  First, this from Ancestry.com:

"Between 1853 and 1929, an estimated 200,000 poor, abandoned and orphaned children were shipped from New York City orphanages to western families for adoption. These children were placed primarily by the New York Foundling Hospital (NYFH) and the Children's Aid Society (CAS) and are now referred to as "Orphan Train Riders." Information as to the identities of a large number of these children has been preserved in federal and state censuses taken between 1855 and 1925, as well as in the 1890 New York City police census, and represents a potential boon to the descendants of these foundlings".

The Foundling Hospital was a Catholic institution, so the trains must have been announced in the churches, which also explains the tone of this article from the Willmar Tribune on April 27, 1910.  "What Happens to Unwelcome Babies".  
More than likely, the parishioners' sympathy and empathy was invoked...because most everyone believed that those children were the product of sin.  If you knew the strange reasoning behind the theory of 'original sin', then it didn't even need to be spoken.  Besides, people knew that this whole project was somehow underhanded.  The kids had no choice, and neither did their parents or relatives...and yet, what better solution was there?  Everyone knew that some of the kids would land in bad homes, used as servants or worse, but it couldn't be helped.  This was much better than the slums of a heartless city. 

Here's Paul's obit (May 16, 2004), and Lucy's wedding write up (October 1919), with thanks to Larry ☺




 Paul V. Doyle, age 97, of Mpls. Born in New York City on August 12, 1906. Life-long member of the Teamsters Union. Preceded in death by his wife, Aila in 1981. Survived by son, Kenneth Doyle & his wife Carol; grandson, Paul A. (Kimberly) Doyle and granddaughter, Diane C. (Leonard) Berg; great- grandchildren, Patrick and Hannah Doyle; as well as other relatives and friends. Service Thursday, 7:30 PM at the Morris Nilsen Chapel, 6527 Portland Ave S. Visitation Thursday from 5:30 PM until the time of service. Interment Friday, 10 AM at Oak Hill Cemetery. The family would like to thank the staff at Bloomington Health Care and to all of Paul's neighbors and friends for all of their care and concern shown to him. Morris Nilsen Chapel.