Why they left Europe

Every weekday morning, I get an e-mail from Delancyplace.com. It's a daily excerpt from a book or article about something interesting.
This morning, there was an explaination of WHY so many people left Europe after 1840 (exactly when our Jansons left):

In today's excerpt - beginning in 1840, the largest human migration in history
brought over 30 million immigrants to America, and by the time this migration
was interrupted in 1914 by World War I, America stood as the most prosperous
nation on earth:"The reasons for the largest human migration in history had been
long in coming."

One of the main factors was the enormous increase in
the European population that took place in less than a century - from 140
million people in 1750 to 250 million in the 1840s. As the numbers
increased, peasant families were constricted into increasingly smaller plots of
land by powerful landlords who were anxious to reap profits by creating larger
farms to feed the growing cities. Soon alarming numbers of peasants found
themselves unable to subsist.

They were joined in their plight by legions of artisans whose special skills - passed on from father to son and mother to daughter for generations - had earned them both a livelihood and a respected place in society. Now, however, scores of the goods they had so expertly handcrafted were being produced by the machinery of the Industrial Revolution. Thousands of' these artisans found themselves out of work, forced to move to the cities and work in factories, where low wages, drudgery, and the loss of their personal independence resulted in a sadly diminished quality of life. [Joseph Janson was a weaver, and John was a 'schreiner', or cabinetmaker].

"Devastating as they were, none of these problems compared to the series of famines that, beginning in the 1840s, descended upon various European nations. Nowhere was the situation more desperate than in Ireland where, in 1845, a fungus destroyed the potato crop, the single food staple upon which the poorer classes of the country depended for survival. By the time the disease began to abate in 1849, more than a million Irish men, women, and children had starved to death. ...

"It was not only in Ireland that famine struck. ... A quote from the archives of the Iowa State Historical Society by a Polish youngster put it more personally: 'We lived
through a famine,' he explained, '[so] we came to America. Mother said she
wanted to see a loaf of bread on the table and then she was ready to die.'

"There were other important reasons for the mass exodus as well. Despite
the notions of liberty and equality that both the American and French
revolutions had spawned, oppressive governments in countries such as Russia,
Germany and Turkey had denied freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or other
rights and had brutally put down rebellions aimed at bringing about reform.

In Russia and Poland, massacres called pogroms erupted. Designed to
eliminate minority groups who lived within their borders - particularly Jews -
some of these pogroms were carried out by the governments of these two
countries; others were unofficially endorsed by them....

"They came in waves; ... more than five million of them arrived between 1840 and 1880, an influx slightly greater than the entire population of the United States in 1790. Most emigrated from northern and western Europe - Scandinavians who settled in the American Midwest; Germans who established enclaves in New York, Baltimore, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Milwaukee; and British and Irish who poured into Boston, New York, and other northeastern communities.

"Beginning in 1880 a great shift occurred when an even larger flood of newcomers came from eastern, central, and southern Europe - Russians, Poles, Austro-Hungarians, Greeks, Ukrainians, and Italians.
In 1880 less than twenty percent of the 250,000 Jews living in New York had come from Eastern Europe. In the next forty years the number grew to 1,400,000. That was one-fourth of the city's entire population.
In the first quarter of the 1900s, more than two million Italians arrived. By the time the human tide was interrupted in 1914 by World War I, some thirty-three million people had fled their native lands, risking all to start life anew across the ocean.

"Martin W. Sandler, Atlantic Ocean,
Sterling, Copyright 2008 by Martin W. Sandler, pp. 356-364.

The first school in Buckman

This was the first St Michaels School, class of 1887-88. Larry found it on a site called Minnesota Reflections, and I believe it stood where Zenner's Store was later (across the road, north of the present church). Click the pictures to enlarge.

TG for photo editing software so we can see the students close up: Anton Janson would have been 7 years old in 1887, and Eugene would have been 9.

I think #19 is Anton, and # 22 is his brother, Eugene.

I'd really love to identify all the kids in the picture. The youngest would have been listed in the 1885 census as 4 and 5 years old, the oldest as 11-12, probably. In other words, kids born between 1872 and 1882.

Jansons & Fuchs from Balzfeld and Dielheim, Germany

#1 below is a map of Germany as it is today. The arrow points to the "state" of Baden-Wurttemberg, which is larger in #2...and #3 is the part where our folks came from in 1883: Rhine-Neckar Kreis.
If you've looked for Jansons online, the "where" part is often confusing. Some webpages connect Balzfeld/Horrenberg with Heidelberg, some with Neckar Kreis, some just with Baden, or Baden-Baden.

According to My German City, the town of Heidelberg is a separate governmental unit, tho it may not have been back then. Balzfeld is just down the road from Horrenberg and Dielheim.

SO, I'd say the 1882 place-of-origin would be Balzfeld, Heidelberg, Germany, but the current place of origin would read:

Balzfeld, Rhine-Neckar Kreis, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, Europe, the earth, the solar system, the mind of God...

Little Grandpa

My dad's father (Anton Hesch) was a tall substantial man, probably about 6 feet and 250 pounds, while my mom's father, (Anton Janson) was about 5'7" and thin. He might have weighed 150 pounds...so, in our family, we had a "Big Grandpa", and a "Little Grandpa".

All his life, Little Grandpa wanted to be stronger and healthier than he was. He had poor eyesight, and felt he'd spent his formative years working too hard for "proper development" of his body. When he married, at 33, he was still looking for something that would help make him more fit.

Then, he discovered Physical Culture Magazine by a man named Bernarr MacFadden, who was evangelical about exercise and health food. Grandpa Janson felt that he'd missed getting an education as a child, so he was a 'seeker' as an adult. MacFadden was only one of Grandpa's guiding lights, but mom remembered taking "healthy" brown bread to school and being vegetarian when nobody knew what that was. She hated it.

Still, have a look at an issue or two of those Physical Culture Magazines. They're fascinating--the articles and ads are SO early 1900s America.

Wendelin Janson 1871-1958

There are a few cool family stories about this great uncle--for one, that he sent ten $100 bills in a plain manilla envelope to mom and dad as a wedding gift. No note inside and NO insurance--just a cascade of money for the newlyweds. In 1946, it was a HUGE gift, too.


Wendelin was the oldest of eight children, and lived most of his adult life in Los Angeles, working for the railroad. His address was 743 Casonova Street, which was in a canyon, apparently (now, it's a freeway off-ramp). Uncle Reinhard said there were caves in his backyard, and that Wendelin had been filling them with kitchen cupboards....all shapes and sizes, stacked high. He bought them from demolition sites and auctions....there ARE worse things than a cupboard fetish, ya know.
Larry found Wendelin Janson on Ancestry.com as having served in the Spanish-American War.
I was amazed. Why was this not a family story?

What we pieced together from various sources (including a book called "Minnesota in the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection" and Grandpa Anton's WPA biography) is a truly interesting story:

On April 20th, 1895, Wendelin enlisted in the Third United States Infantry at Fort Snelling in St Paul, Mn. He signed up for 3 years. He was 24.
Here's the first listing we found. It says he re-enlisted in 1899, but that he deserted after 3 months. By then, he was 29.

Evidently, he was part of a peace time contingent and probably served at Ft Snelling during his entire first three years. But as the problem with Spain was heating up, the Third Infantry was called and mustered out. They left for Georgia and then Cuba on the very day Wendelin was honorably discharged--April 19th, 1898. We assume he felt left out, or left behind...but the war lasted only 4 months, and his former comrads were back home by late August, 1898.

They were on a month's furlough which was interrupted by Indian problems at Leech Lake in northern Minnesota. Just back from fighting in the tropics, they were sent to Walker and Bemidji in October. Wendelin probably felt either lucky, relieved, or jealous--we don't know.

We assume, too, that there was some incentive to re-enlist, and it sounds like the men assigned to Fort Snelling before the war were a close knit group. So, Wendelin re-upped for another three years, in May, 1899.

BUT, just at that time, his parents were thinking about farming someplace warmer, that was more like southern Germany. Somehow, they settled on Hampden, Virginia. Grandpa said elsewhere that he, one brother and three sisters moved with their parents, but here's the 1900 census page from Prince Edward County, Virginia: It occurred to Larry that that one brother was likely Wendelin, and they may have moved right then to protect the deserter....?
It's still a mystery.
:::
Addendum: A couple days after this post, Larry found a "Vendelin Janson", 27, farmer and American citizen from Minnesota, returning from Europe in August of 1898.

So that's what he did once he was discharged after his first tour. Wow.

 Added in October, 2015: To answer a question we've had for years--how come there was no death certificate for Wendelin in California records?  Then TAA-DAA, this week, Larry cast a wider online net and found that Wendelin Janson died in Chicago, at the home of his widowed sister, Francie, who I believe lived with her daughter Florence Brandl. No wonder! 

 We really owe Larry, big time ☺

St Michaels Church in Buckman, Mn

Evidently, the Janson family helped build the church in Buckman, as did most of the Catholic pioneers in the parish.
This is from the book Grandpa Anton Janson wrote in 1947...a few pages later, he said, "I contributed close to the thousand dollar mark towards Buckman's new church building group (and) furnished the plan and originated the landscaping of the cemetery to perpetuate the memory of our departed loved ones." (This would be the second church building, the one that still stands).
If you'd like a look at St Michaels, there's a blog called The Steeplechase, where there are wonderful pictures of the church, and of St Josephs in Pierz, too.

Where IS Horrenburg?

Thanks to Google, here're a couple of maps of the JANSON and FUCHS home territory.
The red marker, left, is the Balzfeld/Horrenburg area.

Larry found a website this morning called Auswanderung aus Sudwestdeutschland (Emigration from Southwest Germany) and with the search engine there, we found 49 Jansons who left between 1852 and 1883 (altho many names are duplicates).
There seemed to be a "first wave" in 1852-54 and a "second wave" in 1883. Wonder what made some Jansons wait 30 more years before leaving?
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There's a family story that our two Janson families left the district of Horrenberg clandestinely, by taking row boats at night and floating down the Rhine to the port of Amsterdam. Between the families there were 10 kids, three of them under 3 years old.
Nine of the 10 were boys, and the oldest, Wendelin, was 11.
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The Rhine River begins in the Alps and flows north. (Growing up near the Mississippi, it's tough to imagine that). Balzfeld and Horrenburg are just below and a little east of Mannheim.

Imagine what fantastic impressions Wendelin had from that trip....and how he'd naturally compare the new land in Virginia* and Minnesota to where he was born.

Nine years after arriving in America, Wendelin enlisted in the cavalry and fought in the Spanish-American War. Larry found his enlistment record online, but we don't know if he was assigned to Cuba, or the Phillipines, a half-world away. He spent most of his life in California, so we assume the latter.

*Oh, the reference to Virginia? Evidentally, the Jansons may have tried Virginia first to have land most like home, or they bought land there later--the whole family is listed in the 1900 census in Hampden, Prince Edward Co, Virginia. Grandpa said later, in his book, that the area was still so economically affected by the Civil War that they gave up, and went back to Minnesota.

WPA Writers Project biographies

I was about to list Anton Janson, his sibs and parents, but remembered that he gave a pioneer history for the Writers' Project in 1937, and so did his second cousin Joseph, about his parents' family.

(I'll publish the whole bio in a separate post...this is just the list).

click to enlarge

This Joseph Janson's bio was two pages. He was the son of Johan Janson the immigrant who arrived here with Anton's parents, so his bio pertains, too, just in a different way:

Janson & Brandl kids

The photo (top right) was probably taken about 1920, in the front yard of the Joe Brandl house in Buckman, Minnesota. It was the house that's kitty corner from the church, but now, the porch is gone (removed when the road in front was widened for the highway). Mom pointed it out as the house where her grandma Janson died, in the main floor corner bedroom.


In trying to determine who the kids in this picture are, we needed to look at the family tree and see who was born between Adella Brandl and Leo Brandl. (Two of Anton Janson's sisters--Frances and Rose--married Brandls--John and Joe). Judging by moms' apparent age here, and by Leo, the baby, it had to be Spring, 1921.

My best guess: Standing are Adella, 13--Ed, 11--Ervin, 6--Charlie, 8--Franziska (Fuchs) Janson--then mom, 6--Leona, 5--and Loretta, 4.
The baby had to be Leo Brandl (born Jan, 1920). The only other kids in those familys who were around 4 years old were Marion and Alfred. (However, I'm pretty positive about MOST of the names).

(If you happen to know I've mistaken someone here, please, let me know in the comments).

How far was it?

See Dyersville, west of Dubuque? That's the area our Nabers came from.

And see Davenport, at the bottom? That was where William and Katherine (Naber) Bahns started their family.

Larry found the city directory for Davenport, Iowa from 1890-91, which showed a few BAHNS, including a Wm Bahns. In one entry, he worked for the Black Hawk Brick Company as a laborer, and in the "Musical Organizations" listing, he was the leader of the Germania Band.

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Could it be that Pierz needed a band leader, and that he applied for and got the job? Since we don't know why the Nabers moved to Morrison County, I'm just speculating, but it's possible. Perhaps Gerhard coincidently purchased the Buckman farm before he died?

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Here's a map that shows how far Pierz is from Davenport. They would have taken a riverboat up to St Paul, probably, then the train.

By 1908, Wm was 39, and Katherine was 28. Her mom was 62, and her sibs were 32, 30, 26 and 24, all unmarried. Maybe they saw Minnesota as a fresh start, huh?

Sure, Buckman's nice, but...

Another mystery about Elizabeth Naber is why she and 5 of her children moved from Petersburg, Iowa to Buckman, Minnesota.

We discovered that her daughter Katherine (grandma's sister) married William Bahns in Iowa in 1902. By the 1910 census, they were in Pierz. Were they the impetus for her mom and sibs moving too? Or, was Buckman "as good as anywhere"?

Larry found documents indicating Gerhard Naber had been land-speculating in Minnesota in the 1880s, but we don't know where or IF he bought acerage, tho that could be a reason his widow moved. The farm in Petersburg was large, with good soil, but might have been too much. Elizabeth was 45 when Gerhard died (at 62) in 1891. By the time they moved she was around 60. It's hard to imagine that farm SW of Buckman as a cushy retirement home....

But it's obvious Elizabeth Naber had money when she arrived. When her daughter Margaret married Anton Janson, they were able to pay the back taxes on his farm because of Margarets' generous dowery:
$9,600.00 from 1910 is worth $224,420.07 in 2008 dollars....from MEASURING WORTH online.

Margaret Naber Janson 1882-1945

One of the major mysteries we've come across in researching Jansons is my mother's mom, Margaret Naber. She was born in Petersburg, Delaware County, Iowa in February, 1882. Her parents were Gerhard (John) Naber and Elizabeth ___. According to her Minnesota Death Certificate, Elizabeth was a Schlichting.

No problem, right? It's there, on the Certificate. BUT, in that part of Iowa at the time, there were no Schilchtings, only Schlichtes...(say the names out loud, they sound almost the same). A logical mistake on the part of the undertaker or Doc here in Minnesota.

What difference does it make? Well, from what we can find out, Gerhard Naber married Elizabeth Rupiper on the 5th of April, 1861.
So, who was Elizabeth Schlichting/Schlichte?
We're pretty sure Gerhard was married twice, and that both Elizabeths had children with him.

The first family was Herman, Bernard, Henry, and Mary (listed in the 1870 census), and in 1880, Anna is added, at 10 years old....plus Elizabeth, John and Katherine.

So? Couldn't this simply be the same Elizabeth? Yes, it could, except for three things: There's an "Elizabeth Naber" in the Petersburg Cemetery who died in 1870... there's mom's claim that her grandma had 4 children: John, Catherine, Gerhard and Margaret....and there's the 1925 Special Census from Iowa: (This is Mary, from the first family, who became Sr Raphael. Her mother was Elizabeth Rupiper).
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Now, here's the Death Certificate of Elizabeth Naber, widow of Gerhardt Naber. She and five grown children moved to Minnesota sometime after 1900 but before 1910.

When Elizabeth died, Grandpa Anton, her son-in-law, gave this information to the undertaker. He could very well have been wrong, or else, we're dealing with a THIRD Elizabeth?

Still, we've tried to researched "Bernard Richls"
or "Richle"....and haven't found anything.

It's an interesting puzzle.

Anton Janson-1880 to 1955

When my mom passed away in 1996, I had the responsibility of disposing of her stuff, so a lot of "memorabilia" got stored in my basement, where it still languishes. I would deny that I'm sentimental, but the evidence shows otherwise...

Still, I'm amazed at what cool stuff I kept (let's face it--I kept it ALL). A copy of the Pierz Journal from Thursday, January 27th, 1955 had grandpa's obit on the front page.

There's a pretty neat story that goes with it: At the time, when a person died far from home, the authorities would not send a body home un-accompanied. It was the family's responsibility to go there and claim it, and take it home.
No one here in Minnesota could afford such a journey. Mom with young kids, and Uncle Reinhard on the farm--neither had extra funds...
But Helen Hesch lived in California and volunteered to pose as his married daughter (the reason her last name was different than his) and go claim the body AND accompany it home to Buckman.
After that, Helen became a saint in our household.

About 1935

This is my Grandpa Anton Janson and his three children--Loretta, Reinhard and Orlinda.
The original photo was a 1" by 2" print on tin, probably taken at a carnival*. Loretta looks to be about 15, and Reinhard looks about 12, so Orlinda (mom) would be 20...and Grandpa was 55.

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

*I didn't realize there was a dog in the photo till Larry pointed it out--see? Mom's sitting on it. (My attempt at photoshopping Fido's eyes back in were pathetic--it made the thing look like a canine Marty Feldman).

Starting with "What we know"

About 5 years ago, maybe longer, I did some on-line inquiring about Joseph and Franziska (Fuchs) Janson, and got a reply from a man named August Gruelich, in California. He'd been researching the family for years. Our 'common ancestor' was through my Grandmother, Franziska Fuchs, and the connection was two or three generations back.
He eventually sent me the family tree gleaned from church records and a family record book he has access to.
I thought it was cool, and filed it away.

About that same time, I became online friends with Larry in Georgia, who's turned out to be a highly skilled researcher, and a genealogy nut to boot! When we started talking "family"--OMG--he kept finding articles, photos and related trees online, and asking me if they pertained! Some, I recognized. Some connected with both sides of my family thru the village of Buckman, Minnesota....only a few didn't connect at all.

Sheesh. When he sent me a copy of FamilyTreeMaker for my birthday, what could I do? Ever since, we've been doggedly looking for Nabers, Fuchs and Jansons while searching for dad's family, too....lol
There's more and more online these days--original American and European records, maps, and scholarly articles--about our forebearers lives in general. It's possible now to better understand their mindsets and the living conditions they left behind...and what they were looking for, here. It's a fascinating story.

My grandfather, Anton Janson, was a year old when he, his parents and siblings emmigrated. He was their 5th child ( 3 more were born here). One family story was that Joseph and his cousin, John, and HIS family, left Balzfeld and Horrenburg, Germany, at night, by row boat, floating down the river to Amsterdam, where they boarded a ship to America. And that Wendelin was in charge of the chamber pot, ALL the way....

There are more stories that need checking out, too. That's what this is all about!