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 ☺