More forgotten pics

Cleaning out a drawer yesterday, I found a stash of photos--some you've seen already, but here are a few I haven't posted.  This one, if the 3rd kid is Loretta Janson, had to be about 1919.  I think the boys are brothers Ed and Charlie Brandl...who were sons of Frances Janson and John Brandl.  Theres a machine shed in the background, so I expect this was a day on the farm with one family visiting another.

Fast foreward 60 years, and we have these:

I think this was Adella & Killian Zenner's dining room--it had to be before 1983--that's when Fr Leo died, and both these women died in 1985.  (I'm not positive the near one is Frances, but it probably is).

(Ok, I'm not positive it's Zenners dining room either!)  Rose was Leo's mother, and she was his housekeeper for the last years of their lives, after Joe Brandl died in 1950.

Ah, it's nice to see those faces again, the way I knew them.

The Janson home farm in the '40s

Once again, searching newspapers gives us a part of the story: Larry found this in the Brainerd newspaper in

August, 1946...

At the time, grandpa Anton Janson was 66. His wife Margaret Naber Janson had died 15 months earlier, in April 1945.

Their daughter, Linda, was about to be married on September 28th, and their son, Reinhard, enlisted in the Army on 15 October 1946. 

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The Brainerd Dispatch carried news from a large area, and still does.  I'm not sure what "accepted" meant in this article from October 1946...were these men already AT Ft. Snelling?
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We're trying to put together a timeline regarding who owned what, when.  I was born on that farm in 1949, so my parents were living there...but didn't Reinhard own the farm?  Well no....

Here's what we've figured out:

1946--Anton decides to retire because Linda is getting married, and Reinhard isn't ready to settle down yet.  Was the auction a ruse?  Or, was everything sold--animals, machinery and household items?  By the end of 1946, Anton had a new son-in-law who intended to farm and a son who was off in the service...
1947--Anton writes a pamphlet about his experiences as a pioneer, and Linda has a baby girl. 
1948--Reinhard is home from Japan, and marries on June 26.  They set up housekeeping on a farm in Mayhew Lake, Mn, and live there for more than a year.
1949--Linda has another daughter--ahem--ME.
1950 or so--the two couples exchange farms, and Linda takes Anton's desk with all of the family pictures.  (Reinhards kids grew up thinking their dad was never photographed as a kid).
1951--Linda has a third daughter, on the Mayhew Lake farm.  The farm there is poor, mostly sand, and a bad investment.  They move to St Cloud, where Mike takes advantage of the GI Bill, and starts working for the VA.
1952--Reinhard's first son is born, on the family farm in Buckman.  Life isn't easy for them either.  Anton travels between the farm, St Cloud, and Los Angeles, California...making the circuit continuously.
1953--Linda has a fourth daughter and Reinhard has a second son...lol
1955--Anton has a heart attack in LA and dies.  He's buried in Buckman, Minnesota.
1956--Linda has a son, and so does Reinhard.
1958--Another son for Reinhard...
1966--and another!  Yay!

My grandma's glasses

A photo of  mom's mom in her garden on the farm, most likely in the 40's.  I have 5-6 pictures of her, none of them smiling.  Too bad, cuz I suspect that's where mom got her beautiful teeth.

 

Looking thru mom's "Janson Memorabilia" box, I found an envelope marked "My mothers' glasses".

It's sad we know so little about her, but holding her glasses in my hand makes her a bit more real.  I put them on, and found that my face is wider than hers was, and the ear pieces are tough to hook over my ears. I suppose if I had to wear them, I wouldn't smile, either.

It's interesting that the lenses attach to the frame only at the nose, and theres a tiny bit of 'grandma schmutz' still on the glass right there, 64 years later.

Pictures of Anton Janson

Grandpa Janson died when I was 5 years old. I was very fond of him, partly because he brought me dried apricots "straight from California" and let me try them while I perched on his lap, and partly because he would just show up at our house while we were eating breakfast.  I vividly remember looking up from my cheerios and shouting, "Grandpa's here!"

Most of my 'memories' of him, tho, are through pictures I looked at as a kid.  Mom inherited his desk, and the bottom right-hand drawer was full of photos he kept over the years.  We were told to "leave them alone", but that only made me more interested. 

Now that I have many of those pictures on the computer, it's easy to share them with you. 

Grandpa and mom...in the 40s?

Mom and dad's wedding reception at the farm...with my Hesch grandparents, too.

Holding his first grandchild, on the farm in Buckman.

Ida and Walburg came for a visit...c 1948

A return visit when I was a year old...lol

Naber photos

Looking thru my computer picture files, I realized I DO have some ancestor photos, tho I have no idea where I got them.  Were they with the hand-drawn Naber tree I posted a few days ago?  Or, from something I found at the history museum?  ('Course, if I forgot  I HAD 'em, how likely am I to remember where they came from?)  The gentleman on the left is marked John Naber, from Oldenberg.

This one says "Bernard Naber Wedding", but there were at least 4 Bernards, all born in the 1860s, with different Naber fathers.  Evidently, they loved that name.  Still, I assume this is the son of Gerhard Naber and Elizabeth Rupipper.  Does anyone know what his wife's name was?  Our Bernard was born in 1864.

On the left, we have Henry Naber and Marion (Guck) Naber, possibly  on their wedding day?  They look a little long in the tooth to be newly-weds, but you never know.  Larry mentioned Marion Guck last night, and the name seemed new to both of us, which made me go look thru my files.  Thing is, when we find something related, we simply save it so it's there if we eventually figure out WHO it is.  Bingo!

This was Henry Naber as a young man...it certainly looks like the man above, huh? 








Oh, and did you know that Gerhard Naber had a son named Gerhard?  Here's his wedding photo:

Gerhard and Julia (Grittner) Naber, married c 1909 in Buckman, Minnesota.  They eventually moved to St Cloud, where he worked in the granite quarries.  They had 4 children: Pauline, John, Albin and Donald.

Herman & Anna Naber, c 1900

Bonnie sent this photo of Gerhard's son Herman and wife.  Cool, huh?

The kids are Katie and Lena, she said.  Larry thinks Herman looked like Hugh Jackman.

THANKS, Bonnie! :^)

** How Bonnie's connected

A bit of genealogical serendipity this morning:  just as I was puzzling over what Bonnie's relationship to me was, I opened this months' PasTimes, the newsletter from the St Cloud Area Genealogists.  There, thanks to Gretchen Leisen, was this relationship chart.   OK, since I'm Gerhard Naber's great grandaughter, I'd be the 4th block, top row.  Bonnie is his great grand niece, I think.  Then...hmmm....are we second half-cousins once removed?  Her grandma was a sister to Gerhard's son Herman's wife..... 

Oh well, we're in there somewhere!

 John Anton Brandl married Frances Janson c. 1906. John died in 1945 when he was 62.  Mom's Aunt Francie died at 99.  One of their children, Edward Joseph, married Mercedes Hiemenz, better known as Sadie.  They were married in 1936, and I believe this photo was taken in honor of their 50th Anniversary, in 1986.  Ed and Sadie Brandl had five children, one of whom inherited that JOHN name again.  To overcome this, he got into politics, and eventually became Representative John Brandl.

Here he is in 1978.  The picture is from a newsletter he sent to constituents in his district (61A), and mom had a copy somehow.  He was also teaching at the University of Minnesota..."courses in budgeting, tax policy and evaluating government programs". 

This article from 2007 mentions his date of death as the 18th of August.  On the 19th, he would have celebrated his 70th birthday.

More News of the NABER-hood

Yesterday, I heard from a relative named Bonnie**(see post on Nov 10), who has Gerhard Naber in common with us:  if you recall, Gerhard was married twice to women named Elizabeth.  Bonnie's descended from the first Elizabeth's family, and we're descended from the second.
The first batch was Herman, Bernard, Henry, and Mary Anna.  Henry was Ida & Walburga's dad....but Herman was Bonnie's connection, quote:

--Herman Naber was born Mar 6, 1861 New Vienna, Delaware Co, Iowa, and died Feb. 15, 1928 in Randolph, Cedar Co., Nebraska.  Herman Naber married Anna Trapp Feb 10, 1897 in St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Granville, Sioux Co, Iowa. They lived at or near Bancroft, Iowa, for about 7 years, then moved to Randolph, Nebraska.  Herman died from burns due to a house fire.  They lost their home and everything in the fire.  He's buried at St. Frances de Chantal Cemetery in Randolph.

--Herman's sister Mary Anna Naber was born Jan. 25, 1868 in Petersburg, Delaware Co, Iowa. She died April 7, 1945 in Granville, Sioux Co, Iowa, and is buried at St. Joseph Cemetery in Granville. She married John Schlichte May 26, 1891 in Petersburg, Iowa. They had 5 children: Katherine, Anna, Edward, Joseph, & Clara.

(Note--Mary Anna Naber Schlichte died on the 7th of April, and her half-sister Margaret Naber Janson died on the 11th of April, 1945--did Grandma know?)


 Anna Trapp, daughter of Mathias & Katherine (Thelen) Trapp, was born July 10, 1874 SW of Columbus, Polk Co, Nebraska. The Trapp family moved to Granville, Iowa about 1882. Anna died June 30, 1956 at Coleridge, Cedar Co, Nebraska and is buried at St. Frances de Chantal Cemetery in Randolph, Nebraska.

Herman and Anna had 6 children: Katherine, Helen (aka Lena), Henry, Leo, Clara, & Joseph. Only Lena & Clara married and each had 2 girls.

Bonnie's grandmother was a Trapp. She married and had 13 children, one of whom was Bonnie's mother....so THAT'S how she fits.
Thanks, Bonnie!

The problem of Johns and Josephs

Looking at Rootsweb, "an Ancestry.com Community", for JOSEPH BRANDL, I realized that some family researchers are confused by two Brandl men with similar given names who married Janson sisters.  Both couples lived in Buckman, at least for awhile...

John A Brandl (b 1883) married Frances Janson.  Their kids were Adella, Ed, Roman (or Charlie), Leona, Alfred and Florence.  ( Adella married Killian Zenner, Ed and his wife Sadie are familiar, and Charlie had the Ford garage in Buckman when I lived there.  Mom mentioned the others, but I don't have "faces" for them).

Here's John's WWI draft card, signed by his brother, the town clerk:

++++++++++++++++++

Joseph E Brandl (b 1891) married Rose Janson.  Their kids were Ervin, Marion, Leo, Armella, Bernard and Doris. (Ervin was postmaster in Buckman when I lived there, Leo became a priest, and Armella became Sr Mary Joyce, OSF).
Joe was the town clerk in 1917-1918 when all men of a certain age had to sign up for the draft (WWI).  Here's his own draft card, signed by himself:

Let's not even get into the confusion over cousins John and Joseph JANSON, the immigrants....

BRANDLs

Yesterday, Larry found this online:

No, this is not the John Brandl who married Frances Janson.  This John lived in St Paul, Minnesota, but look:  he was applying for a passport to go visit the village where he was born , Hagenfurth, Bohemia.  Larry found that John went back to Bohemia several times, and came home with people from there.

But wait!  Can an ethnic German be a 'Bohemian'?  Sure...

A little background:  The country of Bohemia was located mostly within the current boarders of the Czech Republic.  Sometime around 1500, Germans began moving to Bohemia, and German became the second official language there in 1627.  There was animosity between the native Czechs and the German settlers tho, so most of the separate German villages were around the edges of the country. Some of my Hesch relatives were among those settlers.  Many of them settled around Buckman, Minnesota.  The Czech government is currently digitizing the church books from all those tiny villages, starting with southern Bohemia, exactly where the Heschs and Brandls lived pre-1850, see?  (BTW, when we looked for the Hesch name near Neuhaus (Jindrichuv Hradec on the map), we saw the name BRANDL ocassionally too, so it wasn't only in Hagenfurth).

AND, this gives us a reason to look in the online church books provided HERE.  Click the "Littera Scripta manet" button, then "Parish Registers", then "Roman Catholic Church".  If you just want to see what the books look like, try any letter there, then any parish.  Try a B (births) book in the mid-1800s as they're a little more legible to us.
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Oh darn! we'll need to wait till they get to the "V" villages...they're doing the "R"s now.  Check back in...six months?

"Indulgence claimed"

If you scroll down to the post about Grandpa Anton's rosary and the medal that hangs where the crucifix usually is, you'll see that my sister and niece sort of translated the German inscriptions:  one side actually says

"Michael Erzengel , bitte für uns"  (Michael archangel, pray for us), and they came...close.

The other side of the medal , below, says a little more, which Larry and I figured out last night.

O Maria ohne Sünde empfangen, bitte für uns die wir zu Dir unsere Zuflucht nehmen

Translated, it says:

"Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us that we take to you our refuge"

It'd be re-worded on a medal in English, but we understand.  Now, WHO can claim the indulgence?

By the way, did you realize there are people who collect unusual rosaries?
Thanks, Larry!

Linda & Loretta Janson

When mom's cousin Ida Naber died at 93 (in 1995),  I inherited her photo album.  99% of the photos in it are un-marked--some, I recognize, most, I don't.  Argh. 

But these two, I definitely recognize.  I'm not sure I've ever seen mom's Solemn Communion picture before, but I've seen Loretta's and wasn't sure who she was...lol  It has to be her, tho, since mom always said my sister Kathy looked like Loretta.  I can see it, in her eyes, and the shape of her face.

That's Linda Janson (c. 1927) on the left, and Loretta Janson (c. 1929) on the right, daughters of Anton and Margaret (Naber) Janson.

Petersburg, Iowa

Two years ago, in January, I was traveling for a living, and ended up 60 miles from Delaware County, Iowa.  I couldn't resist!  I drove to Dyersville, got a plat map and directions from the police department, and went looking for where Margaret Naber came from.

Approaching from the north, you can see the church steeples for about 5 miles--the land is low rolling hills and what looked like streams in the valleys under the snow.  Here's the last mile or so....

On the left, behind the fence, is the cemetery where our great grandfather, Gerhard Naber, is buried.  I didn't go in cuz of the snow, and because most of the monuments looked old--I'd have spent hours, and messed up the serene look of the snow, too.  I went to the church, took a picture there, and turned around to get a pic of the cemetery:

Besides, Gerhard died in 1891.  How legible is a 116 year old tombstone?

A letter from Wendelin as Grandpa was dying

You know, we inherit the family dynamics we're dealt--we have no idea of the root causes for Wendelin's eccentricity or Anton's moodiness, but artifacts like this letter are puzzle pieces that help to form a bigger picture.

Still, Larry and I often debate the wisdom of including the "not so nice" stuff about the families here--but if we don't, isn't that a form of lying? 
This letter should remind us again that the ancestors weren't cardboard cutouts.  They were as real and as complex as we are.  They tried to do the right thing, just like we do...and they sometimes wrote letters that were full of anger and hurt.  Would we have done better under the circumstances?
 .
  Wed.   9PM      Jan 19 (1955)

Linda and Rinehart,

What I saw coming for a long time and tried to steer away from happened today.  Shortly after he got up this morning he said he felt a heart attack coming on, he kept getting weaker.  About noon I managed to get a phone call to Mr and Mrs Hale who lived here six years.  They live in Burbank 12 miles away and they came about 3PM.  A neighbor, Mrs Stassi and her brother also came.  After talking things over we put him in the Stassi car and took him to a nearby hospital, 4 of us went with him as he was not able to get in or out of the car.  The doctor gave him a shot and a prescription which we filled at the drug store, took him home, put him to bed and made him as comfortable as possible.  Mr and Mrs Hale stayed here till 6.  Mr Hale will come again in the morning, Mrs Stassi was here a few minutes ago.  She offered to come tomorrow and take him to the hospital if it becomes necessary which would be $15.00 $17.00 a day.  We will avoid that if we can.  He is feeling a little better right now.  I am sitting up with him and

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keep the fire going in the stove.  He said this Eve, he only felt that way once before when he was in Rochester--where life meant nothing to him anymore~.

What you and Rein can do and must do is to write him an encouraging letter, insist on him coming home as soon as he is able to travel, not just the old phrase wish you were here.  I paid all the hospital expenses this afternoon.

Now Linda and Rein, isn’t it criminal to let your dad 75 in that condition travel off 2000 miles away???  Right or wrong I blame you more than Rein for letting him get away from there.  All summer long I sent you warning after warning to keep him there.  Every word of it was completely ignored.  You seem to feel if he is 2000 miles away you are rid of the whole problem--you have plenty of room in the house.  If you don’t want him on the farm or in your house, let him rent a room in St Cloud or Little Falls, but stay in Minn. where he belongs and where

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he gets his money and other help from.  Back there the welfare board is ready to help him if necessary, out here he is on his own.  There is no telling if and when he is ready to travel, but you and Rein will have to do something REAL about it and do it now.

We cannot let this thing end up like Dan Janson ended up in Sacramento.  It would cost more than $1000 of somebodys money.  Haven’t I done enough for you folks???  13 years of steady work would not produce the money I have tied up in the family.  None of you would be in Buckman or St Cloud today without the help from here.  I’ll tell you again, we just can’t afford to let this end up like Dan Janson we just can’t.

Whenever I brought the conversation around to going Home, he said No Good--It’s up to you and Rein to change his mind about that.

We are extremely lucky if we can pull him through so he can go Home.  We are doing what we can here and are getting results.

   10 PM

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So much for tonight more news in the morning.

--Thursday Morning--

slight improvement

That was Wednesday the 19th, but here's the context, from the calendar that hung in mom's kitchen. Little grandpa left Minnesota on the 8th of January, and had a heart attack in San Francisco on the 13th. Mom said he was put off the train because he was ill, so he traveled to LA by bus. Grandpa died at Wendelin's house on Saturday, the 22nd of January, 1955.

Real Salt from Salt Lake City

A postcard from grandpa, from Salt Lake City, Utah.  What was he doing there? And, if he died in January, 1955, how come it's postmarked February 4? 
I think he only put 5 cents postage on it but the little bag of salt added weight.  The post office must have sent a notice to the address for more postage, and once it was paid, they added a stamp and another two postmarks, and finally sent it.  Sheesh.
The messy look of his writing makes me think he wasn't feeling well even then.  He must have borrowed a purple pencil, too, because his letters were always written with his prized gold fountain pen.
As to the question of what he was doing in Utah, he was simply taking the most direct route to California.

(Credit to the Sacramento Historical Society for the map)