MORE about the Naber Family--"Our New Mexico Nabers"

Paging thru Ida's photo album is frustrating because almost none of the pics are marked with who or when...but there are a few exceptions, like this one: (and even that has a fairly un-helpful caption!)

We saw this older man (middle) in other photos too--photos that were developed in San Antonio, Texas and New Mexico.  Hmm.  WHO were they, and WHY did Ida have pictures of them?  The grandpa there does look similar to Ida and Walburga's dad Henry, but no, it's not Henry---

But wait, remember the hand drawn NABER tree I found in mom's stuff?  It says that a few Nabers moved to New Mexico.  Taa-Daa! Larry and I think the wedding couple were Joseph Edward NABER and his new wife, Anna C. Roll, and that the man in the middle was Joe's father, John.

(BTW, most of this stunning research was accomplished yesterday by Larry!)

(Most likely, the other look-alike man in that wedding photo was Joe's brother Al--read on to see why we're sure it's them!)

 

This photo was also in Ida's album--certainly, some of the people are recognizable from the wedding photo, right?  The old man, and the couple, now a few years older, with what must be their daughter...but Hmm.  This is about 1933--why is Joe wearing headphones??  Who knew they were even invented then?  Like kids today,  he couldn't be bothered to remove his vintage iPod for the picture??

The answer is below, on Joseph's WWI draft card--check out what he wrote for #12:

WOW--it was an early hearing aid.

 

Even more proof is in these two newspaper clippings from the Albuquerque Journal in 1942:

  ................................................
The little girl is JoAnn or Joan, daughter of Joe and Anna, and the couple on the far left is probably Aloysius Naber and his wife or sister (I think she's the other woman from the wedding photo, too). 

Or, is it a photo of the whole family except brother Ben?  That would make the 3 unidentified women Frances, Cecilia and Elizabeth.

Now, I need to find other photos from the album with these people!

Was this really a 'hired girl'?

The first time I saw this photo, I asked mom who it was, and she said the little girls were "Loretta and me". Ok....then, who was the big girl?  She glanced at it again and said it was probably one of the 'hired girls' they had in those years. :::::  Now, all these years later, I think mom was wrong.  I recognize the barn with white trim as being in Nabers yard, in Bancroft.  I think the Jansons were there, visiting Henry, Ida and Walburga.  (Mom looks about 8 here, and Loretta, 6.  That would make the year 1923).

So, if the "big girl" was either Ida or Walburg, then we need to compare pictures:

Hmm! Between them, Ida was always the camera nut, so I think she took this picture of the kids with her sister Walburga--who was--wow--quite lovely, at 25!

Which one is OUR Gerhard Naber?

Here are two ships lists, both claiming NABERs arrived.  This first one was the Charlemagne, arriving in New Orleans in May, 1848.  Near the bottom is the B H Naber family: wife (H) ann M, and sons Theodore (25), John H (23) and John G (18).  They were from Salzburg and brought "eight chests clothing".  We're pretty sure "John G." is our Gerhard, because he he was born in April 1829, so would have been 18, as it says here.  We also have other evidence that gives creedence to their arrival in New Orleans, but I can't find it in my notes..sigh! 

Then, in August, 1851, another batch of NABERs arrived on the Stephani, this time in New York City.  Diedrich, Hermann, Margaretha, Heinrich and Gerhard.  They came from Oldenburg and were headed to 'Milwaukie'.  They were all between 15 and 25 years old.  Gerhard here, and John G above, were 18. But this Gerhard would have been born in 1833.  We do know there were Nabers in Wisconsin too, so this might have been that family.

Ok, it's obvious I started out with an answer to the Q posed in the headline.  This is just clarification...lol

Joe Janson, from New Munich

Wow, does this man look familiar, huh?  Here's his website: JOE JANSON. I'm tickled that he looks so much like my brother, Allan. He even sits like Allan... Joe has to be Dick and Pauline Janson's son.  Wanna guess who found Joe's webpage?

Allan

Thanks again, Larry...lol

The IGI (International Genealogical Index)

Jansons and Fuchs came from a town called Balzfeld, in the municipality of Deilheim, district of Rhein-Nekkar in Karlsrhue County, in the state of Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany...., and, they were Roman Catholic (RK).
HERE'S the LINK to the beginning of theGerman IGI; since I posted this, they've updated  and streamlined it.  If you use Chrome, it'll translate automatically (if you've set it that way).  If not, type Balzfeld in the "suchen" box.  You'll get a page with Balzfeld listed 4 times for different eras.  Click the blue links in the second last column for the lists of names.

These are church records from a Catholic town, so the lists includes pretty much every family who had a wedding or kids in those years.  It's fun to scroll thru them and see all the names you recognize from Buckman and central Minnesota, as well as from the Janson family tree--Epp, Ronellenfitch, Janson, Brentzinger, Froehlich, Greulich, Fuchs, Knopf-- families who lived there for generations, but who finally decided to leave for America, so we could have a better life, not to mention more choice of whom to marry.

A Mystery Photo

I've shown this photo to a few of the relatives, but nobody seems to know who the people are.  There's a woman behind the tractor who could be mom (?) and the woman driving it looks sorta familiar (a Dehler?), but I don't recognize the house or yard. 

They could easily be totally unrelated, like the family of one of mom's co-workers from Buzza in Minneapolis, and maybe the faces only seem familiar cuz I've looked at it so often....lol

Click it to enlarge, and see if YOU can figure it out, ok?  Opinions welcome!

A trip to Bancroft, Iowa

This was a negative I found in moms' stuff.  The poor quality is because I scanned it and then reversed the black & white.  It wasn't the best pic to begin with, but I recognize all of 'em, even mom's shadow there on the right, as she took the photo...lol
It's Reinhard Janson, Walburga and Ida Naber, Helen and Lawrence Cable, with Naber's chicken coop in the background.
I'm trying to figure out what year it probably was: it's cold enough to wear coats, but Ida and Walburg just dashed outside for the photo-op.  There are no leaves on the tree to the left and no leaves on the ground, so it's probably spring....Uncle Reinhard looks like he did in his U of M pics....I don't have a date when Helen Gertrude Bahns married Lawrence Anthony Cable, but this trip was probably to introduce Lawrence to the Naber sisters.  My best guess is April, 1942.  If I'm right, Helen was expecting little Lawrence, who was born in November that year.  She does look a little urppy....lol

Helen's mother was Katherine (Naber) Bahns, and Reinhard and Linda (mom)'s mother was Margaret (Naber) Janson. Katherine and Margaret's dad was Gerhard Naber, whose oldest  half-brother was Henry, the father of Ida and Walburga Naber...got it?

In 1860, this St Cloud building was where you went to register your land claim. 

I assume it covered more than just Stearns county.  I'm curious WHERE in St Cloud it was (probably near the courthouse) and WHO was standing outside that day:

Recognize anyone?

Charles Lindburgh

In the summer of 1927, mom was 12, her sister Loretta was 10 and brother Reinhard was 6.

  Charles Lindburgh, from Little Falls, Minnesota, had flown nonstop New York to Paris in 33 hours, 30 minutes on May 20th...a stunning feat.  Mom said her father took them to see Lindy come home to Little Falls--a hero's welcome, of course. 
I wondered when that was, since I grew up thinking Lindburgh arrived stateside and flew in triumph directly to Little Falls...lol  But no, here's his Spirit of St Louis LOG BOOK .
He made it to Little Falls on August 25th, 1927.
When mom talked about that day, she always mentioned that her dad insisted they go.  She was proud that he wanted them to think beyond Buckman.  That day may have been the first time mom believed it.

Taken in Little Falls 25 Aug 1927 (from the link above).

A video that combines some of my FAVORITE things:

THIS TOO SHALL PASS

LOL!!

Out, standing in a field...

Here are two photos I found among some negatives in mom's effects.  The man with the darker jacket is Grandpa Anton Janson, but who's the other man?  What we need is a Montana DMV listing of license plates from 1941.  WHY this isn't a priority for Montana I'll never understand...lol

Ok, a new feature here on JANSON: interesting tidbits about this part of Minnesota.

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Did you know that in 1915, there was such a thing as the Minnesota State Board of Immigration?

Neither did we.  Larry pointed out that, in 1915, WWI had already started in Europe, and that within 2 years, Minnesota would be seriously hassling German immigrants, once we entered the war.

Reading/skimming this 65 page booklet, we realized they were asking for people to immigrate from other states.  There are pages and pages of amazing corn, wheat, potato and alfalfa yields on farms owned by people with strangely non-ethnic names.

I think it was total CROPaganda...lol...but the drawings are pretty.  Take a look!

Center Valley Creamery, 1955

If you follow our OTHER FAMILY BLOG, you already know about Center Valley, Minnesota.  When we were researching what happened to the store in Center Valley, Larry found this article in the Winona paper 24 May 1955.

That item left Henry Marshik with "serious burns", but we assumed he recovered.  (My aunt Jeanette, who married my mom's brother, Reinhard, was a Marshik.  Her family lived east of Buckman, in the Center Valley vicinity). 

Tonight, Larry found this follow-up article from 8 June 1955, also in the Winona paper:

Margaretha Kauper Naber 1862-1915

This is Ida and Walburga Naber's mother, wife of Henry Naber, who was my grandmother Maggie's half brother.  They're our Bancroft, Iowa connection:

Again, thanks to Larry!

Grandpa and The Townsend Plan

Grandpa Anton Janson was born in Germany in 1880, and came to Buckman with his family when he was 3.  He was truly a pioneer.  He remembered clearing land, building farm buildings, and watching the town of Buckman grow.  He knew back-breaking labor, and the struggle to stay afloat when the economy changed over the years.

He spent 65 years thinking about--I want to say politics, but that's only part of it--he thought about how  government, and people, worked, saw all the amazing labor-saving inventions, and where they would lead.  He eventually believed that a day would come when nobody needed to do physical labor; that it'd all be done by machines...The years after 1929 made him think about old age, and how hard the Depression was on everybody. 

Then, he heard about this man, Francis Townsend, and his ideas concerning Old Age Pensions.  It made so much sense to grandpa!  The plan was simple, and would get money circulating in no time.  Larry found THIS WEBSITE called Social Security Online.  The Townsend story is there, but here's the basic plan:

Even I think it was a good idea, and you can certainly see why a 75 year old pioneer/farmer would be a card carrying member of the Townsend Plan, even years after it was voted down and became Social Security.

Anton Janson's wallet card

The difference between Schlichte and Schlichting

When we were kids and some concept finally became clear to us, Mom would say, "..comes the dawn!" Last night, Larry provided me again with one of those moments:

...he was asking about my grandmothers' sister who also died in April 1945.  He'd been looking at Margaret Naber's death certificate (above).  He saw that Reinhard, at 24 years old,  had provided the information...and it finally finally dawned on me what actually happened!

Grandma Margaret must not have talked much about her relatives in Iowa, but Reinhard remembered the name Schlichte.  We know Mary Naber (Schlichte) was 14 when her step-mother had Margaret, so maybe Mary was a "second mom" to little Maggie. 

Now, the name Schlichting is fairly familiar in central Minnesota.  Some are even related thru dad's side of the family, but not that we've found on the Janson/Naber side.  And, if you say both names out loud, it's difficult to distinguish one from the other.  Imagine distraught Reinhard sitting with Mr Virnig, the undertaker: "What was Margaret's mothers' maiden name?"  Reinhard had already given the wrong name and birthplace for Gerhard Naber, and he probably said the first name that presented itself in his head: Schlichte...which Mr Virnig heard as Schilchting....and that's what was written down, and what's confused us now, 65 years later.

The moral of this story is that death certificates can easily be wrong....names get confused, or informants guess, or just might not know. 

The correct information on Margaret Naber Janson's death certificate should read:

Father:  Gerhard Naber, born in Oldenberg, Germany (1829)

Mother: Elizabeth Richels, born in Westfalen, Germany (1846)

WOW, Larry, this is really really COOL!

Grandpa Jansons' books

When I was a kid, this camelback trunk was in the spare room, and later in the basement.  We were supposed to "stay out of it"/"leave it alone"...but there was no lock and no REAL reason not to see what was in there.  (Later, as an adult, I was 'allowed' to take it home, so that's why it's in my basement now). 

What was in it? 

Well, my grandmothers tiny, fragile wedding dress, some books, what was left of moms wedding bouquet, a tablecloth and matching napkins, scraps of fabric, a newspaper or two...nothing exciting to a kid.

 

Mom said it was the trunk Janson's brought over from Europe in 1882, packed with what they thought they needed for life in Amerika.  I've often tried to imagine how great-grandma packed it.  Clothes, certainly--for 2 adults and 5 children--but did she take small keepsakes too?  Most likely, they'd never go back to Germany; they were leaving forever.  What would I take from my house?

: : : : :

Over the years, I've used it to store blankets and, upended, as a lamp/plant stand...but it's not happy that way, so it eventually moved downstairs.  (YES, I had to dust it to take the pic...lol).   
We kids were readers, but the books in the trunk were B-O-R-I-N-G.  They belonged to grandpa, Mom said...one was something about "Theosophy", and three are early motivational books:

"Orison Swett Marden (1850 - 1924) was an American writer associated with the New Thought Movement. He also held a degree in medicine, and was a successful hotel owner...............Like many proponents of the New Thought philosophy, Marden believed that our thoughts influence our lives and our life circumstances. He said, "We make the world we live in and shape our own environment." Yet although he is best known for his books on financial success, he always emphasized that this would come as a result of cultivating one's personal development: "The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone."
Marden died in 1924 at the age of 74".

Hmm....I'm no more likely to read em now....but if YOU want to, let me know, ok?

THEN & NOW

Aww, look!  The same cute smile....

New Vienna, Iowa

A few miles east of Petersburg, Iowa is the town of New Vienna.  I think the above pic was from about 1915 or so--it's a postcard, from a PAGE of 'em that Larry found today.  St Boniface Catholic Church in New Vienna (or, New Wine) seems to have been the alternate church for our Nabers.  When Gerhard Naber married Elizabeth Rupiper, it was at St Boniface.  I assume his marriage to Elizabeth Richels was in Petersburg at Sts Peter & Paul.

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

There's  a charming story online about how the town got started:

During the month of September they unhitched their yoke of oxen at or near a two hundred acre patch of fine timber which was then known as Wilson's Grove. ... this land was still too rolling they thought. With the waning of the growing season and the approach of winter on the austere prairie and little provisions and protection against its severities, they determined to go eastward again and draw closer to civilization. It was now October, and as the men rounded together the oxen which were feeding at large on the wild grasses, John Fangmann in his hurry slipped on a wet hillside, fell and broke his leg. To this accident New Vienna owes its founding. As the return journey had to be postponed in favor of the accident victim, the different families "dug in" for the winter and prepared for the worst. Fortunately an open winter favored them; spring came early, and the appearance of the North Maquoketa Valley with its gentle undulating landscape dressed in the fresh green of spring pleased them. They stayed, staked off claims around what is now New Vienna, built log cabins and sent enthusiastic letters to friends in Ohio and in Germany inviting many to participate in the building of a great community.

Halback, Rev. Arthur A. (1939). Dyersville: Its history and its people, pp 57-58.

Who was George Naber?

This was a photo in an Iowa newspaper in the late 20's, I think.  Somehow, the photo was separated from the article in my files (!) and all I remember from it was that George was a barnstormer who crashed his plane and died. I don't know how George fits into the NABER clan, but we'll keep investigating.

                                                     

Later:  George Naber wasn't a barnstormer.  He was a local who wanted a ride in an airplane.  This was 1927, after Lindburgh's flight to Paris, and many people on the ground that day had tickets for a short flight.  George and another man were in the front passenger seats, with the pilot behind them.  We don't know still if George was one of "our" Nabers--there were families from Holland with the same name in Iowa then, too.  George was a Baptist, so chances are slim he was ours.  Still, it's a fascinating story: