The Anton Janson Family

This was a negative I found last week in a box of photos.  Its pretty recognizable-- that has to be grandpa Janson, and there's mom as a girl.  But, the photo is backwards...lol

Thanks to the miracle of computer photo-editing programs, we can easily flip it and darken it.  So, here we have Margaret (Naber) Janson & Anton Janson, with their three kids.  Reinhard was born in 1921, so if he was 5 in this photo, then Loretta was 9 and Orlinda was 11, and the year was 1926.

(OK, so Larry's photo editing is better than mine...lol)

Something to keep in mind:

  "The technology that existed before you were 15 is just the way the world has always been. The technology that was invented between when you're 15 and 35 is wonderful and proof that you're alive at the best time ever. The technology invented after you're 35 is unnatural and against the will of God."
--Douglas Adams

Angel Update

Some time ago, I posted a smaller torn picture of this day, and these girls.  Last week, I found THIS photo, with more of the background, and names written on the back!  HOORAY!  I would never have identified the other three girls beside mom there.  Ok, the year would have been 1921--does anyone recognize the house?      YAY!  Anon did--it's the south side of the CONVENT in Buckman (so, taken from the parking lot side.  What we see is the west side of the house).  THANKS X 2, Anon!

Adela (Brandl) Zenner 1908-1990

I have only a few photos of Adela, but lots of memories.  She was a main character in a story mom told us about when Adela was 12 and mom was 5...it's included in this post from the Hesch History blog, and it revolves around this photo:

Taken about 1920 when Adela was 12, it's her formal First Communion photo, and mom (Linda Janson) was her 'angel'. 

We also have the masthead photo, where Dela is first on the left.  It was probably taken about 1921.

Then, there's this photo, probably taken in the same decade I knew her best--Dela & Kilian owned the grocery store in Buckman across from the church.  We bought it from them, made some changes in the store, and learned to make Zenner's Sausage.  She and Kilian were always gracious and helpful, tho they really wanted to be done with the grocery business.  BTW, that photo comes from this larger picture--probably from the late 70s.

O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O 

Here's her obituary, from November, 1990:

Birth: Apr. 24, 1908

Death: Nov. 26, 1990

Adela Zenner, age 82, a former resident of Buckman, died November 26, 1990 at her daughter's home in Minneapolis.
Funeral services were held November 29, at St. Michael's Catholic Church in Buckman with Father LeRoy Maus officiating. Burial was in the parish cemetery.


Adela Zenner was born April 24, 1908 in Buckman to John and Frances (Janson) Brandl. After graduation from Normal School, she was a rural school teacher in the Buckman area. Adela married Kilian H. Zenner on June 5, 1928. They owned and operated Zenner's Store in Buckman for nearly 50 years. She lived in Buckman until two and a half years ago when she moved to Minneapolis to live with her daughter.


Survivors include one son, Terry and wife Janell of Lafayette, LA; two daughters, Mary Lou Delehanty of Minneapolis and Kathleen and husband Beau Beauchamp of Joplin, Missouri; a daughter-in-law, Patricia Zenner of Sauk Rapids; three brothers, Edward of St. Cloud, Roman of Platte Lake, MN, and Al of Marshall, MN; one sister, Florence Brandl of Minneapolis; 20 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Kilian on April 11, 1978; one son, Galen on January 8, 1972; one sister, Leone and her parents.

Another John Janson

Here's part of the census from 1920, Oak Township, Stearns County, Minnesota.  The eldest of Sebastian's children was John, born in New York (adopted).  In 1920, he was 24, and back on the farm. 

 

This portrait, however, was sent in 1919 to his Uncle Eugen...

and here's the back of the postcard:

(The blue ink is mom's handwriting)

Does anyone know what happened to him?

A clarification

I just received an email from Joe Janson (Sebastian's grandson) who provided the answer to a question we posed  last October. 
Thanks, Joe, I appreciate it!

Anna & Sophia Janson

This photo was in the "Closet batch" too.  I knew the two nuns were Srs. Lazara and Kunigunda.  They were my grandpa Anton Janson's sisters Sophia and Anna.  What I didn't know was who the young man between them was.

So, it's time to compare photos!

This man definitely has light eyes, and he's not very tall.  (Larry noticed that he's pinching the crease in his hat...lol)
All three of them look to be in their 30s, not older.  If Anna, the youngest, was born in 1883, then this pic could have been taken about 1913-1915. 

I know some of the Brandls went to Wisconsin to visit these women, who were their aunts.  But I don't think this man is a Brandl. 
Hmm...consider the photo from the last post:  Wendelin was in his 50's here, at least.   If it was a photo taken when he was 55, for instance, the year would be 1927...

Ok...so when did Sophia and Anna enter the convent?  Sophia was born in 1876, Anna in 1883; perhaps when they were each about 20?  If that's so, then Sophia left Buckman in 1896, Anna in 1903.  (Her obit says Anna made her vows in 1903).

Wendelin was born in 1871...by 1913, he was already 42!  The man in the photo with Sophie and Anna couldn't be Wendelin.  It couldn't be my grandpa Anton either, because Anton had a full head of fairly fuzzy hair and brown eyes.  So, it was either Eugen or Sebastian.

I think it was Eugen, who was born between these two sibs (1878). Wow!
(Later:  Eugen's WWI draft card says he had blue eyes!)

O+O+O+O+O+OO+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+OO+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+OO+O+O+O+O+O+O

This is pretty cool:

The four Janson sisters, in old age.

California, about 1930?

  When mom died, I sorted her pictures into boxes for each of my sibs, and they've been on the shelf in the guestroom closet ever since. (OK, not really!) Most of the pics are less than 30 years old, but a few are WAY older...like this one, of my grandpa's oldest brother, Wendelin Janson. 
There's alot here already about him, so try the list of tags on the left, or just type "Wendelin" in the search box (above the header, on the left) if you've missed it.
BTW, I have no other info about this pic except that mom wrote "Uncle Wendelin" on the back...

Buckman Baseball

I believe Sue sent this photo maybe a year ago.  It's the same one that's on the MNHS website, so it must have had fairly wide distribution in town then--even with the weird exposure...lol
Larry and I looked at it then and just saved it, thinking maybe someday we'd be able to figure out WHO they were.

So, we were speculating last night (and possibly making connections that aren't actually there): was the man in the suit the team sponsor?  Some of the men look similar to the guys in the Brandl Garage photos--did Brandls sponsor the team then?  
We're hoping our friend Anon might be able to help.
o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o
Yes!  Anon says he's pretty sure of these names:
Back Row: Ed Kohler - Red Sitzman - Hass Weissbrich - Bill Gohl - Conrad Kapsner - John Brausen - Kilian Zenner

Front Row: Peter Blake - John Terhaar - Frank Mischke - Sam Glfnifkowski - Bill Pohlkamp
Batboy: Raymond Blake 
Isn't that COOL?
 Oh, and we're taking bets on the name of the mascot there.  I think it was Shep. Or Sparky. 

Joe Janson, Blacksmith

If you drive into Buckman, Minnesota from the south, on Highway 25, you'll pass St Michaels church on the left.  A block farther, on the opposite corner, you'll see a long, white building with a garage door facing 25.

That was the location (same building underneath?) of Joe Janson's Blacksmith shop. 

This is how the interior looked in 1925.  If you needed horseshoes, he was obviously your man.

How was Joe related? 

 Joe A. Janson was our great-grandfathers' cousins' son. In other words, John Janson (the immigrant) named this son 'Joseph Anton', and he became a blacksmith in Buckman. Joe A. married Mary Poster, and they had 3 kids--Irene, Robert and Otto.

In fact, here's the WPA bio Joseph gave to John Schmolke in 1937:

Discovered photos

Being a Minnesotan, I'm VERY proud of the Minnesota Historical Society website and the cool searchable photos they have online.  Click the link and search "Morrison"--among the photos that come up, you'll find maybe 40 of them with "unidentified Morrison Co businesses", mostly interior shots taken in 1925.

 

Since Larry and I are trying to 're-construct' Buckman in about 1919, we were particularly interested in those photos, and I believe I've FOUND a few from inside Brandl Motors!

Let me show you:

For one thing, doesn't the man at the desk (left) look like a Brandl?  That was my first impression, but we figured it was wishful thinking...lol  We did see that both pictures were the same office, so we saved them for closer inspection......

Now, LOOK at the shelves behind John and Joe here, five years later...and at the double row of white tabbed drawers above the desk, and the invoice box above that.  Theres a phone in all of them, and glass on the desk top, the shelves behind 'em are the same, and the post has a poster in all three pics!

Ah, you say, but the top two pics have a stove behind the men, where there's a stack of tires in front of the brothers.  Yes!  I found out lately that it was a common practice to remove the stove during the summer, in homes as well as businesses. Such wasted space could be better used in other ways, at least part of the year.

YAY!! Anon emailed to say WHO the men were in these photos: above, John Brandl seated; standing behind him left to right: Bill Gohl, Tony Sand, Hank Poster.

Anon said the seated man here is Bill Gohl, then left to right behind him: Hank Poster, George Poster, "unknown", Bill Weisbrick, John Brausen, and Tony Sand.

Isn't this just COOL?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

THIS photo was identified by whoever took the pictures in 1925...so we KNOW it was Brandl Motors, right?

See the man in bibs? (Bill Weisbrich).  And the one with the dark shirt and cap? (Hank Poster). The one in coveralls (John Brausen) is back by the post, and the guy with his fist on his hip is definitely the same man in both pics (Tony Sand).  That's John, with the tie and pork-pie hat, for sure.  (And SUE just emailed to say the man to John's right was Andrew Suess, retired, who just liked hanging around the garage). Don't know who those last two men were, tho.

  Oh, MAN, this tickles me!!

Comparing Buckman Censuses

These are the occupations listed for the VILLAGE of Buckman in 1910, 1920 and 1930.  The township list is also online, but we've been researching the merchants and businesses lately, so there ya go....

I connected names with occupations if they were someone we've been following, or who seemed familiar. When mom and dad sold their house by the river, some people named Roos bought it, and mom asked if they had connections in Buckman.  I think they said yes, and there, in 1910, is the link to who she meant.
Buckman steadily gained population and enterprises over these 21 years, but there were fires, store sales, and closings, not to mention Prohibition (1920-1933) in those years, too.  It's just fun to see what people did for a living then.  BTW, the blacksmith Joe A. Janson was our great-grandfathers' cousins' son.  In other words, John Janson (the immigrant) named a son Joseph Anton, and he became a blacksmith in Buckman.  Joe A. married Mary Poster, and they had 3 kids--Irene, Robert and Otto.  Irene and Robert helped out a lot at Zenners before and after we bought the store.

Minnehaha Falls

If you want to impress visitors who come to Minnesota, one place you might show them is Minnehaha Falls in South Minneapolis. 
It's a breathtaking place today, and it's been a showplace here since before white people discovered it--(c'mon, we don't know that Native Americans took visitors there, but people are people.  They probably did, too).
These first two photos were taken in the 1890s.

  During the summer, depending on how much water was in the watershed that year, Minnehaha could be a torrent or a relative trickle....

...but when it became a FROZEN waterfall, it was even more spectacular and thrilling somehow, as well as more difficult to go see.

Today, the falls are easily accessible--theres a lovely park and spacious parking lot just above and to the right of where these pictures were taken.

This description is from the 1894 "Official Northern Pacific Guide", with a flowery quote from Harpers Magazine.  Back then, you had to want to go see it--check that last pararaph.  So, what made me post about Minnehaha?  Yesterday, I visited my daughter and her husband (and my wonderful grandaughter) who live within a mile of the falls.  And, I was reminded of it this week again when I checked a blog called TwistedSifter, where I found this "Behind the frozen falls" photo on Saturday:

(Old photos found on Minnesota Reflections, and NP Guide found on Archive.org).

Mystery solved!

This photo has been a question since last summer, when Aggie Suess' grandaughter Sue sent it to me.  She didn't know who these men were either, but I thought they looked like Brandls.  Still, the only Brandl men I've ever seen would have been sons of these guys...lol

This weekend we found out for sure who they are.  The photo was taken probably around 1930, at Brandl Motors.

John Brandl (1883-1945) (l)

&

Joe Brandl (1891-1950) (r)

We don't have a copy of John's obit, but we do for Joe, thanks to Find A Grave.

: : : : :

November, 1950

Rites For Joe Brandl At Buckman Friday

Joesph E. Brandl passed away at his home in Buckman at 11:30 p.m, Monday, death being caused by a heart attack. he was in fair health most of his life. He recently experienced injury to his right leg, for which he was given treatment at St. Gabriel's hopital about a month ago.

His birthplace was St. Bonifacius, Minnesota, January 23, 1891 and he attended St. John's University for some time. He lived at Almena, Wisconsin a short while and married Rose Janson at Buckman 37 years ago. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. John Brandl.

In 1918 he went into partnership with his brother, John Brandl, and conducted the Ford Agency business with him until 1940. About four years later, John Brandl died. He had also been the Buckman postmaster since 1938.

Besides his wife six children survive, including Erwin, Buckman; Mrs. William Lonsdale (Marion), Brainerd; Rev. Leo Brandl, Bertha, Minn.; Sister Joyce (Armella), St. Gabriel's hospital, Little Falls; Bernard, Marshall, Minnesota; Doris Mae of the nurse training dept., St. Joseph's hospital, St. Paul. There are 7 grandchildren.

Among the brothers and sisters surviving are Hubert, Black Duck, Minn.; and Andrew and Frank, and Mrs. Joe Scharenborich, St. Cloud.

Pallbearers will be Dick Janson, Reinhard Janson, Edward Brandl, Roman Brandl, Alfred Brandl and Alcuin Brandl, all nephews of the deceased.

A Solemn Requiem Mass is being offered at St. Michael's church, Buckman at 10, Friday morning. Celebrant of the mass will be Fr. Leo Brandl, son of the deceased, with Fr. Paul Kunkel, the pastor of the church, the deacon; and Fr. Leonard Benning, OSB, Muenster, Sash., Canada, the subdeacon. The latter is a brother-in-law of Erwin Brandl.

Interment is in the Buckman cemetery.

Google Earth

Oh, MY! If you want to see Buckman as it is today, download Google Earth to your computer and search "Buckman, Mn"--wow! There are little cameras along the streets, and double clicking each one advances your position, where you can look all the way around you--its amazing and WAY fun. The only weird thing is that any people who happened to be captured are blurred out. You see vehicles and yards, open doors and businesses, but not one soul!

LOL...they must have cruised Buckman last fall, when Janson kids were selling sweet corn!  COOL, huh?

A magazine from 1889

There's a marvelous website called ARCHIVE.ORG.  It's a stunning collection of digitized books, periodicals, ephemera, photographs and movies....not to mention its' link to the Wayback Machine. 
Clicking the above link opens a whole world of stuff--try it--bookmark it, but then, come back here...lol

Last night, Larry sent an archive.org link to Overland magazine, published in California in 1889.  It's decidedly west coast in veiwpoint, but there are broader issues covered too.
What I find fascinating in The Overland and other publications like it are the contemporary views of things we only heard about in school as "history".  Think about it: in the context of the Janson family, 1889 was only 6 years after they arrived in Buckman.  Anton was now 9, and big brother Wendelin was 17.  The last sibling of the family, Rose, was born in October, 1889. 
By then, California had been a state for 40 years (and Minnesota,  31 years). There were a few telephones then, and the railroads were coast-to-coast since 1869.  People still manufactured and sold snake oil.  It was 24 years after the Civil War.
California was admitted to the union as a decidedly non-slave state, but the ongoing turmoil in the south was still an issue all over the country.  Here's an article from the Overland that describes one contemporary version of those continuing problems: The South Revisited.  It's interesting to note his take on what the problems were, and his proposed solutions.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Three Janson Families Arrive in the USA

Evidently, cousins John and Joseph JANSON traveled here on the same ship, the SS Zeeland.  They arrived in Phillidelphia in March 1883:

John was the last entry on the page before this one:

And here's the third JANSON family (Daniel) to leave Deilheim, Horrenburg, Germany in 1883, but they arrived on the SS Vaderland in October that year.

Ice Harvesting in 1919

This may not be totally relevant to JANSON history, but it was certainly part of MINNESOTA history.  I think dad had one of those hook-tools when we were kids--did he ever harvest ice?

Amazing Lindbergh films

Four films here that'll give you a taste of the times--Spring, 1927--from the prep and takeoff in New York to his landing in Paris.  INCREDIBLE!

(With thanks to the PRESURFER)

WPA histories in Morrison County

The Morrison County Historical Society has a wonderful website and blog, and one of the pages there has a link to their list of WPA family biographies: 

"During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States Government initiated a number of programs to put people to work. One of the best-known was the Works Progress Administration (WPA). As part of the WPA, several residents of Morrison County, Minnesota, found work through a project to collect oral histories from long-time residents".

Those oral histories were interviews with old-timers, including residents of Buckman and Pierz.  Check it out.  If you find a bio you need, you'll have to plan a trip to the Weyerhauser Museum in Little Falls, but it's WELL worth it, trust me!