Anton would be so PROUD

HOW can this kid be graduating already?  Whew--seems like she was just born.  But Maria and the other descendants of Joseph and Franziska are why I'm doing this blog, even tho she probably doesn't CARE right now...lol

Congratulations, Maria!
See ya later today ☺

"...It is well to keep a lookout overhead..."

The article on the left refers to tree stumps in Montana, but the immigrants in Minnesota had to use dynamite sometimes, too.  Buckman was built in a forest--the 1874 map shows the whole area covered with "mostly oak".  

Besides, just think how much FUN dynamiting stumps would be!

Ka-BOOM!! ☺

(Article from Technical World Magazine, about 1910, and map from Minnesota Reflections ☺)

Which came first--the creamery or the large herd?

There's a booklet published online at Archive.org called the  Official state creamery and cheese factory directory and dairy map of Minnesota, from 1898.  That year, Morrison county had only THREE creameries.  The closest one to Buckman was in Royalton, 17 miles away, an impractical distance to haul milk two or three times a week.


They didn't call it "economies of scale" back then, but you couldn't have a large herd of cows if you had no convenient market for the milk.  At the same time,  there was no need for a creamery if no farmer had surplus milk to sell.  

The Janson farm, for instance: the first years after Joseph and Franziska arrived (1883) in Buckman  were spent grubbing trees, clearing crop land, and building, as well as picking rocks in those fields and fencing pasture land for the horses and one or two cows.  They were subsisting.  Did they have produce to sell?  I don't know.  They moved to Virginia in 1900, and maybe the creamery was built by the time they returned.  Anton took over, and bought Jersey cows because they were small, gentle, and the milk was high in butter-fat, which sorta points to being a  member of the new Buckman Creamery.  His son (my uncle) Reinhard certainly was, as he milked a large herd of Holsteins.

: : : : : : :

In the 1915  "History of Morrison and Todd counties",  John Schmolke's bio says he "has built five creameries and cream stations in this locality to establish a market for the cream.  They are located at Buckman, Ramey, Lastrup, Agram and New Pierz".  


It's possible you want to know more about how creameries were run.  Try this booklet, also on Archive.org:   Marketing practices of Wisconsin and Minnesota creameries, from 1918.  


It's a thriller!

Dehlers

The Anton Janson farm and the Gust Dehler farm were next door to each other west of Buckman, within easy walking distance. Maggie Janson and Regina Dehler were close friends, a good thing since Maggie often wasn't well.  Mom talked about how Regina would bring strawberries over, or take the bread dough home and bake it for Maggie, and how these kindnesses made life at Jansons much better.

August Dehler and Regina Hortsch were married in October 1914, and daughter Evelyn was born a year later, then Irma in 1918, Lucille in 1919, Ralph in 1922, Lorraine in 1923, Richard in 1925, Anna in 1932, and Kenneth in 1936.

Tragically, in December 1941, 16 year old Richard shot and killed his parents and two younger siblings, and set the house on fire to cover what he'd done.

Among mom's photos, I found this one...of Kenneth Dehler, very possibly taken that winter, with his dad's fur mittens on.

(Much later...) This poignant photo of the whole family is from 1939.

► And here's Evelyn, Lorraine, mom and Lucille in Dehler's yard, probably when they were all working in Minneapolis, I think, and were home visiting...I'd guess Thanksgiving 1939.

The other photos mom had of these neighbors were from later years, when the older sibs had moved to the west coast. She & dad visited there a few times, and they kept up a lively correspondence over the years.  They remained good friends all their lives.

Richard was released from prison in the 1970s.  He married and lived in Wyoming, where he died in 2008.

This six-sib photo is from 1989.....

Encyclopedia Britannica 1911

"The Online Encyclopedia is based on the 11th Edition Encyclopedia Britannica, first published in 1911. This historically significant book is the last encyclopedia to offer articles in such extreme depth"....
It's REALLY interesting to see what early 1900 scholars thought about some of the subjects we're searching.  Check it out!

havN fun, wsh u wr hre!

A photo I found in mom's collection, it's interesting for a number of questions it brings to mind, like what year was this, and what was printed on the boat there, and--were they really texting?

Ok, then, where was "Summit Park"?  Turns out it was in St Paul, on the Mississippi river, and if it was the same park then as now, it's big feature was bluffs overlooking the river, not a boat rental.
I suspect this was late '40's, and possibly a pic sent to mom after she moved home in 1945.  I have no photos of HER in a bathing suit...but standards  changed during the war, and 'decent' women could be seen renting a boat in such skimpy outfits...lol

September 28th, 1946

All the time we were growing up, Dad teased Mom that he couldn't remember when they got married--he said October 28th, and Mom took the bait every time...lol

"Sep-TEM-ber!", she'd fume...and he'd question her a bit more, until she was good and riled, then he'd say, "Oh, ok", and walk away.  We always thought this routine was hilarious, especially toward the end of Sep-TEM-ber every year.

Here's the actual page you signed that day, Curly!

My JANSON tree, in color...

...or, Move Over, Norman Rockwell

I know!  Give me photos and Paint.NET, and it's was only a matter of time before you get something like this ☺!  Too bad we don't have photos of Anton's parents, or Margaret's parents--siblings and cousins had to do for 'roots' (even if they looks like heads laying on the grass). 
Yes, there are two generations beyond this tree--but I only have a few of their pics.  I'd love to add them if you send 'em to me, ok?

Less mystery, more questions

Spent a good part of Memorial Day weekend going thru family photos and writing on the backs of them--identifying as many people as possible.  It's something I've meant to do for ages.  It makes me feel like Josef Binder must have felt when he copied those church records legibly--not for me, but for the future.

I posted this "four boys" pic last month.  It was among mom's photos, but who knows how it got there?  Then, I found the four girls pic, and realized it had to be the same day, since that's mom on the left.  Could it have been her First Communion class?  Or the grade school graduates from Buckman that year?  I suspect now that the house behind them is the convent.

HOORAY--yes, I found it!  The pictures must have been part of the class pictured to the left.  So, eighth grade grads or First Communion.

BTW, Larry thinks the kids were around 12-13, cuz it looks like the boys hadn't had the typical growth spurt yet, and the girls HAD.  I agree...☺


Oh, and if you're from Buckman and have a relative who was born around 1915, then it's probable that you know one of these 14 kids.  Leave a comment or email me if you recognize any of them, ok?

Another photo-editing miracle

The original of this pic is 3 X 4 inches--about the size of a cel phone--so it was hard to see who the people might be.  Yeah, Grandpa Janson always stood that way, like a leaning tower, so it was probably him.  But then, what about the others?

The old black & white photos don't distort when they're enlarged because there's so much info stored on them, so we can see that this is probably the Anton Janson family...but hmm, not quite.  The littlest kid would have been Reinhard, at maybe 4?  Then this was 1925, and Loretta (with the elbows) would have been 8, and Linda, 10.  The woman in back would have been Margaret, my grandma, but I question the photo.

(For ease of reference, lets name these figures, ok?  The woman in the black coat is Big Girl;  the woman reaching out we'll call Woman;  the girl in white is Elbows, and the little kid is LK...lol)

Another thing we have to consider is who the photographer was.  Who did they know in 1925 with a camera?  Well, Ida Naber, and we know they visited each other fairly often.  That summer,  Ida was 23, and her sis Walburga was 27.  If they were visiting, taking pictures was a given. 

But at 10, mom wouldn't have been as tall as 'Big Girl' in the photo, and would have been dressed more like 'Elbows'...so maybe the 'Woman' was grandma Margaret, and 'Big Girl' was Walburga...and at this moment, Linda was still combing her hair or something.  Was it the day this ▼ pic was taken?   And, which farm was this?  The Janson farm in Buckman, or the Naber farm in Bancroft, Iowa?

(Yah, it's also possible that 'Big Girl' was a 'Hired Girl', but that's not as fun as speculating !)