Wendelin Janson--The Mystery Years

The last time we re-visited the "Wendelin saga", we did a short synopsis of what we'd learned about him (through records published online, mostly).  I smugly thought we had about all the info there was on the life of one obscure, never-married, German immigrant. (But wait--Larry kept digging!)
Wendelin was my grandfather's eldest brother.  When the family came here in 1883, he was 12, and on the trip across the ocean he had the humiliating duty of being in charge of the family chamber pot.  As he grew up on the claim in Buckman township, Morrison County, Minnesota, we expect he had an unfair share of the work, since he was oldest. 

By 1895, when he was 24, he probably wanted OUT of farming.  That's when he joined the army at Ft Snelling, in Minneapolis. He served honorably for a three year stint (ending in 1898), but most men who joined the army at the time expected adventure in the Spanish-American War, in the Philippines or Cuba.  We found Private Wendelin Janson re-enlisting in May, 1899.  We knew he deserted 3 months later, but we didn't know that it was in the  Philippines or that he deserted at Bacoor, Luzon. (See above).  By then, he was 29.  
Did he see connections between his own childhood oppression in Germany with the local people near the battles he was in, was it too hot, or did he just  reconsider this "adventure" thing?  Anyway, according to the page above, he went AWOL in August.  With luck (and Larry on it), we'll find out more of what happened, before he shows up again in St Paul in the 1905 Minnesota census. Stay tuned!

Whoa, thanks, Larry!

German farmers in Virginia--early 1900s

A piece from the Sunday paper of the day, about the excellent German farmers who were buying up land in Virginia in 1903....about the time our Jansons decided to return to Minnesota.  Click each section to enlarge, then read between the lines...

Benedictine Vows

I assume that most orders of nuns require something like this from each postulant: the written-out vows a sister agreed to when she joined an order.  This is the form for Benedictines in St Joseph, Minnesota.  It's a copy of Sr Mamerta's vows, from July 1918.

Another Janson Wedding

The Minnesota Official Marriage System,  with the silly miss-leading acronym MOMS, is an online index of marriages recorded in the state from each counties' earliest almost to the present ("excludes this month").  When Sue sent these photos, I didn't connect them to each other, but look closer.  It must be the wedding of Elizabeth Janson to Alois Brucher, on June 23, 1928, in Hennepin county.  Looks to me like Sophie was her sisters' bridesmaid.  The groomsman looks familiar too, but ?

The wedding party of Elizabeth Janson and Al Brucher--
Attendants were Catherine Janson and Larry Daniel.

I like Elizabeth because she obviously didn't worry about 1920s wedding 'traditions' like big bouquets or fussy veils.  Theirs was a thoroughly lovely small wedding with only the required photos.  I bet she was like that all her life.

Pictures from a NEW Janson cousin-YAY!

A quick review:  Two Janson families arrived in Buckman, Minnesota in April 1883.  One couple was Joseph and Franziska Janson, my great grandparents.  The other was Joseph's cousin Johannes and his wife Maria (Sauer) Janson.  Both families had five young kids, and both wives were pregnant.
  
If you want more of a review, we've done quite a few posts on them, partly because they TOOK LOTS OF PICTURES thru the years--hooray!--and partly because the rift between the two families from back then seems to be faded, finally.
Early this week, I heard from a great great grandaughter of Johannes and Maria Janson.  Her name's Sue, and she had even more mystery photos to share.  Let me show you a couple, after a chronology of the pics we already have of Johann & Maria's family.  This is so COOL!

C 1895

 Sue's lineage comes thru Sophia Janson, who married a neighbor boy, (Henry) Nicholas Daniel, in 1907, in Buckman, Minnesota.

In the 1895 photo, I think Sophie is the girl on the left, and she's named in the oval portrait...in 1925, she's on the right, for a change.

A very interesting thing about this batch of sibs is that they seemed to get together often during their long lives, and from the pics, they seemed  to be good buddies, too.  Almost all the informal photos have arms around each other, or they're holding hands...like they were delighted to see each other again.  
Anyway, in the interests of getting to bed early tonight, let's go on to some of the new pics from Sue, ok?

This is Nick and Sophie Daniel in 1907, on their wedding day, and in about 1947, since the portrait was taken for their 40th wedding anniversary according to Dophie's sister Dorothy. (Thanks, Dorothy!☺).  
Maybe you can get a feel for their faces, to see if they're included in this next picture:




We've studied this pic for a couple evenings, trying to figure out who the adults are, and what year it was.  Maria, who died in 1926, is not in this pic, but Johann, who died in 1929, is, so it's reasonable to think the gathering was between those years (also, the ages of their kids in the pic are right for those years).

I think at least eight of the Janson sibs appear in this photo. (Read the comments--Carrie Portlance says fewer, and that the children and young adults are, of course, cousins).

Looks like it may have been same day that this four person pic was taken, too...at first, L to R, I thought they were Catherine, Peter, Regina and John Janson, the four youngest of Johann & Maria's kids, but no--they're Mike's boys and aunts, maybe?

There are more pics from our 'new' cousin Sue, but I have grandkids to see tomorrow, so you'll just need to wait for a day or two.  

Trust me, it'll add excitement and the

an-ti-cip-payayay-shun is GOOD for you ☺

THANKS for these, Sue.  

We're so glad you found us! 

The week mom was born

MINNESOTA REFLECTIONS, our state online history center,  has been digitizing the Pierz Journals, first from 1909 to 1913, and this week adding 3 more years--1914, 1915 and 1916.  Larry and I are thrilled, and we expect if you're here, you think it's cool, too....but really, it was a little town weekly paper with mostly local news and local ads.  Sure, it developed over time, but at first even death notices were hit and miss, depending on when the person died.  Elizabeth Naber's death was written up on the front page, but Joseph Janson's was mentioned only in passing since his funeral was old news by the time the paper was published the next week.  
This link will take you to the July 8, 1915 issue of the Pierz Journal...the week Orlinda Janson, first child of Anton and Margaret (Naber) Janson, was born. 

 Yeah, Math Hesch got the date wrong, but he took advantage of grandpa's expansive mood.  Just look at the mileage he got when he interspersed Janson news into his Buckman Correspondence column that week. Wow! ☺

Anton Janson marries Margaret Naber

The May 22, 1913 issue of the Pierz Journal carried this wedding announcement.  Probably written by Math Hesch, it seems to be worded delicately, since everyone knew Anton Janson was just a little prickly....  


"We have the pleasant opportunity this week of relating to the marriage, which took place in out village last Monday at 9 a.m., when Miss Margareth Naber and Anton Janson were united in marriage by Rev. J. B. Brander at the St Michael's church, in the presence of relatives of the couple and a large number of invited guests.  The bridesmaid was Rose Janson, sister to the groom, and John Naber was best man.  Music was furnished by the choir.  After the ceremony, the couple were showered with hearty congratulations.  The happy newweds were the recipients of many presents.  They will make their home on the grooms farm in Buckman".


Cool, huh?

Why I Love Dried Apricots

I've been thinking lately that grandpa Janson has been mentioned here without much affection, but it's only because I only have 3-4 personal memories of him.  He died when I was 5 years old, but a few scenarios have stayed in my mind all these years.  
One is of grandpa arriving from the nearby train depot one morning while we were eating breakfast.  We jumped up hollering "Grandpa's here! Grandpa's here!"and ran outside to greet him.  Another was the fact that grandpa stayed in the front bedroom upstairs when he visited.  That room had 1940s linoleum on the floor, mostly green, with huge flowers and leaves.  After grandpa left, we learned to go to his room to check for change on the floor, lost in the pattern.  I remember the room smelling like him, and missing him already, but happy for the cash ☺  I asked mom once if she thought he left the change purposely, or if he had holes in his pockets.  She didn't know, but thought it might have been both.
My last image of grandpa was when he was laid out at Virnigs Funeral Home in Pierz, in January 1955. There were venitian blinds over a window behind the casket. I was mortified that relatives wanted me (us) to kiss him.  I don't remember if I did or not.  He didn't look like grandpa.

My most enduring memory, tho, was sitting on his lap in the dining room at 434.  He'd brought something special from California, all the way home for me.  He asked if I liked raisins?  Oh yes, I did.  Did I know they were dried grapes?  I probably didn't know that ☺  Well, he said, there was a fruit called apricots that grew in the sun in California, and he found a bag of dried ones there, so he brought them thinking I'd like them. (Did he actually say that, or...)
Anyway, the texture was different, sorta rubbery, and the outside was different than raisins, but the taste was like sunshine.  He believed in natural and fresh foods.  This was a way to bring perishable apricots home.  Definitely, I still love em, and think of him whenever I buy a bag.  

An enduring joke

"If you have a toothache and a nickle, and wish to get rid of both, you had better go to the new dentist, Lorenz Boser.  But then, the tooth must be very loose, almost ready to fall out or it will cost more to extract it.  If you don't believe it ask Peter Thies".


I wonder what the real story was here?  Most likely, Pete lost an already loose tooth to an acci-dental bop in the mouth from Lorenz, huh?  ☺ It made the paper, and here we are 102 years later, still laughing.

Born on the Fourth

Earlier this week, Em and Scott were here working on making the former office/junk room into a viable guest room....a big job!  I sorted some stuff and found an envelope I'd put away  months ago--mom stuff.  Cool to find again.




 Mom (Orlinda Janson Hesch ) was born in 1915, on the 4th of July.  So even if these items don't have anything to do with summer or July, they give us a glimpse of her as a girl--first an essay she wrote at 8 years old when she was a student at St Michaels in Buckman and English was her second language...

...and later when she attended Cathedral, in St Cloud.  No big deal, just too precious to not add here.  She would have been 97 today.  

We still miss her.

The Greulichs

When Larry first convinced me that my families' genealogy would be fascinating ("No, really--this'll be fun!") my only research to date was a connection with an older gentleman on the west coast who said he was related to the Jansons.  I'd posted some mis-information on an online message board one Sunday, and he saw it and contacted me.  

Eventually, he sent me the Janson Family tree going back from my grandpa Anton Janson, including Greulichs who'd married Jansons along the way.  He found the tree in a book written by a Ronellenfitch in Horrenburg, Germany.  I recognized the Ronellenfitch name from Buckman, but I didn't know that that family had also married Jansons over there.  So, cool!

The gentleman from California who'd sent the info was August Greulich, a name I'd never heard before.  But look--evidently, great grandpa Joe kept in touch with other expats from home, even if they'd settled in Kentucky.  

And yes, according to Family Search, there was a Daniel Greulich in Louisville, Kentucky who was born in Germany in 1831, and died a year after he visited Minnesota: September 19, 1910.

I really hope they had a lovely visit. Great grandpa Joe died in December, 1911.

Elizabeth Naber 1873-1911

One of the conundrums Larry and I ran into early in our search was the numerous different Elizabeth Nabers we found.  We eventually discovered that my grandmothers' father, Gerhard Naber, had married twice to women named Elizabeth and with the second Elizabeth had a daughter they named... Elizabeth.  

When great grandpa Gerhard died in Iowa, his widow Elizabeth moved to Buckman with her sons John and Gerhard, and daughters Margaret and Elizabeth.  A third daughter, Katherine, already lived in Pierz (Mrs William Bahns).

Evidently, the younger Elizabeth had kidney troubles* even before they left Iowa, and finally died of it in April, 1911:

 I was struck by the life/death/funeral/burial economy of the announcement in the paper.  Sure, the Pierz Journal was a weekly, and this all happened within a week.  It was strange, tho, seeing it all on one page.

* Bright's Disease is an older classification for different forms of kidney disease. It was named after Dr. Richard Bright, who described the condition in the early 19th century. Lack of understanding of kidney function naturally meant that several different conditions could be considered Bright's Disease. These include inflammation of the kidney, commonly called nephritis. Inflammation may be the result of too much protein being shed through the kidneys, called proteinuria, or hematuria, which causes blood in the urine. As well, Bright's Disease might describe kidney failure due to high blood pressure or retention of fluids.

Those symptoms most commonly associated with Bright's Disease were intense pain on either or both sides of the lower back. Fever might be present and intense edema, or retention of fluids, might cause the extremities to appear extremely swollen. Breath could be labored and difficult, particularly if kidney failure caused fluid to accumulate in the lungs, or was caused by metastasized cancer.

Naber news from 1912

"John T. Schmid, recently from Medina, N. D., has bought the farm of Margaret Naber, better known as the old "Poster Farm" east of Buckman, and moved onto it a few weeks ago".

Margaret Naber was my grandmother, before she married Anton Janson, but HOW did she come by a farm of her own?  We know "John Naber and his mother" moved to Buckman from Petersburg Iowa in the spring of 1910 (his sisters Margaret and Elizabeth moved there, too...was that just understood?)
We know the farm in Iowa must have sold for big bucks (Larry found an article mentioning the great increase in Iowa farm land prices  then), so perhaps the Nabers invested in a few farms instead of just one.  It would have been a good way to bestow a legacy on a child and increase the value of the inheritance at the same time, huh?

More from the Morrison Co Pictorial Atlas

Wow, an '80s photo taken at my cousin Galen's wedding to Ann Held.  I still say he really lucked out ☺, Ann is delightful.  Unbelievable that their youngest son graduated from High School this month.

Wendelin's "Dan Janson"

Back in November, 2009, I posted a letter that grandpa Anton's brother Wendelin wrote as Anton lay dying at Wendelin's house in LA.  He was angry that Anton hadn't stayed in Minnesota, and, I think, that it was beginning to seem like Jansons came to California to die...on Wendelin's dime.
In the letter, he wrote that  "we can't let this thing end up like Dan Janson..." Larry and I had no idea what that meant--we hadn't discovered Daniel yet (in Rice, Mn) and what could have happened that upset Wendelin so?  
Eventually Larry and I pieced stuff together,and realized he meant his father's COUSIN Dan, the Janson immigrant who'd settled in Rice.  
"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".
Whew.  Dan Janson died in Sacramento, California November 10, 1910.  Grandpa Anton died in 1955, so Wendelin was still smarting about something that happened 45 years earlier.  Did Mom and Uncle Reinhard even know what he was talking about?


Frankly, we don't know the story either, but we can speculate:  based on the fact that even in 1955 when grandpa Anton died there, he couldn't be shipped home unaccompanied on the train.  A relative had to claim the body and go along with it--so in 1910, was Wendelin elected to take time off work, identify the body, and take Daniel home?  And oh-oh, was he expected to pay for both, plus doctor bills?  

Daniel and Wendelin would have known each other, surely, but they probably weren't close, or it wouldn't have bugged him quite so much.  Obviously it did anyway, all those years later.

Jansons in the Pierz Journal

ACK!  It's such a shame that mom's family was so private.  The Janson mentions are rare in the 'Buckman News' column in the Pierz Journal, even with Math Hesch being a close neighbor.   Still, once in awhile.....

This visit may have been the occasion this photo was taken, huh?

____________________________

OK, this one refers to Joe Janson the blacksmith in Buckman, not our great grandfather Joe.

 ___________________________

A whole string of extended family mentions here, starting with the news (still new to us in 2012!) that GG Joe went to California to recuperate.  Was this the occasion for one of the financial setbacks Grandpa Anton spoke of?

Grasping at straws, see?  But this proves grandpa was spotted in town.

 Great grandpa Joseph Janson died on December 19, 1911

December 28, 1911

_________________________________

____________________________

Finding this next clip was stunning for a number of reasons--one being that the PJ didn't know Daniel's name, but printed the item anyway.  Also, Daniel must have been well known in Pierz/Lastrup/Buckman, because of his brother John Janson.  People "knew" which Janson they meant, I guess.

We didn't know that Daniel died in California, either.  

From the Pierz Journal, December 1, 1910:

 (BTW, Larry thinks it's cool to see an incidence of a  letter misplaced by the typesetter ☺)

This state fair seal was in the Journal.  I just thought it was cool.

Hundred year old Janson news

 From the December 21, 1911 Pierz Journal--a clipping just loaded with family connections!

The first line about Mrs. Naber and son:  That was our grandmother Maggie's mom, Elizabeth, and brother, John.  (It still surprises me to find diverse relatives in the Buckman News!)

The party held at Ignatz Ronellenfitch's farm (first place south of the Janson farm) is interesting too.  Everyone who read that would have known that (my g-grandpa) Joe Janson had died two days earlier, and that the Jansons and Ronellenfitchs were relatives from the same town in Germany...so loosing Joe made celebrating a bit harder.  Still, that set of guests insured SOME merriment.

Lastly, "J. B. Brander was a visitor at the home of Joe Janson Sunday."  Was J.B. Brander the parish priest?  Maybe Math was implying that he visited as a family friend rather than the pastor, huh? I suppose they would have been making funeral arrangements that night...

Joseph and Wendelin Janson NEWS

From the Pierz Journal, April 20, 1911--
"Joe Janson Sr. left for California Monday to visit his son Wendeline, who is running a truck farm out there.  Joe will stay a year for his health.  He has rheumatism and we hope it will help him".

Wow!  Three short sentences and look what we've learned: 1) Great grandpa tried California weather as a cure. 2) Wendelin did something besides the railroad, at least for awhile, and 3) Buckman knew Joseph as the Senior Joe Janson because his cousins' son was also Joe Janson (blacksmith in Buckman).

It's hard to imagine Wendelin trying something as agricultural as truck farming.  On the other hand, just cuz it's in the paper doesn't make it true.

Grandpa Anton said his father was weak and ill when they moved home from trying Virginia in 1902, but we didn't know that he went to California for his health 9 years later.  He didn't last a whole year--he died after 8 months, on December 19th, 1911. I wonder, did he die in California?
 .......................
So, I went looking for the Joseph Janson obit in the Pierz Journals of December 21 and 28.  No luck.  All I found was this, in Math's "Buckman" column, complete with misspellings:
(Yes, yes...I know you're supposed to copy something exactly.  Tough ☺).
"Sebastian Janson returned to his home in Wadena Saturday.  He was here to attend the funeral of his father Joe Janson".

How does Eva Meyer connect?

Here's an interesting connection we figured out because of a wedding pic from the Morrison Co Pictorial Atlases--a 1945 photo of Alfred and Eva Janson (it's here, just down the post).

In case you don't know who Alfred Janson was:
--Cousins Johann and Josef Janson arrived in Minnesota with their families in 1883;
(Josef was our greatgrand).
--Johann eventually had 11 kids, one of whom was
--Michael, who married Antonia Hurdt.  They had 10 kids, one of whom was
--Alfred, born in 1921.

First tho, a bit about Eva's family of origin:

Eva was born in 1919, as shown in the 1920 census here, but everybody in this undated photo was younger.  I'd guess it was taken about 1910, since the oldest, Lena, looks about 15, don't you think?

But wait!  Thanks to Carrie for some clarification.  She wrote that this pic:.. "is my grandma's parents and kids (10) of them from about 1914. They had 13 all together, the very middle baby Mathias Jr. died as a baby. The baby in the picture is Gust who was born in October 1913. The inset picture is my grandma Eva (youngest) & her sister Catherine. We always figured they thought they were done after Gust so had a family pic done! My great-grandma was almost 40 I think when Gust was born. By the time they had my grandma, she was 45 years old and Math was 52. One of my grandma's nieces added the little pic of Catherine & Eva on the side".

 Here's more about Mike's family....and a charming pic of Mike (Alfred's dad) with a case of Cold Spring beer.  Par-TAY!

So the wedding photo below, taken June 5th, 1945, was Mike and Toni Janson, Alfred and Eva Janson, and Eva's mom, Catherine Meyer. (Her dad Math died in January 1933).

A fun extra is that the photos below were obviously taken on the same day--the wedding pic came from the atlases and the brothers' pic came from Carrie Staves' website at least 4 years ago.  (The checked paper decoration shows behind Eva when the bridal photo is expanded).  Isn't that cool?

Note from Carrie: the brother with Mike here was Joe (Alfred's sponsor) ☺.