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.

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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.

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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!