Hello----
I didn't happen to see the names you mentioned, but i'll look into it.
Diane
Here is an excerpt from our family history:
Ziegler is a German name. In the early days names described the people who
bore them. The name Carpenter designated one who worked with wood, the
name Taylor one who made clothes et cetera. The name Ziegler is a German
word for brick or tile. Therefore a Ziegler was one who worked at masonry.
Our grandmother, Julia Wilhemina Jeroschefske (Shaske) was born in East
Prairie, Minnesota on May 9, 1860. She was the youngest of the five
children and the only one born in the United States.
Her father was Johann Daniel Jeroschefske. He was born in 1807 in Germany.
At a very early age he was adopted by the Jeroschefske family, whose name
he took. It is believed that his real name was Braun. His parents were
black death victims or war casualties depending on whom you ask. Johann
Daniel died on his farm (Holden Township, Goodhue County) in 1875 at the
age of 68.
Her mother, Eva Rosina Miller, was born in Germany in 1817 and married
Daniel Jeroschefske. With their four children Johann, August, Augusta and
Henrietta they immigrated to Wisconsin near Princeton in 1859, and then to
East Prairie, Minnesota where Julia was born in 1860. During the 1862
Sioux Indian uprising they took refuge at Fort Snelling. Again an Indian
scare drove them to a farm in Holden (Goodhue County). Here they settled
down to stay. Daniel Jeroschefske was a cattle buyer also. He hired young
Albert Ziegler to help August take the cattle to market, and this was to be
Julia's husband. After the death of Daniel Jeroschefske, August ran the
farm. John (Johann) the oldest son lived on an adjoining farm. Their
mother, Eva Rosina Jeroschefske, died twelve years later in 1887 at the age
of 70, after a long illness of dropsy.
Many years later as Julia traveled by car along the Ford plant road she
remarked to her grandchildren, "This is the same trail I traveled in a
covered wagon."
Our grandfather, Albert Bernhard Ziegler, was born in 1850 near Leipzig,
Germany, in a town with a population of about one thousand. The address
given is Schkoelen, Kreis Weissenfels, Regierungs Bezirk, Merseburg
Province Saxony, Koenigreich, Prussia. When I look on the map I can find
only Weissenfels and Merseburg, but a German address is very lengthy since
it also tells what large city it is near and all the political divisions.
His father, Karl Heinrich Edward (Eduard) Ziegler, was born in 1821. He
was a stone mason. Karl had two brothers, Friedrich, a shoemaker and
August, a tailor. August had a son, Gustaf, who lived in Leipzig and was a
staff trumpeter to a general in the Prussian army. There is a story told
of Gustaf being rewarded for his bravery by being given the head position
in a Conservatory of Music in Leipzig. He was challenged by a group of
musicians to play a difficult number on the piano, which he also played,
involving a chord using two extreme keys on the piano and middle C. He
accomplished this by using his nose for middle C.
Grandfather's mother was a Miss Johanna Christine Buechner who was born in
Sacksen (Saxen), Altenburg. She was a very fine seamstress and often sewed
for Royalty. She died when Albert was born, at the age of thirty. His
birth date was August 20, 1850. He had an older sister, Amelia, born two
years before in 1848. Albert went to school in Schkoelen. There was a big
stone wall through the center of the town and a creek ran through the
middle of the village.
After his mother's death his father remarried. There were five children
from this union -- Lena, Charlie, Gustaf, August and Ben.
At the time of Albert's birth in 1850, Austria and Prussia were rivals.
This eventually lead to the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, which was followed
by the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). Prussia was then a strong military
power. Things were very unsettled and times were hard. Albert would have
been drafted into the army at 16, so his father managed passage for both
Albert 14 and Amelia 16 to the United States. The journey took 14 weeks.
During this time Albert had a birthday and was 15 years old when they
arrived in this country. Here he was to find work and send money back to
Germany for passage for the rest of the family. The province of Saxony and
all of Prussia were abolished by the Potsdam agreement after World War II
in 1945 and put in the Russian zone, now East Germany.
Albert Bernhard and his sister Amelia came to Houtzdale, Pennsylvania. He
worked in the coal mines there. He had a friend, John Vogel, whom Amelia
married. In 1869, the rest of the family was able to come from Germany.
This time the crossing took only 8 days. Lena was 11 years old, Charlie
(Charles Henry) was 8 and Gustaf was 5. I am not sure whether the two
younger half-brothers were born here or in the U.S. (August and Ben).
Mention is made of two sisters who came at the same time, Mina and Rica. I
do not know what relationship they were -- perhaps step-sisters. Mina was
blind and was deported back to Germany. Rica is said to have married a
counterfeiter who was caught but escaped back to Detroit. Lena became Mrs.
Morgan (918 Melrose Avenue, New York City, NY). The family moved to Howard
Lake, Minnesota in Wright County where they had a homestead. Here they
built a house of hewn logs with a fireplace, an upstairs and three rooms
downstairs. They cut wood to earn a living. Once Karl Ziegler cut 15
cords of wood to pay for a heifer that dropped dead as he was bringing it
home. One winter Albert was in bed for three months with boils. Then they
were burned out and lost all of their possessions and family records.
In 1876 the family moved to Dassel, Minnesota, located in Meeker County,
where John and Amelia Vogel lived. Karl's wife's sister, Rosalie (Mrs.
Fritz Vogel) also moved to Dassel from Pennsylvania. I do not know if this
is the same Vogel family that Amelia married into. Here they lived until
Karl Ziegler's death in 1888, from a rupture, as a result of an accident.
His second wife, Eleanor Blunder Ziegler, also died here in 1909, at the
age of 78. There was friction in the family shortly after the move to
Dassel, presumably because the stepchildren could not see eye-to-eye.
Albert in his early twenties worked for a time as a mason's helper in
Duluth, and lived for a short time near Newport, Minnesota (my home). He
worked in St. Paul as a pin setter in a bowling alley. He boarded with a
family named Mudo. The daughter was a school teacher and helped him with
his studies. He was a handsome young man and very particular about his
clothes. It was believed that the first customer of a Jew on Monday
morning could be bargained with. He found this to be true and got some
nice clothes at very reasonable prices.
Albert worked on a farm at Holden, Minnesota for a German-Polish family
named Jeroschefske. There he met a young lass in this family named Julia
who became his wife. The details of the marriage and the early events are
obscure but they married near Nerstrand and set up housekeeping on a farm
in Rice County (Richland Township) near Kenyon, Minnesota. Albert was
perhaps 26 or 27 and Julia ten years younger, only 16 or 17. The first
child, Ottillie (my mother), was born in 1877. A son, Edward, was born two
years later in 1879. The third child, Clara, born March 5, 1881 lived only
six months. She died of summer complaint (summer flu) on August 26, 1881
and lies buried in a cemetery near the farm, west of Kenyon. Then at
approximately two year intervals, William, Elizabeth, Adolph and Albert
appeared.
The farm was successful and would have most likely remained in the family
save for an unfortunate accident. In those days the fall threshing was
done by a machine that went from farm to farm. Neighbors all worked
together to help each other. At the close of each day's work the separator
has to be cleaned. The machine continues to idle for awhile after the
power is turned off, so one had to wait a bit until it stopped. Albert
Bernhard was impatient and anxious to get to the chores, so he put his
right hand under the belt that connected the engine to the separator
intending to slow it down. The belt had a sticky substance on it and his
hand was grabbed and pulled into the pulley that ran the separator. His
hand was badly crushed, and although it healed in time he was unable to do
the heavy farm work. Though the two older sons, Ed and Bill, tried to help
it was too much, so the farm was sold and the family moved into Kenyon.
Here Albert became a cattle buyer. Veal was in great demand at this time.
He bought calves at nearby farms, butchered and dressed them and shipped
them by milk train into St. Paul. He did very well with this work, but the
family had increased by three more boys, Walter - 1891, Otto - 1893, and
Elmer - 1895. The family now had nine children at home ranging in age from
six months to nineteen years. Julia felt the need for more space and more
work for mischievous children.
During the year before Elmer was born, there had been a savage forest fire.
It occurred on September 1, 1894 and was known as the Great Hinckley Fire.
The fire swept over central Pine County and consumed the villages of Brook
Park, Mission Creek, Hinckley, and Sandstone, killing 418 people. In Brook
Park 23 residents died in this fire. There is a monument in the Brook Park
cemetery marking the mass grave where these residents are buried. In 1895,
Albert made a trip to Brook Park and decided this would be a good place for
his family, with plenty of work for the boys. Land was selling here for
$6.00 an acre. He sold his home in Kenyon for $600 and invested it in land
at Brook Park, Minnesota. He bought 80 acres back of the school house from
a real estate agency, Kelsey & Hazlett Realty. Kelsey urged him to build a
much needed hotel for the new community, and to choose any site for it and
cut lumber for it without charge. This they did. The old hotel is the
home at present of Aunt Liz, and was the family home. Ed and Bill cut the
logs for lumber for it. It was built very sturdy. Where a 2x6 would
suffice a 2x8 was used. A big sign hung out in front, The Brook Park
House. It was built on a two foot thick foundation. Just before
completion a tornado struck and moved the house ajar, just off from the
foundation, at an angle. A dray (a horse drawn delivery) from Pine County
had to be hired to pull the house back onto the foundation again. The west
basement wall caved in and had to be rebuilt. In the basement, at the time
the tornado struck were 200 quart jars of fruit canned that summer. Only
one jar was broken. Just to be sure the lids were not loosened and the
seals broken by the tornado, Julia and her two daughters recanned the whole
199 quarts. The wild strawberries and raspberries had been plentiful that
year in a patch just across from the railroad tracks near the house. This
land belonged to grandmother's brother, John (Johann) Shaske. All the
family had worked hard picking the berries. This patch was filled with
berry pickers.