Breitscheid Pottery

The ancestors who came from Breitscheid, Hesse-Nassau, Germany were potters, or topfers in German.  When we visited the area we stopped at the pottery museum there. We took a picture of a photo of the original building, as well as another showing workers in the factory in the past.

I purchased this small pitcher at the museum shop as a souvenir of our visit and as an example of the type of pottery that was made in Breitscheid.

* 52 Ancestors - "Craft"

Hazel's Recipe Book

Several years ago Jeanette sent me Hazel's recipe book, which also contained some old photographs that had always been stored in the book. Two of the old photos show Julia Staub Smith and her three sons on the lawn in front of the original Smith home.

Jeanette included several "sticky notes" to explain some of the recipes. Two of them were in her handwriting, and others had names of the original bakers who were relatives or neighbors. Ida's date cake, Mrs. A. Bemis' salad dressing, Ellen Larsen's filled oatmeal cookies, "Grandmother's Nut Bread" (Harriet Smith? Julia Smith?), Ida's cranberry cake, and Dorothy J.'s (Johnson) celery pickles. Grandma S.'s filled oatmeal cookie recipe was also included.

The back cover was quite interesting to a family researcher, because my grandmother had written relative's names with their birth and death dates.

This little recipe book will be passed along to Peg and eventually to her granddaughter Hazel, named after Hazel Rowe Smith.

* 52 Ancestors: "Handed Down"

Henry Joseph Schmidt 1850-1903

I always thought of the Heinrich Joseph Schmidt family as the "Milwaukee connection." He was mentioned briefly in the White Star history, but more details have been discovered recently.

The birth of Heinrich Joseph Schmidt was recorded in the church book of Winkels, Hesse-Nassau. His parents were Johann Heinrich Schmidt, born in Breitscheid and Catherina Bernhardt, born in Ruckershausen. Johann was the brother of Catherina Elisabeth Schmidt, our John Henry Smith's mother. John Henry and Henry Joseph were cousins, just as the newspaper item reporting his death stated. 

The Breitscheid side of the family were potters, which would explain why Henry Schmidt eventually partnered with George Weis in a pottery/stoneware business in Milwaukee. That business was established in 1875. An article in the "Historical Messenger" of the Milwaukee County Historical Society from March, 1970 provides more history of the business.

"The last major pottery concern founded in Milwaukee in the 19th century was that of Henry Weis and Frederick Schmidt (notice the mix-up of names: Frederick was George Weis' son) which began operation in 1876 at 750 2nd Street. They later moved to 31st and Cherry, where they continued operations until 1915, when they went out of business." (Corporation Records of Milwaukee County, Vol. R. p 556.)

* Craft - 52 Ancestors

Scandinavia Cemetery

The original "map" of the Scandinavia Lutheran Cemetery was kept on the back of a window shade. The top photo explains that a copy was made of a 1927 plat drawing in 1962. The bottom shows a portion of the original 1927 sketch. The tombstone information is available in several locations online at present.

* 52 Ancestors - "At the Cemetery"

Isaac Newell 1660-1738

Isaac Newell was Dick's eighth great grandfather. We had carefully tracked his mother's maternal line through Hackett, Bailey, Rich, and Conant (and through Wisconsin, New York and Vermont) to the Newell family of Dudley, Massachusetts.

After our son's wedding his wife presented us with a packet containing family research that her mother had collected through the years. This was exciting for me, as her ancestors had lived in many other locations than Wisconsin, where most of my research was focused. We added the information to our database and planned to continue working with the names.

Within the next few years we happened to be visiting the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We were using their resources to add information to our family tree. Imagine my surprise when Dick found a book called The Early Records of Roxbury, Massachusetts. The book contained records pertaining to his Newell family line, but he had traced our daughter-in-law’s Newell line to the same family!  

We were amused to be able to tell our son that he and his wife were distant cousins! Isaac Newell was their common ancestor. They were able to take this in stride, however, as they named their son Isaac.

52 Ancestors - "Namesake"

Hazel Rowe Grades a Railway

 24 June 1907 - Milwaukee Sentinel

Newspaper research helped to verify a family "legend" about my grandmother, Hazel Rowe. Not only was the story reported in the Waupaca area, it also appeared in the Milwaukee Sentinel. The Waupaca-Green Bay line was being built through the Elm Valley area, and Hazel (whose name was written incorrectly as "Arthea") and her brother were helping to build a grade for that railroad. She may or may not have appreciated being described as a "healthy, robust girl."

Cousin Peg has a copy of a paper written by Judy Olson for a geography class at Stevens Point some forty years ago about the construction of the railway in 1907. 

Title Page of Report

The map Judy included shows three stops between Waupaca and Scandinavia: Granite Quarry, the Rowe farm and the Knutson farm.

Map showing stops on the railway line

According to Judy's research, the railroad planned to discontinue the stops in 1916 due to "unjustified costs." However, Andrew Rowe objected, saying that he was promised the stop after "almost giving the railroad the right-of-way under those conditions." The crossing at the Rowe farm did continue for a number of years, although the Knutson farm crossing was eliminated.

The train traveled each morning and afternoon, and extra trips were scheduled during potato season. The stop at the Granite Quarry continued until the railway was abandoned in 1947. 

Thanks to Peg and Judy for this information! 

52 Ancestors: "Witness to History"

New Hope Cemetery

Several years ago we drove over to Portage County to explore the New Hope Cemetery where a few of our Norwegian connections were buried. 

Anders and Guri Groethe were names on two of the tombstones we photographed. Anders was Great Great Grandmother Kari Rowe's brother.

Anders Groethe

Guri Groethe

*52 Ancestors: "At the Cemetery"