Please! I Need a Caption for This One

Found this wonderful 1961 picture of Mom/Aunt Carol's Great Grampa Walters and Great Aunt Tillie Walters Bahr (Granny Schultz' Dad and Aunt). It is an nice family picture to have! It was taken in the backyard of Tillie's son in Milwaukee, I keep laughing every time I look at at. What's with the barbells?

C'mon, people, help me put a caption on this one! Who says history can't be fun!

Great Grampa Frederick Walters and Great Aunt Tillie (Walters) Bahr
Fall 1961

Holy Cow! My Uncles Liked Baseball Too!

Uncle Ernie Dolan

      Spring training is just around the corner. That's always a good thing. As someone once said, "In springtime a young man's fancy turns to ... baseball" or something like that. I got to thinking about baseball today, and thought a jotting was in order.

    Another story that family pictures tell is that some of my uncles liked baseball too. That is especially true of my Uncle Ernie Dolan, my Dad's brother. He always talked to me about baseball. It was Uncle Ernie who first took me to the friendly confines of Wrigley Field in Chicago. 

    As long as I live I will never forget that moment on that day. It was very late 1950s or maybe very early 1960s. It was kind of rainy and gloomy that day. I remember walking up the runway from the main concourse. Then there it was. It was so green! The grass and the famous ivy-covered walls - it was so green that day, standing out in contrast to the grayness of the weather. And I remember the colors ofthe Cub uniforms - the bright blue caps and blue trimming. Then there was the reds - the Cincinnati Reds, that is, with their colorful uniforms. The Reds had some big sluggers, like Gus Bell and Ted "Big Klu" Kluszewski, who played sleeveless even though their jerseys then were cut up to the shoulder. It was a religious experience and that day my Uncle Ernie was a god. By the way, the Redlegs killed the Cubs that day.

      The problem was that I became a Milwaukee Brave fan, and Uncle Ernie liked to yank my chain by calling my heroes, "dem bums from Milwaukee" and then he'd spit tobacco from the chaw the size of a golf ball that he had packed in his cheek.

      But he loved the Cubs. One of his favorite moments was taking the "Cubs Cruise" with Hall of Fame broadcaster Harry "Holy Cow" Carey as host. It didn't surprise me at all that he had a drink and got a picture. It's one of my faves!

Hall of Famer Harry Carey and My Uncle Ernie Dolan

Uncle George Donlon

      It might surprise some to know that my Uncle George liked baseball too. I knew he was a fan, but apparently he played too. The pictures don't lie. Friedens had a team, and you will see a young George in the back row, third from the left, in the picture that was taken outside the church or school in Kenosha. Nice "uni", huh!

      After he moved to California in 1960 and the California Angels became an expansion team in Anaheim, George became a big Angel fan. I can still hear his distinctive voice on the phone, "How 'bout my Angels, John!"  (He never called me Johnny.)

      Here's a bit of family trivia: When George got a job as a mailman in Anaheim, what baseball great was on his mail route? Answer: The Hall of Fame pitcher, Nolan Ryan. Yup, my Uncle George delivered the great Nolan Ryan's mail! Bet you didn't know that.

Uncle Kelly Greening and Uncle George Donlon

     Here's a snapshot bonus. Also in the same picture is another of my uncles, Uncle Kelly Greening. He is right next to George in the back row, second from the left. Uncle Kelly did a lot of things and was known especially for his green thumb (evidenced by his awesome garden and golf course quality lawn at 4711 20th, Kenosha.) But he played ball too. I didn't know that.

     Here's one more and another one of my faves. It's an old Zion ball team - looks like an all-star team. Uncle Ernie is kneeling in the front center. He was a pretty good pitcher and I know he had at least one tryout. He told me that he met and worked out with another Hall of Fame pitcher, Dizzy Dean, and his brother Paul "Daffy" Dean of the old St. Louis "Gashouse Gang." You can look it up.

     Usually it's not a good thing to write on the front of pictures, but in this case, I'm glad my Dad did. He identified everyone in the picture. Along with Ernie is a Dolan cousin, Axel Dolan, and Ernie's brother-in-law, Paul Erickson (Paul did play for Cubs and was on the mound when the Cubs clinched the 1945 pennant - another story for another day.) Also, you see the Guy brothers, good friends of the Dolan family, and one of them, Alfie Guy is the Dad of my Facebook friend, Marty Guy.

     I just love this stuff! No wonder I grew up loving America's Pasttime. Play Ball!

A Rare Mateske Find

I have been told that pictures of Great Grampa Mateske are few. True enough. Here is one of them (center of the picture.) And its a good one.

Occasion and location? Don't know. Circa 1957. Here's the role call:

Uncle Don Teztlaff, Dad Bob Mateske Sr, Grampa Edward Mateske.

Bob Mateske Jr. Gramma Minnie (Crown) Mateske with Cousin Jayne (Tetzlaff) Wilkins in her lap, Mom Delores (Schultz)Mateske with Carol (Mateske) Dolan in her lap, Aunt Jane (Mateske) Tetzlaff

Crown Me With Many Crowns (Sorry!)

The Family of Franklin Crown and Julia Sell

Ok, here's one for the Montello side of the family. While in Montello recently I got to looking for some of the albums I had seen before, but hadn't seen for some time. Found them. One of them belonged to Gramma Minnie (Crown) Mateske. It was a scrapbook of sorts that followed the descendants of Franklin and Julia (Sell) Crown - or in other words, Gramma Minnie's siblings.

Julia was Great Grampa Franklin's second wife. The first one, Caroline Fenske, died. She is buried in the cemetery out at Mecan. They had five children of their own. Now, add seven more!

The Crowns were farmers in the Township of Mecan. Don't know where the farm is - yet. I will find that out soon and check it out. I may even be a regular at the Crown family reunion - if they have any more of those. These were quite the affairs in their day, but alas, things change.

Making heads or tails of who's who in this family always confused me (like: there was a Big Ella and a Little Ella - really!? Did they know that?) Working through Gramma Minnie's book helped me sort some of it out. This picture is a classic - and a family historian's dream. You just have to follow each one of the seven children, and sit back and learn a lot. Some highlights of the picture:

+ Gramma Minnie Mateske is the little girl on the end right. 

+ Aunt Clara Quick (Aaron and Clara from Waupun) is the little girl standing front left. 

+ Martha is the older girl back left. Her family lived and grew up in and around Rochester, MN.

+ The other older daughter in the back is "Big Ella", who married a Bill (Ross). Their son Arnold made his home in Princeton. He and his family were active in our church there. A friend of my brother David, Pastor Bob Pless served them for many years. And a former MLC tutor and son of one of my grade school teachers in Kenosha, Dan Heiderich, buried his wife not long. Now, sit down for this one. One of the great, great grandchildren of Bill and Big Ella was a student of mine at FVL and another married a child I baptized, the daughter of our good friends from Appleton, Matt and Denise Schlawin. Blows my mind. And God smiles!

+ The boy in the center is William (Bill) who married Little Ella (Schmitz). We bought the refrigerator we took to our first call in Portage from them.

+The other boy is Walter. He married Lena Schmitz who is the sister of Little Ella. Follow?

+ And another one for my brother David. The older son in the back row is Clarence Crown, the father of Harley, and the grandfather of your prep friend, Terry Crown. Small world, huh!

And there you have it. Ask me when you are in Montello, and you can see the Crown book.

I Need Your Help - What Do You Think?

Identifying old pictures is fun, but it can be a challenge. There are times when it is obvious (especially when someone wrote on the back.) Educated guessing often is the order of the day. Knowing someone else in the picture, or recognizing a place, can help. A process of elimination usually becomes part of the process too. 

Here is an example. Look at the three young ladies below. Look at their faces especially the one standing and the one sitting on the right. It's from Sweden - 1800s likely - so that helps. I think this is a picture of the three Jonsson sisters, my great grandmother, Augusta, (standing) and her sister Emelia (Emily) sitting on the right. The third would then be Reka (Fredrika).

How did I come to this identification? I looked at other pictures of Great Grandma and Amelia later in life and compared. (I have no pictures of Reka. I look at Augusta's face and the way she holds her head in pictures, and Emelia's eyes are very distinctive. Maybe I'm guilty of wishful thinking, but then again since the picture was in an old family album belonging to Augusta, so maybe I am right.

What do you think? 

Augusta Jonsson Ljungberg Dolan

Amelia (Emily) Jonsson Frykmann