Gertrude Severson, Daughter of My Aunt Martha Saskowski Kolodzieski

Here's what I found on Gertrude Severson, my dad's sister's daughter.  In ancestry.com, I found a record for John Kolodzieski, Gertrude's father.   It all fits in if you accept the fact there was a spelling error on the record;  her mother's maiden was listed as  "Lack" but should be "Sack".  Martha Sack used to be Martha Saskowski.  She was the daughter of Joseph and Mary Saskowski and my dad's sister.  That would make Gertrude my first cousin.

I remember seeing Gerty and Wayne one time, when I was quite young.  They were going to take the ferry across the lake from Milwaukee to Michigan.  They were going to take me along but I ended up not going because they thought I might get seasick.

Wayne was a cop and, if I remember correctly, he had a Harley.  Could that be where I got my love of Harley's?  Tom remembers a memorable ride in a patrol car with Wayne and what a terrific guy he was.

Severson, Gertrude R. Born 3/18/1928, Died 1/18/2012 Gertrude “Trudy” R. Severson, 83, of Neshkoro passed away Wednesday January 18, 2012 at St. Agnes Hospital. She was born March 18, 1928 in Milwaukee a daughter to John and Martha (Lack) Kolodzieski. On August 4, 1956 she married Wayne Severson in Milwaukee. She was a homemaker most of her life. Trudy and her husband owned the Chit Chat Tap Bar in Princeton.   She enjoyed playing bingo, doing crossword and word search puzzles, feeding the birds, spending time with her family, friends, and especially her grandchildren. Survivors include her four children: Bev Wade of Milwaukee, Mike Severson of Milwaukee, Barb (Ron) Stibb of Neshkoro, and Chris (Bradley) Roehl of Neshkoro; eleven grandchildren: Greg (Melissa), Jenny (Joe) and their daughter Chloe, Carrie (Brandon), and Melissa (Troy) and their son Devin, Becky (Andy) and Katie, Tiffany (Nick) and their baby Winnie, Amanda (Elliot), and Dustin, Collin and Logan; also survived by other relatives and friends. She is preceded in death by her parents, her husband, and one son-in-law Russ Wade. Private family services will take place.

Tom and Judy Pictures

Santa does NOT look happy.  LOL 

Dog Named Rex?

I'm guessing the following picture, based on other pictures at the time, was right around the time I was born, 1948.

More Tom and Judy pictures, some up at the County Hospital:

Half-Sister Vivian

Vivian Sack

I've been trying to reconstruct the history of my half-sister Vivian who was born in 1931. That would make her 17 years older than me!  I think she died sometime between 2005 and 2010.  The information I found is from ancestry.com.

In the 1940 Federal Census, my maternal grandparents, Thomas and Anna, were living at 4625 Maple in Brookfield, IL.  By that time the Shultze surname had been changed to Schultz.  Living in the household were:

• Thomas Schultz, 60
• Anna Schultz, 55
• Lester Schultz, 23
• Vivian Sack, 9

The 1940 Federal Census showed that my mother and father were living at 921 North Milwakee Street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with no dependents in the household. Apparently Vivian lived with my grandparents in Illinois off and on.  She did have the last name of Sack so she must have been adopted by my dad at some point.  Maybe.

This must be her confirmation picture:

Rock River

Maybe 10 or 15 miles from the County Hospital was my aunt and uncle's cottage and boat house on Rock River.  Many summers were spent out there, jumping off the cement pier, swimming with real inner tubes, picking off the suckers, catching bullheads, swinging on the front porch, and just generally enjoying everything.  Because of the swimming suits, these may be pictures from out there.  I don't know all the people but there's my dad and mother with Tom and Judy and my cousin Carole Jean Klink on the right.

Lester Schultz (Sylvester Shultze)

My Uncle Lester was born in 1918 and was my mother's younger brother.  

The Dodge County Mental Hospital

Yes, that's what they used to call these places.  After my dad died in 1960 when I was eleven, I went to live there with my Aunt Isabel and Uncle Vinnie who were the superintendent and matron.  Here's what it looked like back then:

Holidays were big events at the County Hospital with the 4th of July being one of the biggest.  My cousin, Jack, had wired one of the most grandiose stereo systems and John Phillips Sousa would be blasting away on the 4th.  All the patients would gather out in the yard.  Balloons, pinwheels, sparklers, and ice cream would be passed out to everyone.  There was probably supper but I don't remember that.  My nieces from Appleton would be there I would especially look forward to seeing Butchie, my half-sister Vivian's oldest daughter.  She was one or two years younger than me and we would always have one heck of a good time.  

We always got to have cap guns and those little round strips of caps.  We could play for hours with that stuff.  Here's a picture of my father on July 4, 1948, giving out balloons.

Here's a picture of him and my Aunt Isabel dishing out ice cream with Homer (one of the patients) getting the cone.  Homer was still there when I went to live there 11 years after this picture was taken.  I really don't know of any patients getting "released" from the hospital until things started changing in the late 1960's and patients were mainstreamed into society.

Here's one more picture from the same 4th of July celebration in 1948.  The women are Grandma Klink, Grandma Schultz, and Mayme.  Grandma Klink, my Uncle Vinnie's mother, died before I got to know her.  I have no idea who Mayme is.

Except for breakfast, the family's meals were always formal.  We had white linen tablecloths and napkins, china, crystal and real silver silverware.  There was a dumbwaiter that brought the food up to the pantry from the kitchen below.  One of the trusted patients, most often Rosie, stood in the doorway between the pantry and the dining room, waiting to get us more water, pass dishes, etc.  For holidays or special occasions, the table setting got even fancier, with candles and more crystal.  Here's a picture of one such occasion, my twin cousins' 8th birthday.  Left to right are Aunt Isabel, my cousin Karen, my cousin Carol Jean, and my cousin Kenny.  Aunt Isabel always sat to the left of Uncle Vinnie who always sat at the head of the table with his back to the pantry.

On the hospital grounds (which covered hundreds(?) of acres), there were about ten 10' x 20' flower beds on the way to the hospital, designed and managed by Aunt Isabel.  There were seating trellises covered with beautiful roses in the summer.  And there were gazing balls on stands which probably explains where I got my love of gazing balls.

My aunt had a big greenhouse out back of the hospital and every spring she started boxes and boxes of annuals.  I remember alyssum, beautiful sweet peas that she covered with cheesecloth to protect them from the hot sun, and my favorite, cockscomb.  The flower beds were masses of color and maintained by my aunt and some of the patients.

Here's a picture of my niece, Butchie, and me, standing by one of the trellises.  It was probably about 2 weeks after my dad died and my aunt convinced Butchie and me to let her give us permanents.  I don't think Butchie ever got another permanent after that.

Judith Marie Sack

What a CUTE baby!

And a cute little girl!

Thomas Joseph Sack

I think they really liked dressing Tom military style because there's another one further down when he's a little older.

Tom's school in Milwaukee:

I think this is Brownie.  We got Brownie after Measles got hit by Kenneth Franz, my first grade teacher, and the person who is responsible for me ever learning to read.  That doesn't mean I've forgiven him for killing Measles.  :-(

Beverly Jean Sack

I was born in Milwaukee on September 29, 1948.  I'm positive I'm here but I can't find a single record on ancestry.com to verify that.  

I'm not sure but I think this might be the first picture of my dad and me:

I think these next 5 pictures are pictures of me.

Me with Karen Klink in the background

I'm guessing I was about 2 years old in this next picture.  

I can still remember my mother being mad at me for wiggling while she was cutting my bangs.  Well, darn it, that hair falling on my nose was itchy!

My brother took this picture with our little Brownie 127.  I remember making the scarf in 4-H.  It was a heavy dark brown linen-type material, not very attractive but it was an easy project and it kept my head warm.  All we had to do was cut a square of fabric, sew around 1 inch from the edge, and pull out the threads to fray the edge.  Our second 4-H sewing project was to make an apron out of gingham.  I think mine was turquoise and white.  I also remember drawing and coloring a poster of the food groups for some 4-H event.  We lived out in the country so scheduled activities were few and far between.

Here's an aerial view of the farm where I lived from the time I was 2-1/2 until my dad died when I was 11.

I went to a one-room schoolhouse in the country, Gahlman Grade School, several miles from our farm.  I went there from 1st grade through 6th grade.  There was no pre-school or kindergarten.  I walked to and from school every single day, no matter what the weather was like.  During the winter, if we wanted hot lunch, we packed our soup or spaghetti in glass jars and the teacher put them into a pan of hot water on top of the big boiler(?)/heater in the classroom so they'd be warm by lunchtime.

Here is the entire classroom in 1960. That's me in the upper-left.   

Going to Juneau Public School after my dad died was a very awkward time in my life, made even more so that I joined Band and had to use my cousin Kenny's old coronet.  I included the following pictures taken at the Dodge County Hospital because, "...it is what it is, it's not what it should have been, not what it could have been, it is what it is." (Quoted from a famous actress's dad.)

I was never very good at the coronet.  I would have liked to play the flute but I was too shy and intimidated to ever suggest that. 

Walter Anton Sack

June 23, 1906 - June 22, 1960

It's always exciting to find a little piece of the ancestry puzzle but I found a whole lot that surprised me.  I wanted to find out more about my father's side.  I remembered that somewhere along the way he shortened his name from Saskowski to Sack.  The joke in the family was always, "Couldn't he have changed it to something a little nicer!"  Apparently the surname was changed because of the prejudice against the Polish on the south side of Milwaukee at that time.

I wasn't finding any early records in ancestry.com for my father under the name Walter Sack so I changed my search to Walter Saskowski.  Bingo!  According to the 1930 U.S. Federal Census, he was living with his sister and brother-in-law, Julia and Harry Grutza, in Milwaukee.  

The household at that time included the following members and ages:

• Harry Grutza,  33
• Julia Grutza, 34
• Esther Grutza, 12
• Jeanette Grutza, 9
• Richard Grutza, 7
• Harry Grutza, 6
• Bernadine Grutza, <1
• Walter Saskowski, 23

My brother told me that Julia's son was lost in the Pacific.  She took this very hard and died of a heart attack in her 50's, he thought.

Prior to this time, when my father was just 13 and with a third grade education, he went to work in a foundry.  The history gets a little messy here.

According to my brother, our father was locked in the plant when angry workers stormed the fences and a wall.  They were turned back with fire hoses.  Our father witnessed one guy's head split open with a pipe.  Governor Heil's car was overturned and set on fire and the National Guard was called in.  

NOTE:  There is some discrepancy to this narrative.  Julius Heil, born in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1881, was Governor of Wisconsin from 1939-1943.  According to the "Wisconsin National Guard: Federal and State Activations", the only time the National Guard was called to a company between 1930 and 1950 was In 1934 during the Kohler strike, before Governor Heil's term.  

Our father was known as Walter, Wally, and Mack.  My brother didn't know the order of the following events, but here they are:

He served a hitch in the Navy and he said the sailors enjoyed wine quite a bit.  This was prior to WW II.  He also told of shooting at a sail target with a machine gun and some officer saying, "Sack, you couldn't hit a bull in the ass with a hand full of puffed rice on a windy day."  (My brother assumed the wind would have been blowing toward the bull!)

Our father worked at Allis Chalmers which he liked better than the foundry.  Then he got a job with Chicago Northwestern Railroad where he loaded and unloaded freight which was anything from gravestones to bananas.  He told my brother of workers finding large spiders in the bananas and also a pretty good-sized snake!

I know this is my dad on the right at a swimming pool in Milwaukee.  That's possibly a friend named Harold Kroll with him.

At some point we lived at South Seventh Street in Milwaukee but I'm sure it didn't look quite like this.  There is still a field and railroad tracks across the street.

After we moved to the farm on Hogsback Road in rural Juneau, Wisconsin, (1951?), he was still working at the railroad and came home on weekends.  He gave up a good railroad retirement when he quit to spend more time at home and went to work at Aunt Nellie's canning factory in Clyman (long hours, low pay).  I remember laughing so hard when the pea crop would come in and he's say, "I'll be pea-ing (peeing!!!) until midnight tonight."

Here's a picture taken, I think, in 1948:

Here is a picture taken, I think, in 1950:

The Green Hornet

Joseph and Mary Saskowski

My paternal grandparents were Joseph Saskowski (born March 1863) and Mary (born September 1866, Poland or Germany).  Mary immigrated in 1870.  They married in 1885.

They lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  My brother said they had 13 children but I was only able to find names and birth years for 11 of them from the Federal Census records.

• John Saskowski (born 1885) 
• Peter Saskowski (born 1888)
• Mary Saskowski (born 1890)
• Agnus Saskowski (born 1894)
• Julianne Saskowski (born 1896)
• Edmund Saskowski (born 1898)
• Paul Saskowski (born 1899)
• Martha Saskowski (born 1903)
• Walter Saskowski (born 1907)
• Joseph Saskowski (born 1908)
• George Saskowski (born 1909)

My grandfather was killed by a train and my grandmother was found dead in bed one morning when my dad was 13 years old.  He said that there was a tapping on the bedroom window right before she died (an angel had come for her).

Isabel Katherine Klink (nee Shultze)

September 3, 1905 - February 4, 1997

My Aunt Isabel was 91 when she died in 1997.  Here's a picture from her youth.

She was married to my Uncle Vinnie, 12/14/1900 - November 1972.  I don't have any pictures of him but if you imagine a short, portly German, that would be him.  He taught me how to say, "Dog farts fried in butter" in German.

They had 5 children born within a 16-year period!

Florian Vincent born in 1925
Richard Aaron (Dick) born in 1931 (no picture and he died 11/26/1988)
Carol Jean born 1935
Karen and Kenneth born in 1941

Uncle Vinnie had prostate cancer and died in a hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, where I was living at the time.  My cousin Karen called me and I rushed up to the hospital but he died just before I got there.

Federal census records show he was living at the county hospital in 1919 when he was 19. He had 2 brothers and 2 sisters that lived there also.  I was always aware that his parents ran the place before he and my aunt took over.

When my aunt and uncle were retiring in the late 1960's, Dick and his wife Shirley wanted to take over from my aunt and uncle.  About that time, things were drastically changing in the mental health area and many, many patients were being mainstreamed into society. Sometimes I wonder if that is partially the cause of some of the problems we have today. Anyway, Dick was a biology teacher in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, and with the changes taking place, I wonder if he didn't have the credentials that were now needed.

Walter and Laura Sack

Here are my mother and dad in Milwaukee on their wedding day, probably sometime in the 1930's.

 Standing up for them were my dad's brother, Paul, and his wife, May.

This next picture looks like a very early picture of my mother and dad.  I don't know if it was before they were married or after.