My Aunt Mary (May) Saskowski Fleck (1890 - )

My father had a sister, May or Mamie, who married a Bill Fleck and lived in Mercer, Wisconsin.  This must be Mary.  We remember trips to Mercer, near the border of the Michigan U.P.  Tom remembers that the fishing was terrific and the smell of cut pine was so sweet.  Judy remembers there was a souvenir store nearby which sold things like Indian war bonnets.  They had 2(?) sons.  I couldn't have been more than two years old but I remember picking up pine cones.  Aunt May had health problems and died fairly young, seemingly unexpectedly according to Judy.

My Aunt Julianne (Julia) Saskowski Grutza (1896 - ? )

My Aunt Julia lived in Milwaukee not too far from our house.  She had a large family.  For some reason, the name Knitter is associated with her but the records I found show her married to a Harry Grutza.  I'm guessing that one of her children married a Knitter but I couldn't find any links in ancestry.com.....yet.

In 1930 when my dad was 23 years old and still had the surname Saskowski, he was living with Julia and Harry 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

We think this picture is of Julia.  

One of her sons in the Navy may have been killed in World War II.  Here's a picture of Harry Grutza and one of their sons.  Richard?  He went MIA in the Pacific.

 My brother told me that Harry liked cigars.

Coast Guard

We think the next two pictures are of Julia and Harry's daughter, Esther, who would have been about 22 in the wedding picture.

Here's a nice family picture with Aunt Julia, Harry, children and grandchildren, some named Knitter (?).  Apparently the address for one of the sons is written on the back of this picture.

My Uncle John/Jan Saskowski (1885 - ? )

My dad's oldest brother, John, seemed to go by the name of Jan in some of the ancestry.com records.  The Federal Census records from 1920 and earlier seemed to be full of spelling errors and/or phonetic spellings.  So, I'll use John/Jan when referring to him.  He was 21 years older than my dad so that could be why I never knew or heard about him.

He married Helen (LNU), 1884-1962.  I came across other family trees in ancestry.com that were linked to my Uncle John/Jan that I'm still trying to sort through.  There are family trees for Myszkowski, Ehlert, Stelling, and Mozejewski.  John/Jan and Helen had 5 children and I expect this is where the other family trees are coming in.  The picture below is from a printout I took from ancestry.com showing my Uncle John/Jan's side of the family tree.  Uncle John/Jan is circled in blue with my paternal grandparents above him.  My dad is circled in pink (not sure if he would like that).  Everything below that line is Uncle John/Jan's family tree that has been documented in ancestry.com with the family relationships mentioned above.

Uncle John/Jan's Family Tree

I am getting deeper and deeper into this.  It's exciting to find new relationships but I can see its going to become a big time-sucker.  Today I wrote to two of the people on ancestry.com that have links to my Uncle John/Jan Saskowski.  The way ancestry.com works is that you don't email directly to others but through ancestry.com so they have to log on to see your email.  One of the people I wrote to seems to be on pretty regularly.  Cross your fingers.