Early Ratzburg History - 1804 And Beyond

By Delores Miller
  
208 years ago Christian Ratzburg (1804-1895) was born in the small village of Zerrenthin, near Stettin, Poland, Prussia, province of Brandenburg.  He  married Christina Plarge in Germany and (as far as we know) had three children, William the first (1837-1910), Caroline Schultz (1834-1911) and John the first (1830-1912).     Times were tough  in Germany, wars with  neighboring countries.  Military service was mandatory, a life sentence.  William the first served with the Army during the Danish War in 1864 when he was 27 years old, and already married.  Later he was called to the Austrian 1866 clash, and the Franco Prussian 1871-1872 conflict.    Because Wisconsin was a fairly new state, land agents wrote to German churches and newspapers, promising a land of riches.
 
Caroline Ratzburg (1834-1911) married Carl Schultz and had six children, all born in Germany, Wilhelmine, Wilhelm, Carl, John, Bertha, and Maria.   Someone sent emigrant tickets for Caroline, her husband, six children and her Father, Christian Ratzburg who by that time was 78 years old.  They arrived on April 12, 1882.  Settled at Fremont and because they brought their Lutheran Religion from Germany, were some of the first members of St. Paul's Lutheran Church, and eventually made their way to the church cemetery.  Christian Ratzburg lived another 17 years in the promised land of America and died at 91.
 
Early in the 1870s the first wave of immigrants came to Wisconsin, including John Ratzburg the first in 1874.  Settled near Fremont, and it is surmised he sent an emigrant ticket for his brother William the first to come in 1880.    By this time he was 43 years old and came with his wife, the former Dorothy Maria Malwitz (1840-1903) and four children, Wilhelminia Buss, William the second, Ida Schmidt, Anna Schwan and nine months after the boat landed another son John (1882-1932) was born.
 
Names were very expensive in those days, and the Ratzburg family had to keep reusing and repeating names like John and William.
 
Shortly after arriving in American, William Ratzburg the first  and his wife Dorothy came to Dupont, a land covered with trees, maple, beech, hemlock and oak. Boulders, cobblestones, fieldstones, pebbles,  rocks.  Built a log house, hewed out of a dense forest,  almost a hovel, and a log barn.   Dorothy died  in  May 1903 after an accident involving runaway horses pulling a wagon.  She had survived life in Germany as a peasant with her husband in the military, the boat ride to America, crossing the United States to Wisconsin and then die in a horse and wagon accident.  What was she doing in the field?  Picking stones?
 
Dupont  neighbors in 1889 were Dell Spaulding, Nichols and Corwin, from Ireland, Ranke, Krueger and Carey.  Later associates were Diecks, Laufler, Poppe, Mielke, Hangartner, Arndt, Seibold.   They were members of St. John's Lutheran Church, Marion.
 
This was a happy time, hunting, fishing, trapping muskrats.  Large heater for warmth, kitchen wood stove.  Cut trees with crosscut saw, split wood.  Women picked wild berries  on the hill in back of the barn, hickory nuts, large garden.  Baking bread, cookies, cakes, biscuits.  Knitted mittens, socks, scarves, sewed clothing.  Butchered pigs, cured the hams and bacon, fried out the lard.  Cooking maple syrup.  Raised and bred trotting horses.
 
Visiting neighbors, relatives and friends, horse and buggy in summer, sleigh in winter.  Christmas was an event looked forward too, filled the sleigh with hay and all the family went to church.  Picnics in summer, food in great abundance, fried chicken and pies.  House parties for birthdays and anniversaries, dances.  Someone always had a fiddle and concertina.  Kerosene lamps, wash board and brush for clothes and then a hand operated washing machine.  Home made soap, water from a cistern pump.  Toting well water.  Outhouse, chamber pots.  Chickens, ducks, pigs, huge garden and potato patch.  A self-sustaining farm.
 
 
William the second  of Dupont who was 17 years older than his wife  Hulda produced 12 children, three who died in infancy:  Fritz, (1902), Louie, (1903-1978), Herman (1904-1987), August, (1907), Ella Lampe (1908-1990), Dora Sheldorf, (1910-1974), Ren, (1912-1996), Nicholas, (1915-1940), William the Third, (1918-2011), Arthur, (1920), Lester, (1922-2009), and Margaret Baerenwald, (1924-1990).   In her 22 years of childbearing, Hulda had 12 children so she was pregnant for 108 months.  Pictures show Hulda always a smile on her face,  dressed in a cotton house dress, long apron, brown cotton stockings, and her thin long hair, piled in a pug on top of her head.   All the children walked west the two miles to Maple Valley grade school.
 
John Ratzburg of Dupont (1882-1932) married Anna and had Henry, John, Walter, Rose and Ed.  Farmed west of his brother in Dupont, later at Tigerton and finally Oshkosh.  When he died in 1932, his remains were brought back to Roseland Cemetery.
 
Early in 1900 William Ratzburg and his brother-in-law Carl Schwan ran a saw mill on the Pigeon River.  The railroad arrived in Marion (Perry's Mill) in 1879.    Probably to saw timber and lumber to build a new house in 1906 to furnish enough bedrooms for his growing family.  Windmill for water power, grew tobacco to dry in the corn crib.    Milk cows, canned milk, hoisted to the Maple Valley Cheese Factory.
 
William the second of Dupont  married Hulda Ehlert of Pella.  Siblings of Hulda included Emma who married John Ratzburg, Louisa, Mrs Fred Radtke, Mary, Mrs Gust Wege, and Anna, Mrs John Moericke.  Between the Ratzburg and Ehlert families, they were related to most everyone in three counties.
 
Along came the depression of the 1930s, low prices for farm products and Franklin Roosevelt's WPA programs.  Because Ratzburgs lived on the ridge, and the road over the hill was crooked, one of the WPA programs was to straighten the road.  Farmers were paid a dollar a day to dig dirt and rocks, and a stone wall was cemented in to the embankment, and the date - 1935 chisled into a large central  boulder, still standing 75 years later in 2012.
 
John the first  of Fremont (1830-1912) had a son, John the second (1860-1925), came to America when he was 14 years old in 1874,  married Anna Pagel in 1885 and lived in East Bloomfield, Waushara County and had eleven children:  Emma, Albert, Alma, Louise Hauk, William the first of that branch, Elsie, Edwin, Walter, Adolph, Alvin and Margareta.  Were members of St. Johns Lutheran Church, Bloomfield and many are buried at the adjoining cemetery awaiting eternity.  William the first of this branch  drifted to Hortonville,  married  Miss Radichel and had five children, Marie, Myrna, Antoninette, William the second of this branch and Janice.
 
Eventually after almost one hundred years, the Dupont Ratzburg Farm was sold to Tim Nolan and the Ratzburg family drifted away from Marion and Dupont and only the ghosts linger and rest at Roseland Cemetery.  But that big hill south of Marion on the way to Big Falls is still known as Ratzburg Hill.
 
And now they are probably glad
They didn't know the way it would all end,
The way it would go.
Lives are better left to chance,
They could have missed the pain,
But would have missed
The fun at the dance.
 
Over two centuries ago, Christian Ratzburg was born in a small Polish village and now in 2012 he has uncountable desendants in America and beyond.
 
Information furnished by Mary Rahr, research analyst and genealogist, census and cemetery records,  Richard Dixon, verbal interviews, the Ratzburg Family Archives, and the Standard History of Waupaca County Wisconsin, edited by John M. Ware, 1917.

The Sell Family and Marion High School, 1943-1945

By Delores Miller
 
Victor Sell (1928-1973) was the youngest child of Ernst (1885-1962) and Anna  (1893-1985) Sell of Dupont.  Siblings included Goldabelle Fischer (1913-1981), Alice Marchini Hauser (1914-2010). Rozan Flink (1917-1987), Pearl Schewe (1919-2008), and Elvira Graper (1923-1982).  Ernst Sell was born in Brandenburg, Germany and immigrated with his family in 1891.  A son Clifford died on the boat and is buried at sea.   The 1910 census for the township of Fairbanks in Shawano County lists August and Augusta Sell with their children Ernst, August, Gustav, Frank, Augusta, Alfred and Irwin.  Another son was Charlie and daughter Louise.  Three other babies died young, making a family of  12 children.  In 2011 there are uncountable descendants.     At some time the name was spelled 'ZELL'.   The Ernst Sell family rented a dairy farm on Horn Road in Dupont, moving to Quarterline Road about 1946.
 
In the fall of 1941, shortly before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Vic Sell began a 4 year stint at Marion High School.  Because gasoline, tires and automobiles were rationed, Vic Sell, Butch Conradt and Bucky Hintz rode horses to school.  During the day the horses were boarded in Bill Ziehm's cattle barns. 
 
Surviving these last  years are Marion High School year books, the Mario.  The class of 1942 dedicated the book to Miss Edna Schmidt.  L. K. Forrest and T. K. Hocking were the principal and superintendent.  Other teachers were Lloyd Meiners, Michael Foley, Marjorie Baeseman, Delos Kobs, Ruth Nygaard, Mary Gordon, Jeanette Schielke, Earl Clausen and Dorothy Roth.  What happend to them all?  Doris Krueger and Vergene Ruehmling were editors of the year book.    47 seniors graduated.   About 200 students in high school.   These were the years when Big Falls and Leopolis had two years of high school before students transfered to the big school at Marion.    Tom Meyer, Jean Lau,Darold Brockhaus, Bonnie Babcock and Ken Halpop were Presidents of their respective classes.  On a sad note, Tom Meyer (1925-1945) was killed in action on April 15, 1945 while in the U. S. Army, Blackhawk 86th Division, World War II in Germany.
 
Extra activities included Thespians, Future Farmers of America, Future Homemakers, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Pep Club, Cheerleaders, Girls Athletic Association, Chorus, Glee Clubs, (complete with gowns), Band (with uniforms), Office Girls, Librarians, Boxing, Football, Baseball, and Track. 
 
 All the grade school children had a group picture in the yearbook.  They   performed in an Operetta called 'Station Cloudville'.   
 
Darhl Jantz and Norman Draeger were the 1941 Football Homecoming King and Queen.  Betty Behling and Clarence Bork were the 1942 Prom King and Queen.  Doris Krueger and William Ehlert were the 1941 Prom King and Queen.
 
Vic Sell was vertically challenged, and the autographs written by class mates in his yearbook, were almost on the edge of harrassing this short person. From the sounds of some of the writings, Vic had lots of fun (and girlfriends).
 
1945 was the year Vic graduated from Marion High School.  The yearbook was dedicated to Dr. Frank Mulvaney (1875-1944) who had recently passed away.  Members of the school board were L. R. Noack, Lucille Schultz, Forest Schafer, Rexford Michaelis and William E. Wulk.  J. F. Holms was Superintendent, Hilman Kittelson, Malcolm Anderson (his first year), Maxine Davidson, Dorothy Heicalis, Fay Lavold, Robert Kunitz, Norman Aderhold, Rosann Kopjar, Carol Ross Fuchs and Frederick Schultze were teachers.
 
Young men left during the school year to serve in the armed forces, Oryn Blashe in the Air Corps, sadly he was killed in action  October 23, 1945. Howard May, Lloyd Schilling,  Russel Hopkins in the Marine Corps, and Arthur Scherbarth.
 
Other activties included Debate, Forensics, French and German Club, Hi Crier, Commercial Club, Science Club,
 
After graduation, and the end of the war,  Vic  and Kenny Erdman bought  a Texaco Service Station (now Kleins) in Clintonville . Later Vic owned his Standard Oil delivery truck.  On August 11, 1948 Victor Sell and LaVerne Krueger were married and lived happily ever after until his untimely death on August 28, 1973.   Two daughters Debbie and Mary.   Vic was a happy-go-lucky fellow who enjoyed life.  He was 45 years old.
 
Information furnished by LaVerne Sell, Mary Rahr, Genealogist and Carol Gruetzmacher
 
 

World War One and The Local Boys

By Delores Miller

 

On June 28, 1914 the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Serbia and his wife were assassinated.  Little did the local folks know what a long-lasting effect this was going to have on this area.  War began over there with Germany  and Kaiser Wilhelm II conquering all Europe.  President Woodrow Wilson promised in campaign speeches in 1916  to keep America out of the war,  and remain neutral, but in April 1917 declared war on Germany.  This was to be 'The War to End all Wars, The Great War, The war to make the World safe for Democracy', all names given to World War One.    Another embellished and gaudy  name was 'La Guerre du Droit' or the War for Justice.   (Little did they know what the future held for more wars.)   Liberty Bonds were sold to provide financing for the war. 

 

Local boys were required to register for the draft.  Pressured by propaganda, publicity, proselytism, ballyhoo and enthusiasm  to become soldiers, mercenaries, and sharpshooters. They  left  by train in high spirits.   They returned home two years later, broken and bent in vitality  but when they left, were    sent  off with  the high school bands from the train station.    Most of the population were only one generation removed from immigrating from Germany.  The food sauerkraut was changed to Liberty Cabbage.  People named Schmidt changed their names to Smith to disassociate themselves from German roots.  Some  Dupont young men were straight off the farm and never been further than Marion, too busy milking cows.

 

One young man from Marion, William Bertram (1890--1918)  was the son of Charles Bertram (1856-1940) and his wife Louisa Rigby (1866-1943).   His draft registration lists his birthdate as December 5, 1892 in South Dakota and his employment as a painter.    William was a Private in Company H, 127th Infantry, 32nd Division and  lost his life in battle  at the age of 28 on August 27, 1918 and is resting for all eternity at Roseland Cemetery.  94 years ago he died.  A life cut too short by a terrible and needless war.

 

 Dr. Frank Mulvaney, a Marion physician was in the Spanish American War in 1898, in the Panama Zone where he contracted malaria and could not serve in World War One.

 

One such infantry training  facility was constructed, and called Camp Grant, and christened  and named after the Civil War General and later President Ulysses S. Grant.  Located near Rockford Illinois in Winnebago County.  Quarters were built for housing, drill grounds, rifle ranges for 43,000 men of this new National Army.  180 barracks each holding 200 men was ready for the reception of the first draftee  contingent of selected men.    61 buildings  comprised the base hospital unit.  A remount depot had a capacity of 5000 animals, mostly horses and mules and had to include a school for blacksmiths.    Classes were held in French and German.  Activities included boxing, wrestling, football and mandatory attendance at Chapel.  This was the 86th Black Hawk.

 

After a training period of several weeks, off they went by train and shipped to France, Belgium and Germany and into the sand-bagged trenches.  Often filled with 2 feet  water, which provided a gratuitous bath.  Hand to hand combat, warfare with grenades, poison mustard gas, masks.  New and improved weapons gave each side more efficient machines to kill the  enemy.   (how wasteful!)  Mechanized vehicles, tanks, trucks, automobiles, motorcycles and for the first time airplanes.  Submarines torpedoed merchant ships.  Stench of rotting flesh.  Soup kitchens and rations, all in the name of fighting the Huns.  Most infantry men were in the Army, although the Marines served among other places at Belleau Wood, on the Marne River, just outside Paris, France, Chateau-Thierrey.  Hard winter weather, and were forced when not in the fox holes to sleep in the snow.  Few had tents or other protection.  Came home shell-shocked and deaf.   Some received a small disability pension. This was a world war, with soldiers, sailors from many countries.  They still bled and died.

 

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat

The soldier's last tattoo!

No more on life's parade shall meet

The brave and fallen few.

Their silent tents are spread

And glory guards with solemn round

The Bivouac of the dead.

 

By the time the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918 more than  three million Allied servicemen had died from wounds, disease and other causes.  Then came the Spanish Influenza which is another story for another time.

 

In 1919 the American Legion was formed in Marion.   A canon used in the war was brought to Marion and a park was built  near the plywood factory especially to house this historic artifact.   Wives, daughters and other interested females organized the Auxiliary which every year sell poppies in honor and tradition of the World Wars.

 

In Flanders fields, the red poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The birds, still bravely singing,  fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead.  Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow

Loved and were loved and now we lie dead

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

 

Remembrance Day November 11 and the poppies still grow in abundance and profusion, in the disturbed earth of battlefields and cemeteries where war casulities are buried.  In Marion, still the high school band marches down Main  Street with a program and ceremony.  A moment of silence  marking the end of the war, the 11th day of the 11th month at 11 a.m. in 1918.

 

And then the Veterans came back to Marion to live uneventful lives, seldom talking about their experiences in World War One. 

 

Old soldiers never die;

They just fade away.

Their memories remain.

 

Bibliography:  Zillmer, Lembke and Miller family archives, World Book Encyclopedia, the History of Marion, The Early Years.

 

First Snowfall

by Delores Miller

So we got our first snow storm of the year here in Wisconsin after temperatures that were above freezing.  4 inches of snow with lots of wind so Russell fired up the new International tractor to plow some snow out of the yard.  If you can open these pictures it shows Russ plowing snow a year ago with his old Case Loader tractor in front of our old 4-stall garage.  Then it is 2012 with a new 5-stall garage.  Same place but oh, what a lot of water, wind and tornado went down the road in 12 months.

Happy New Year 2012 from the Miller Family

Happy New Year 2012 from the Miller Family

 

May the bright spots of the old year 2011;

Be but flickers in the dark,

When compared with what the new year 2012

Will enkindle with it's spark.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring out the wrong, ring in the true.

 

All is well with the Millers, we survived 2011

 

Marianne, Matthew, Russell, Delores, Keith and Robin.  Missing from the pictures is the Massachusetts Richard Miller. 

 

Ratzburg - Real Or Repro - Ask The Experts!

 by Harold Ratzburg

Last spring, at the Military Vehicle Rally in Aberdeen Maryland, I was wandering through the vendor stands to see what goodies I could find.  Aberdeen is basically a vehicle show but other vendors connected to the military hobby also come to sell.

    I came to a table of a vendor who was strictly a vehicle parts guy, but in the middle of his table was one of those plastic heads that you see and on it was a beautiful  M-1943, Einheitsfeldmütze  (ie, Field Cap) of the German Schutzstaffel----SS----troops of Nazi Germany.

    The SS was a vicious Nazi outfit, which started out to be Hitler's very own bodyguard and ended up as a large enough unit to have full fledged combat divisions.  They were also the troops that controlled and guarded the concentration and extermination camps that the Nazis created.  Since it was such an elite and nasty branch of the German military forces, anything connected to the notorious SS is very collectible.

The cap looked to be in excellent condition with the correct BEVO insignia on the front and left side.  It had the makers name stamped on the inside, dated 1944, and size 57.  Its age seemed evident by the corrosion on the copper or metal air ventilation grommets on each side

    The vendor told me that he had bought it at a garage sale and didn't really know the value of it, and asked me to make an offer on it.  I really hate getting into a deal without a price tag to start with, but I did make an offer (low ball of course) and finally walked away with my purchase and what I figured was a really good deal.

    OK, so there I was----a picker like you see on the American Pickers TV show on Monday nights----so now it is up to me to research and establish a resale value for my purchase.

    I showed it around to friends who also collect and every darned one of them saw the cap as an original.  The collectors I talked to were not the beginner collectors of Nazi stuff but at least three of them were advanced collectors.  One of them is a well-known author of a book on how to detect fakes and repros of German military memorabilia, and all of them allowed as how they felt the cap was original.

    Then of course, I hit the reference books on the subject.

    The first book, "Head Gear of Hitlers Germany" by Smith and Saris, with Otto Spronk, has an exact picture of my cap and close ups of the insignia on it, and if that isn't the same cap, by golly, I will eat it----as the saying goes.  One small exception is that my cap has a vent hole at the top on each side.  Other books show similar caps as well, though not exact like the "Head Gear" book does.

    So I thought I would check out the cap maker's name that was stamped inside my cap.  Using Google, I found that the maker, a man named Otto Schlientz, Uniformmützen maker of Straubing, Germany, was listed as being one of 40 or 50 recognized manufacturers of the cloth visored field caps for the German military.

    The cap is in excellent condition which in collecting can be good or bad.  If a cap is moth eaten and sweated up through hard use, I suppose the tendency is to think----OK, this cap has been there and survived and collected its very own DNA sweat samples, therefore it has got to be the real thing.

    On the other hand, my brother-in-law, who was in Germany at the end of the war, tells me of garage rooms stacked to the ceiling with German uniforms, helmets and equipment that was confiscated from the German military when prisoners were taken and the piles were stacked there for American GIs to help themselves to souvenirs to send home.  He helped himself to two helmets, two visor less field caps, a bayonet and other odds and ends.

I figure that caps in new condition could also have been stacked there or in similar piles all over Germany, and caps in new condition would have been the first to be picked up by a scrounging GI.

    It is also a given, that if you were a military cap maker in Germany when the fighting stopped, you had a problem deciding what you could manufacture that would keep bread on the table in very desperate times. Your inventory of supplies to make military caps may have been all that you had, and if you noticed that the swaggering and rich and well-fed US GIs were collecting old Nazi stuff to send home, then maybe you could produce more of the stuff to provide some income.  It did happen I am sure.

    It is also true, that when you look through the militaria catalogs today, you find that just about everything from the Third Reich,--- flags, uniforms, weapons, daggers, etc, etc, etc,--- is being reproduced and offered for sale.

    But, dang it, my cap just looks so real and old and of the correct period, that I can't believe it is a repro. (after all, the difference in price between a repro, at $50.00, and an original, at $1000.00, is a very tidy sum) So, I figured, I will go to a militaria show and ask the "Experts" there who deal in the Nazi stuff!!!!!!!!

    Right off, the first Expert there says it's a repro.  When I ask him how he knows, he says that the color of the lining is wrong and it is definitely a reproduction.  The color of the lining is wrong!?  Germans were using any kind of material they could get their hands on that even came close.  They even used material imported from Italy.

    The next vendor says it is wrong because the SS never had the manufacturers name stamped in the inside and the stitching and tread color was not correct.  He didn't even attempt to prove any of what he said.

    But, the Expert that really corked me off, tells me from a distance of six feet, without even looking close at the cap, "That's a repro!!!!"  When I asked him how he knew, he tells me,  "Listen, I have been dealing in Nazi stuff for over fifty years now and I can tell at a glance if it is real or repro."  YEAH-RIGHT!!!!!!!!!  What a bunch of BS!!!!!!

    When you think about it however, can you really expect a straight answer from a dealer at a show?  They don't know if you are there to maybe sell it, and they would certainly rather buy it from you at the price of a repro worth fifty bucks than pay you for a cap that might be worth a thousand.

    As long as I am picking on Experts at the shows, let me tell you about what happened to a friend (a really sharp lady in the German militaria field) at a big show in Monroeville PA where the really big guys in the hobby come together.

    She was walking down an aisle and noticed a plaque on a table that was engraved with an inscription of the SS Unit that was the personal bodyguard of Adolf Hitler----the Leibstandarte.  She made a comment to her companion walking with her that the engraving was certainly intended to increase the value of the plaque but that it certainly was not correct.  The dealer at the table, who was a very highly respected vendor of very expensive Nazi militaria overheard the comments and got quite incensed over them, and kind of followed them down the aisle, berating her as to what did she know about Nazi artifacts compared to himself, the dealer, who had been in the business for years?

    What the issue was, was a little detail in the spelling of the engraving of the word Leibstandarte which was spelled 'LIEbstandarte'  instead of the correct 'LEIbstandarte'.  In the German language, lieb is a word associated with love and sweetness, which the Leibstandarte tried very hard NOT to follow.  They were a very nasty group of people under Hitler's command, in fact they started their rise to power as Hitler's very own personal body guard unit.

    The prefix leib however, is associated with “life” and Leibstandarte is the rough German equivalent of the elite Roman Praetorian or Life Guards – a very select group of big, able men who took the obligation to the guard the life of the Emperor.  Hitler’s Leibstandarte or Life Guard was even equipped with flags and poles that bear a close resemblance to those of ancient Roman guard units.

     After the dealer shot off his mouth for a while, my friend very quietly pointed out the obvious problem with the spelling on the plaque, and she also pointed out that Germans are some of the most precise people in the world and most certainly would never make an error like that on an important SS Nazi item.  In those circles, such an error could have meant a direct transfer to the Russian Front.

    What it all goes to show is that even this “expert” didn't know everything he thought he did but that didn't stop him from making a fool of himself with my friend.  He simply turned and walked away----no apology came from him.

    And, the question remains, who had the engraving done on the plaque and who was responsible for the incorrect spelling.  I wonder if the dealer took the thing off his table as an 'original' and lowered the price to the cost of a repro.  I'm sure that not one in a hundred would notice the error in spelling, so I'll bet it is still there on the dealers table as 'original' or maybe hanging on some collectors wall as his prize piece.

    Such is life in the collecting field of Nazi memorabilia.

Miller - August and Minnie Polzin and the Spanish Influenza

By Delores Miller

One of the aftermaths of the First World War was the Spanish Influenza Pandemic or commonly known as 'La Grippe'.  Legend says this was a disease brought home from the overseas  by returning soldiers.  This malady  killed more people  than the WWI bullets.  Young  adults were victims.  Healthy today, sick tomorrow, died, and was buried.  75 million people perished world wide,  This was the deadliest natural disaster ever.  High infection rate, death was from pneumonia, demise was swift, sometimes within hours.  Patients experienced fatigue, muscle aches, sneezing, coughing, lung fever.    In those days, no antibiotics were available.  Dr. Mulvaney recommended whiskey, brandy, aspirin and quinine.  Homes were quarantined and isolated and after patients recovered  or expired the home was aired out, and washed down with bleach and disinfectant.

Because so many people were sick, there was a shortage of health care workers, medical supplies, coffins, grave diggers and morticians.  28% of all Americans were affected, but only 3% died.

Gauze masks had to be worn in public.  Closed all stores, churches and schools in Marion.  Rules and laws were instigated, funerals could not last more than 15 minutes.  Fines were issued.

The disease ran rampant from June 1918 until December 20, 1920 and vanished for no apparent reason.

Thirty people died in the Marion area including August and Minnie Polzin.  According to the History of Marion, the following people also passed away from the flu:  Mrs John Krueger, Hugo Schlender, Mrs William Woller, Oscar Brockhaus, the first Mrs Paul Knaack, Walter Poppendorf, Harvey Lutzewitz, August Hartwig, the cigar maker, Leo Poppendorf, Paul Schlender, Mrs Harry McCulloch, Mrs Emil Liskow, Mrs August Hartwig, Jesse Rodgers, Mrs Jesse Rodgers, William Garry, Mrs Emil (Annie Schmidt), Winter and others.

Memories are a gift from God

To those left behind

They bring comfort, joy and laughter

And they enable us to live forever

In the hearts of those we love.

Wilhelminia Klatt (January 15, 1858-February 3, 1934) and Gustav Polzin (April 9, 1853- August 23, 1937) were married in 1878.  They came to the USA and Dupont in 1881.  They purchased the Nohr farm, near the south branch of  the Pigeon River.  Nohrs had a saw mill which burned.  Wilhelminia and Gustav  had the following children:  Henry Polzin of Seattle, Washington, Otto Polzin of Symco, Amelia, Mrs Ed Kussman (1883-1966) of Dupont, Emil Polzin (1885-1966) of Dupont, Hilda, Mrs Francis Hoezle (1888) of St. Paul, Minnesota, Otilla, Mrs Louis Brockhaus ((1893-1978)  of Caroline, Ida, Mrs Ernest Nelson (1895-1991) of St. Paul, Edward Polzin (1899-1984) of Elderon, Albert  (1891-1918)of Dupont, and August Polzin (1881-1918) of Dupont.

August Polzin (September 10, 1881-December 9, 1918)  and a neighbor girl with red hair, Minnie Zillmer (January 4, 1890-December 13, 1918) were married December 31, 1907.   Little did they know, when they married with such high hopes, that in eleven years both would be dead.    In those days of horse and buggy or sleigh, courting was done amongst the neighboring families.    Minnie was a tall big boned, buxom woman, healthy and willing to work hard.   Two children, a daughter Lillian (January 15, 1909-March 13, 1909) and Leonard (April 9, 1910-June 7, 1938).  August was born with wandering feet,  and although a mason by trade, did travel to the state of Washington and did live there for a time.  He purchased land in 1911 in Pearce County, south of Tacoma.

Minnie as she was called, although her real name was Wilhelminia was the oldest of the eight children of John Albert  (1869-1936) and Fredericka  Lembke Zillmer (1873-1939).  Siblings were:  John Zillmer (1892-1961), Ella Knaack (1894-1952, William Zillmer (1896-1981), [Delores'  Father], Alma Pruess (1900-1969), Edwin Zillmer (1905-1977), Adeline Ratzburg (1910-1993), {and Mother to the famous author, writer, military history bluff Harold Ratzburg of New Jersey},  and Fern Ratzburg (1913-1999) who was born on her Mother's 40th birthday.

Minnie urged a family studio portrait be taken, because her brother John was due to be drafted in World War One Army and she was worried he was going to be killed in the trenches in Germany.  Little did they know at that time that John never got further than training horses  and mules in Alabama and August and Minnie would be dead in less than six months.  Doom and gloom.

From the 1977 verbal history of William Zillmer he states:  August and Minnie got sick, they had a house in Clintonville.  Because of the fear of epidemics and contagion, no one was left to nurse them, except himself and his mother.  August died on December 9, 1918 and the funeral was planned to be held from the house.  But on the day of the funeral, Minnie died on December 13, 1918.  There was nothing we could do, we just watched her die.  Leonard, their son at the age of 8 was an orphan.  Hauled the caskets and remains to Dupont's Roseland Cemetery with horse and sleigh.  A large ostentatious tombstone marks their grave.  The family always talked about Minnie and August as though they were just gone away for a little while.

Leonard was made an parentless child, went to live with his maternal grandparents and John Albert Zillmer was made his legal guardian. 

After their catastrophe demises the estate had to be probated and followed a paper trail of lawyer and court documents disposing of the Washington land.  An inventory  of personal items was performed by Ed Kussman and William Rosnow for the appraisal of the estate.  A Ford second hand automobile was valued at $125.  Other items were mason and carpenter tools, cords of wood, bushels of potatoes, stoves, cooking apparatus, tables, sewing machine, chiffonier, wood heaters, davenport, chairs, oilstove, beds and a land contract for $375.

Leonard had a happy life with the extended Zillmer and Polzin families.  Attended Sunrise School, where the commencement exercises were held on Friday May 18, 1923.  Graduates included Dora Schwan, Leonard Polzin, Linda Keup, Harold Brown, Leonard Laux and Arthur Brown.   Miss Breed was the teacher.   The diplomas were presented by his Grandfather John Albert Zillmer who was school board clerk.  Other school board members were: Gust Mielke, Director and John E. Nohr, Treasurer.  Leonard gave the Salutatory address to the Under Graduates.

Leonard married Helen  on October 6, 1932 and had two children. 

On June 6, 1938 Leonard died of a heart attack  at  28, the same age his Mother Minnie was when she died of the Spanish Influenza.

Thus ends the saga of the Spanish Influenza and August, Minnie and Leonard Polzin.

Information furnished by the Polzin Family Archives, verbal history, Mary Rahr, Genealogist and World Book Encyclopedia.