Lieske/History
From CowTales
< Lieske
Contents
Days of Yore
All our forefathers were staunch Christians. They not only needed courage to emigrate to a strange land<ref>USA</ref>, they needed the strong hand of their Lord to guide and protect them along the way. They must have felt like the Children of Israel wandering in the wilderness, heading for the promised land. They trusted in the Lord, and knew that He would lead them safely to their destination. Did these settlers of the Midwest have any idea what their destination would be when they landed on American soil? How they decided where to homestead has always been a mystery to me!
The hardships endured by the early prairie farmers is almost beyond comprehension in this day and age. Small, crude log houses were built for the families, shelters had to be provided for the animals, sod had to be broken or timber cleared, etc. All of this was hand labor. Oxen were used to pull crude plows that were manipulated by hand. They were also always in constant danger and fear of Indians, wild animals and prairie fires. But first and foremost, they saw to it that they had a place to worship.
I believe it is safe to say that the women suffered more hardships than the men. They not only cared for their large families (which were common in earlier years), they were also frequently left alone with them for many days at a time while their husbands traveled by ox cart to the nearest town for supplies. At this same time, wheat was usually taken along to be ground into flour for use in the home. This left these women with the added responsibility of tending the livestock, which often included chasing wolves, which were a constant threat to the sheep.
Caring for her family was no easy task for the pioneer woman. All her chores were carried out with only the bare essentials. All meals were prepared “from scratch.” She had not supermarket to buy ready-to-eat food for her family. And think of all the bread she had to bake to keep her large family fed! Bread was an important staple in yesteryear’s diet. And what was used a lot for bread spread (along with the butter she churned by hand)? Schmalz (Lard)! Sorry, Karen - I didn’t mean to make you drool! Wash day must have been sheer torture! Think about this back-breaking chore the next time you throw a load of clothes into your automatic washers and dryers. Water had to be pumped from the well, or maybe even carried from a nearby creek, to be heated on the stove. This was then transferred to the “washing machine” which consisted of a wash tub, a scrub board, some home-made soap, and a lot of elbow grease. The clothes, when wet, were rubbed with soap, scrubbed on the board, wrung out by hand, rinsed, wrung again, rinsed in bluing water to keep them white, wrung yet again, and were finally ready to be ung to dry. Ironing these clothes was no better. The hot irons, with removable handles, were set on the stove to heat. These had to be alternated frequently, so the ironing was done near the hot stove.
Leisure time? Leisure time to her did not mean jumping into the car to go have lunch with “the girls!” She was content to be able to sit at the end of a long hard day, not to watch television, or even listen to a radio, but to sew for the family, card the wool from the sheep, spin the wool into yarn, or maybe just sit and knit mittens, caps, scarves, stockings, etc. to keep her family warm during the cold, harsh winter. The children also played a very important role in the family. They all had their special duties to perform at a very young age. I doubt very much that they did a lot of complaining either! They knew they had to pitch in to survive.
It is interesting to note that the families of Michael Gabbert, Johann Casten Harms, and Martin Jaus, three families of our forefathers, befriended the Indians, which resulted in these families being spared attacks during uprisings.
<references/> source:James Baur collection. The Baur/Jaus "God's Word is our Great Heritage" binder by Lyla Jaus Baur.
Gabbert - Lieske
Page 1
Why the double name instead of just Lieske? There is a good reason for this, as you will see. Our ancestors did a beautiful job of confusing future generations.
In about 1970 the following account was written by Albert Lieske, a third-generation Gabbert-Lieske. Uncle Albert had the opportunity to obtain first hand information from his grandfather, Michael Gabbert. He said that as a lad he was a constant companion of Grandfather Michael, who made his home with them.
‘’Most of the younger generation, and some of the older ones, are not aware of the close relation that existed between these two families, not only through marriage, but also in the similarity of the environments in which they lived. As time went on, these families grew very intimate, even as they departed this life. They are now resting side-by-side, with the exception of Stephan Lieske, in one lot on Brown County, MN Cemetery, located on the bluff overlooking the city of Henderson.
The members of these two families came from the same area in East Prussia, Germany, which is now behind the Iron Curtain. They lived in the small village, or Dorf, as they are called in German, of Filene. This was an outgrowth of the old feudal system. By living closer together, they had better protection against the roving bands of plunderers that were so prevalent in the Middle Ages. Most of their livelihood came from the products of the small plots of land they owned on the outskirts of the Dorf. In some cases this was supplemented by working on the large estates of the nobility, or as domestics of the ruling class or the military establishment. They were industrious, they were thrifty, they were conservative and knew how to make a little go a long way. Most of all, they were religious, which accounts for the peace of mind they always exhibited and explains the eagerness which they showed in providing means and places of worship after they arrived in this country. They were well trained in the production, preparation and preservation of wholesome food, an art that was passed on from generation to generation and, sad to say, is now becoming a lost art. They knew how to prepare fiber and wool for the spinning wheel, the weaving loom, the needle and the knitting needles.
Gottlieb Gabbert was born into circumstances that made if necessary for him to contribute to the livelihood of his immediate family. At an early age, he was one of the “Ganze-hirten” (geese herders) of the Dorf. It was his duty early every morning to pick up the geese and goslings of certain families and drive them out to the community grazing ground, watch over them, and bring them back before evening. It was an exacting task. He had to be alert so he was sure to bring back each animal to its rightful owner. To take care of the unruly ones, the geese-herders had a whip consisting of a stick 18 inches long to which was attached a flexible leather leash. When used with skill, they could wrap the end of this leash around the goose or gosling’s neck to make it behave. His was a tedious task, but it also had its bright side, for one of the families whose geese he herded was rather well-to-do and had a bright little girl who pitied young Gottlieb, for she knew the fare in his knapsack was rather meager, and she always managed to add some tidbits from her family’s table to it. The pity grew to friendship, and finally to courtship and marriage. This little girl was none other than Anna Christina Schultz, who became the wife of Gottlieb Gabbert. Gottlieb always loved to work with wood and when an opening occurred for an apprenticeship with a cabinet maker, he gladly accepted the opportunity. He loved his work and had only one complaint. The noon-day meal, which was part of his pay, always consisted of soup which was too hot to be consumed in the short noonday pause that was allotted. He soon became an accomplished builder of cabinets and furniture. What he built was built well, for much of what he built is still in use over a century later. His skill was very much appreciated here in America. For over a quarter of a century he built practically all the caskets needed to bury the dead in his immediate neighborhood.
Page 2
Gottlieb harbored the idea of making a home for his family in America for a long time. Religious freedom, bountiful resources and the opportunities offered appealed to him, but it was not until after the death of Christina’s parents that she consented to make the move. Their final destination was a farm located seven miles east of Henderson, which they homesteaded on their arrival. The neighborhood was then called Big Woods for the heavy stand of virgin hardwood that grew there.
We have no written records that I know of regarding the lives of Stephan and Henrietta (Warnke) Lieske before they embarked for America on a sail ship. The journey over the ocean was a rough one. The ship they sailed on was tossed about for seven weeks before they reached New York Harbor. The incident I’m going to related happened on the voyage and was passed on by word of mouth. Stephan was in a depressed mood. Either it was from weakness caused by seasickness or from intuition of things to happen. He mentioned time and time again, “If all this water were land, I would take our three little boys piggy-back and we would walk back to Germany.” After their ship landed in New York Harbor they had to go through the immigration office. While there, Grandpa Lieske partook of a glass of ice water and collapsed. He was carried away unconscious and that was the last Grandma Lieske ever saw or heard of him. With her three little boys, Friedrich age 4, Wilhelm age 2, and Ludwig age 6 months, she continued her journey to Cuyahoga County, in Ohio, where she had some acquaintances. There she met Michael Gabbert who was a native of the same Dorf in Germany where Grandma Lieske came from. Mr. Gabbert had been working in a grindstone factory, a work he disliked. He had a brother by the name of August, who was living near Henderson. They decided to get married and move to Henderson. They were married July 16, 1855, and journeyed on and settled on a homestead just east of his brother August. This homestead is now occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Earney Lieske and Mr. and Mrs. Karl Lieske and family.
Both families came to their respective new homes in the early spring of 1856. Their first task was to provide shelter and roof over their heads. The common practice at the time was to put up a log building 20 x 20 feet and 12 feet high. They would start by cutting down the choicest hardwood trees they could find with a diameter of about 18 inches. These were brought to the building site and hewn with a broad axe on two sides. Then the neighbors were called together for a raising bee. After the logs were lifted into place, there was a man on each corner of the building with a sharp axe to notch the log in a special way so it could not move the slightest bit in any direction. Rafters were cut from saplings about 5 inches in diameter and then put on. It was then thatched with a tough grass that grew to a height of 5 feet on the edges of low marshes. No nails were used, only wooden pegs. The spaced between the logs were caulked with moss and covered with puddled clay. This made a comfortable building - warm in the winter and cool in summer. Grandpa Gottlieb, being practical as always, built his house around a massive white oak stump which he fashioned into a table. As there were no boards available at the time, all the buildings had only earth floors. Now came the heartbreaking task of cutting down the trees around the building and burning them to make room for crops. After being used to saving everything for fuel, even the small twigs, and being compelled to plant a tree after cutting one down, this was not a very easy task. The only tool they had to work the soil between the stumps was a hoe.
Grandpa Michael was a jovial man who like to go out and meet people, a trait he acquired while he was head coachman for General Von Moltke, one of Prussia’s famous generals. Here in America he worked side-by-side on a section crew with James Hill, who later built the Great Railroad Empire. He also worked with a crew that pushed a flat boat up and down the Minnesota River loaded with supplies. During the Indian outbreak, he was commissioned by the Adjutant General of Minnesota to deliver provisions to the military post at Fort Ridgely. After the unsuccessful attempt to haul provisions cross country by steam power with the world-famous steam wagon built by Major Joseph Brown, Grandpa Michael and two of his neighbors were given the job of hauling it back to Henderson with three yoke of oxen. During his absence from home, Grandma Gabbert, with her three sons and four daughters, kept the home fires burning.
Page 3
Grandpa Gottlieb was a conservative home-body who seldom left home except on urgent business. Once, while on a trip to St. Anthony, which took four days with his yoke of oxen, for the purpose of having a supply of wheat, rye, and corn ground into flour. Grandma gave him the necessary cash for lodging. Instead of using it, he slept under his ox cart with his boots for a pillow, and handed the money back to her when he got home.
I must mention the chest which Gottlieb built in Germany, which may be seen in the Historical Building in Henderson. It made the trip across the ocean with all their possessions, and it played such an important role during the Indian uprising. The chest was always packed with the most valuable possessions and, at the sound of the alarm that the Indian were on the warpath, it was rolled out onto the ox cart that was always standing ready, and the whole family would head for Belle Plaine where they had a stockade fort for protection. In contrast to this, the Lieske-Gabbert family west of Henderson never left their home during the uprising. The reason for this was that Chief Other Day, who had his wigwam on the present Harvey Lieske farm, was a friend of the whites, and Major Joseph Brown, who had married an Indian girl, influenced the Indians to abstain from harming the whites in this section.
Recently I read the history of the pioneer days of Dr. Wm. Mayo, father of the world-famous Mayo brothers of Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Mayo practiced medicine at LeSueur, Minnesota during the 1850s and the early 1860s. Dr. Mayo is supposed to have made the statement that children born during that period in the community had a slim chance of survival because of malnutrition and poor sanitary conditions. The history of the Lieske-Gabbert families does not confirm this, for by the Grace of God, the six children born into the Lieske-Gabbert families during that period survived, even though they were exposed to the dreaded diphtheria and smallpox epidemics that took many lives during that period. As I mentioned before, our grandparents were well trained in the preparation and preservation of food. They knew that in order to prepare wholesome, nutritious meals, it was necessary to have milk, meat, eggs and vegetables. Therefore as soon as possible, they acquired a cow, some pigs, sheep, geese, ducks and chickens. It took real ingenuity, hard work, and loving care to care for the animals. They had to be kept out of the garden and crop lands that had been prepared and planted with potatoes, vegetables, millet, wheat, rye, barley and corn. This was not an easy task because there was no woven wire, barbwire, or boards. The answer to this problem was the rail fence which was a common sight all over the country at that time. These fences were used to keep stock out, instead of in, because all animals were allowed to roam at large and owners of the stock were not responsible for any damage done to planted crops.
With intensive care, the small enclosed plots produced abundantly. The cows roaming at large found many choice bits of grass and other plants to sustain them. A bell was attached to a cow’s neck to locate her in case she did not come home in time for milking. The pigs never wandered far from the homestead and were always home at feeding time. Much of the feed they needed for growth was picked up in the woods in forms of acorns, hickory nuts, wild plums and choice roots. The sheep, which were so important in the lives of these pioneers because of the wool they furnished to keep the families well clothed, never strayed far from home. If they did, they were never far from the bell cow.
The hard maple, or sugar maple as it was mostly called, added important energy to the diet of the pioneers. When spring thaw started, these trees were tapped. The sap collected, it was carried to a place where a thirty gallon iron kettle was kept boiling around the clock if necessary, to turn the maple sap into maple syrup and maple sugar. Their aim always was to get enough of these products for a year’s supply for the family.
Page 4
A wonderful help occurred to the pioneers when the discovery was made that the root of the ginseng plant had a cash value. When planting time was over and the weeds under the forest trees were about 8-12 inches high, everybody in the family who was able to wield a hoe and carry a knapsack roamed the woods digging these roots. They were then taken to an agency which exported them to China where they were used for medical purposes. At one time there were eleven agencies at Henderson processing this valuable root. The proceeds from this valuable crop was a real windfall for the pioneers because they could be used to buy articles and tools at the stores for use in the home and on the farm that could not be produced at home. By the way, the champion root digger in the community was August, the eldest son of Grandpa Gottlieb. He always brought home the heaviest bag of roots, for he could spot the elusive plant a longer distance away than anybody else. The youth of that period had a knack of combining recreation and fun with practical work. They had their corn shucking parties in the fall of the year. A large pile of snapped ears of corn, with husks on, was hauled into the room. The boys and girls would squat or kneel around this pile and pull off the white husks, one by one, keeping them separate from the silks, and placing them in bags. These clean white husks were used for padding in the “Stroh-sack (straw sack) which was used in the beds in those days instead of our modern spring mattress. During the winter they had their feather stripping parties, They sat around the tables piled high with goose and duck feathers. They stripped the fluffy portion from the rib and quill of the feather for use in feather beds and pillows. Not a bad stunt for boy-meet-girl.
From these humble beginnings, the wilderness which our forefathers found when they came here, was gradually transformed into a countryside dotted with small farms and thriving cities. It is our moral obligation to revere these, our forebears, for their courage, fortitude and determination to overcome obstacles. Let us cherish the heritage these pioneers passed onto us, and let us not ruin this precious heritage through greed, selfishness and ignorance.
Just recently I found the following article that was written by Albert Lieske for the Henderson Independent Newspaper in 1954.
Stephan Lieske and his wife Henrietta (nee Warnke) with their sons Fred, William and Ludwig born in the little village, or Dorf, of Filene in East Prussia, left Germany by sail ship and spent seven weeks on the ocean. After leaving the ship in New York Harbor, Stephen drank a glass of ice water and collapsed. He was taken away by immigration authorities and was never seen or heard from again. Mrs. Lieske, in a strange land with an unfamiliar language, was left with three small boys to care for. Courageously, she carried on, arriving at Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where she met and married Michael Gabbert. Coincidentally, the Gabbert family also emigrated from the same area of Germany as the Lieskes.
Traveling on from Ohio, Michael, Henrietta and children settled in Section 8. In the summer of 1856, with the help of neighbors, they built the first log house on the property. When the house was finished, Michael took a job on a flatboat in order to support his family. The boat traveled between LeSueur and St. Anthony, where he used his wages of $5 per month to buy flour and bacon, This was supplemented with wild berries the family picked and coffee brewed from roasted acorns. Another source of food was wild game and fish which were very abundant at the time. Michael acquired a yoke of oxen and continued clearing the heavy timber surrounding the log house. When sufficient land was cleared, the ground was worked with a wooden plow and leveled off by hitching the oxen to a large, heavy branch and dragging it around. The following spring they planted potatoes, corn, beans and rye. The first cash income off the farm was from selling roots from a wild plant called ginseng, which was very much in demand for medicinal purposes. They received $.04 per pound, which was quite a help to supply the needs of the family. They bought a cow, some chickens and hogs. The animals roamed free, so the crop lands were surrounded with rail fencing. As the market for crops and livestock increased, Michael continued to expand the clearings. In 1874 he turned the farm over to his step-son Ludwig Lieske. Michael then built another log house on the farm where he lived until his death in 1915.
Page 5
Did Uncle Albert have an omen of what lay ahead when he wrote “Let us cherish the heritage these pioneers passed onto us, and let us not ruin this precious heritage through greed, selfishness and ignorance?” Sad to say, but the fourth generation of Lieskes have indeed succumbed to greed. The Gabber-Lieske homestead, which had been owned and operated by Lieskes since 1856, a period of 140 years, is now in the process of being turned over the Hutterites. Were the struggles, hardships, hopes and dreams of our ancestor all in vain?
Now that I have shared the Albert Lieske articles with you, I will try to explain why this is called the Gabbert-Lieske family. This had always baffled me, but with the help of obituaries, newspaper articles, etc, it has finally fallen into place. I hope this is correct.
source:James Baur collection. The Baur/Jaus "God's Word is our Great Heritage" binder by Lyla Jaus Baur.