A few additions today to Prairie Home cemetery Waukesha.
I added deaths and obituaries for the following surnames.
ATKINSON, BEGGS, BILLINGS (also moved from cemetery X), BLAIR, CLARK, DELAMETER, FULLER, GAUTHIER, HARGRAVE, HOPKINS, JACOB, JACOBS, JACOBSEN, JACOBUS, JACOBY, JOHNSON, KALB, KROKOWSKI, KUNDERT, LUNDEMAN, PUTNEY, SHIRMACHER, SHORT, STEFFAN, STEFFEN, STRAUS, STRAUSS, WILLIAMS
Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I have been worrying about my nephew and haven’t really had the mind set to update the sites.
Last Tuesday my nephew was hit by a car while crossing the street in Whitewater. He is still in critical condition, now a week later. We are praying for him constantly. You can email me privately if you are interested in any details.
His parents put up a blog here so that all that love him can monitor his progress more easily:
http://sewcrafty-mikesprogress.blogspot.com/
Many people have asked if they can send flowers or if they can help in anyway. I believe whole heartedly, besides your prayers and positive thoughts, we all can help Mike best by supporting him in his recent decision. On August 13, Mike wrote the following letter to me:
Hello,
I hope this letter finds you well and that you’re enjoying your summer. As you may know, this past May I graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater (UWW) with a Bachelor’s degree in Management Computer Systems (MCS). My time there was well spent, I learned so much about myself, the man I wish to become, and had a blast doing it! While I enjoyed my major, my future goal is to become a campus staff worker with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at UWW rather than “using my degree” in the typical sense.
The decision to join staff took me almost a year to make, but after much thought, prayer, and council of others, I truly feel called by God into the ministry of InterVarsity and therefore am pursuing it with every effort. Not having a relationship with Christ when I first attended college I understand first-hand the need for college Christian ministry. Staff and students in InterVarsity poured their love, training, and generosity into me during school and I want to pless others in the same way. The best way for me to do this is through joining InterVarsity staff.
As a campus staff worker I’ll be helping students grow in their relationship with Jesus, learn to love all people and teach them how to become future leaders in the church. Becoming a campus staff worker will allow me to use many of my natural skills. I’ll be relating with people, expressing my passion for God, and making a difference in people’s lives.
In order to make this goal a reality, I’ll need a team of support to keep me going. My support team will consist of people willing to pray for me, people willing to travel with me and help me with my personal cares, and financial support to meet my salary and ministry expense needs. It’s my hope and prayer that you would be interested in being part of my team and helping me meet some of those needs and challenges.
I will be contacting you within the next few months, along with many others, and would appreciate you to being thinking and praying about your interest in supporting my ministry with InterVarsity. If you have any questions I welcome your response through a phone call (he left his number) and his email (I won’t post that since he cannot respond right now), or sitting together face to face and discussing it. Thanks for reading and please look forward to our future contact.
Blessings,
signed Michael J. Chaloupka
If you feel the wish to help, it would be spectacular if when Mike wakes up and is further on his journey to recovery that he finds his salary needs for the upcoming year are met. Please help support Mike, by going to http://www.intervarsity.org/ and clicking on the donate link on the left. You can give by credit card, phone, mail or automatic withdrawal from your account. Any amount is good, even if it is just a dollar or two.
It will ask you if you want to give towards a certain person. Put in Chaloupka and it will come up with his name. Check the radio button and then continue.
Thanks for reading,
Mike’s Auntie Ellie
Today I have been working on the lost cemeteries page.
Thanks to John Utzat, I added more information to Cemetery 030 Stewart Allis Cemetery.
I am working on an article on the Spring Street Catholic Cemetery, later named Grand Avenue cemetery.
I found an interesting article on a burial ground in Milwaukee as it appears below:
Source: The Milwaukee Sentinel, (Milwaukee, WI) Sunday, June 20, 1886; pg. 2; Issue 34; col C
Bones in Bricks A Large Brick Yard Located Where an Old Cemetery Used to Be
Bones in Bricks
A Large Brick Yard Located Where an Old Cemetery Used to be
“Many of the bricks in some fo the finest buildings in the city are partly composed of human bones,” said a well-known builder yesteray. “This may seem a little odd to you at first, but it is true, for I’ve known it for several years. One of the yards producing the largest number of bricks of any in the state-is located on an old burying-ground from which only a few of the bodies interred ther were removed before the manufacture of brick from the clay began. I have actually seen small pieces of bone pressed into these bricks.”
Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune (Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin)
1934 August 13
R.H. Polzin Loses Life at Bathing Beach
R.H. Polzin, 52, owner of the Polzin Calendar & Novelty company of Milwaukee and a former resident of Nekoosa, lost his life while swimming in Lucas lake, near West Bend, Saturday afternoon. Death was at first attributed to drowning, but it was discovered upon examination of the body that there was no water in the lungs, Mr. Polzin’s false teeth having become lodged in his throat choking him to death.
Mr. Polzin dove into about seven feet of water from a spring board 20 feet from shore. He came up and sank. A woman called for help, and within five minutes his body was recovered by bathers. A West Bend rescue squad worked for 40 minutes in a futile effort to resuscitate him.
Funeral services will be held at 2 o’clock Tuesday afternoon at the Seerick funeral home in Milwaukee, with burial in a Milwaukee cemetery beside his wife, who preceded him in death 16 years ago.
Mr. Polzin, who was born February 16, 1882, in Winona, Minn., is survived by his father and stepmother, Mr. and Mrs. William Polzin of Nekoosa; two daughters, June and Fae of Milwaukee; seven brothers, William A. and Fred of Milwaukee, Leo of Moss Bank, Saskatchewan, Canada, Louis if Slinger, Ferdinand, Henry and Otto of Nekoosa, and three sisters, Mrs. Ida Kepstein, Newark, N.J., Mrs. Amanda Kasper and Mrs. Martin Fogel, both of Milwaukee.
Mr. Polzin resided with his parents in Nekoosa during his boyhood.
Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune (Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin)
1932 October 27
Milwaukee Authorities Seek Vandals who Removed Casket
Milwaukee Oct. 27 (AP) Vandals who stole a coffin containing the mummified body of an infant from a small blockstone mausoleum in an old buring ground on the edge of the city were sought by authorities here today.
Found on Street
The body, found on a street here early yesterday, is that of Carl Edward Kruse, who died and was buried in 1914 at the age of three onths. Identification was made at the county morgue last night by the father, Alfred F. Kruse, a druggist.
Entry into the crumbling mausoleum was gained by breaking the heavy crossbars of the door. The small casket had been carried about eight miles from its resting place. Five other caskets in the tomb were untouched.
Puzzled Officials
With only the inscription “Our Darling” on the nameplate as a guide, authorities were puzzling over the identity of the infant when Deputy Sheriff’s Eugene Netz and George Hanlon recalled they had investigated the desecration of a sepulcher in the town of Milwaukee cemetery about a year ago.
The deputies found the mausoleum had been entered again. From Harvey Grober, former sexton, they learned that Kruse had provided for reinterring the bodies on the occasion of the complaint ayear ago. Kruse was called by Undersheriff Joseph Klein and identified the casket.
The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin)
1932 May 7
Body Missing From Milwaukee Cemetery
Milwaukee (AP) Police aid was asked today in an effort to find the body of George Kurtz, pioneer Milwaukeean buried 24 years ago in Union cemetery. Relatives who visited the grave site found evidence of a recent burial. At their insistence the body of a woman was taken from the grave and buried elsewhere but there was no indication of what had become of Kurtz’ body.
The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) 1908 June 19
Mrs. Martha Himmelstein, aged forty-five, died in a Milwaukee Cemetery as the result of heat prostration.
Warren Evening Mirror (Warren, Pennsylvania) 1908 March 25
Never without his Coffin
Traveler Always Instructs Pursers to Prevent His Burial at Sea
Max Gibbs of Milwaukee, who frequently goes to Europe on business not unconnected with mortuary things, got back to New York the other day with his coffin, which he always carried with him. He gives instructions to the pursers not to have him buried at sea. Otherwise he would not be able to squeeze himself into the coffin, which is sixteen inches long. His puzzle question to those that have not heard it is how is he going to get himself in the coffin.
If you give it up, he will tell you that his body will be cremated first. The coffin is metallic and is lined with plush, on which there is a little American flag. Max in condensed form will be wrapped in this flag before they nail his coffin down and put him away in a Milwaukee cemetery.
I thought I would start a strange and unusual section, depicting strange and unusual burials, deaths, requests etc.
First one is Mrs. Melms.
Lima News (Lima, Ohio) 1899 December 14
Mail Bag used as Hearse
Ashes of a Milwaukee Woman are sent home from Germany by Way of the Mails.
So far as known, for the first time the United States mails have been used as a hearse. There was received at the post office at Milwaukee, the other day, a box which came from Heidelberg, Germany, and which contained the ashes of Mrs. Maria Melms, wife of the former Milwaukee brewer Charles T. Melms.
This box was about 13 inches long and seven inches wide and deep, was of wood and metal lined. It was addressed to Fred Strassau, superintendent of the William Becker Leather company, who was a son-in-law of Mrs. Melms.
This strange funeral procession only costs 86 cents for carriage. There was 50 cents worth of postage stamps pasted on the box and 36 more was charged at Milwaukee for overweight. The box was marked “Menschen asche,” human ashes, and “of no value.”
After the customs officials had ascertained that the box contained nothing dutiable it ws turned over to Undertaker Schweitzer, and will be placed without ceremony in the Melms family vault, the funeral having occurred in Germany.
Mrs. Melms was one of the oldest residents of Milwaukee. She came to Milwaukee in 1838, and resided here until a year ago. She went to Weisbaden, Germany, on account of failing health, being accompanied by her daughter Bertha. It was her last request that the remains be placed besides those of her husband in the Milwaukee cemetery, and after they were cremated at Heidelberg the ashes were forwarded in this strange fashion.