Herman August Ludwig Weber, my paternal grandfather; photo taken around 1912 or so .
Large baptism certificate for Herman.
I was delighted to come across in paperwork from the family, the baptismal certificate of my grandfather Herman August Ludwig Weber. He was born on the 25th of November, 1879. His father was 48 years old when he was born. Herman's father was Philip Weber -- but here on this certificate his name is spelled Phillipp. If only there was a photo in the space provided!
Close-up of baptismal certificate of Herman.
(Aside) Philip was born in 1831in Darmstadt, Hesse, Prussia and came to the US in 1853 when he was 22 years old. Philip was first married to Alberdian Doerning on October 24, 1862 with whom he had a four children, Elizabeth, Anna, John and Emma. Both Elizabeth and John passed away in 1880 from some infectious disease (I can't remember now although I once heard, something like measles). She was 16 and he was 12. Alberdian died in November of 1869 after only 7 years of marriage, but gave birth to four children. Philip then married Louisa Retzlaff on the 10th of June 1870. The fact that Philip's next child, Mary, was born the end of November 1870 -- would indicate that they maybe got a bit of a head start on that little addition. They had three more, George, Julius and Gustav before Herman, third from the end, showed up. Henrietta and Philip, born in 1882 and 1884 respectively) were the last two children of Philip and Louisa. .
This is the only photo I am aware of taken of Philip Weber and Louisa Retzloff Weber. This may have been a wedding picture. He would have been 39 when they were married and she would have been 27.
This is Louisa Retzlaff Weber
This is Philip Weber, born in 1831.
This is Philip in his later years.
This photo was taken with his daughter Anna Goodyear. Philip passed away on January 6, 1926 when he was 94. His second wife Louisa had passed away over forty years before on the 4th of November 1885 when she was only 42. When they were married he was twelve years older than she was and they were only married for 15 years. Out of his 94 years he was only married for 22 of them.
Herman and Susan Weber
(Now back to Herman.) This is a photo of Herman Weber, son of Philip Weber, along with his wife Susan Rosina Sherwood. They were married in 1918. She looks like she could be in her 40s in this photo, so he likely was in his mid to late 50s. Herman Weber had been hired to help William Sherwood at Spring Brook Farm which had been owned by the Sherwood family since 1886. Herman's father had fought in the Civil War and Susan's Grandfather had fought in the Civil War -- such was the differences in the times to which they were born and the age each had attained at the time. See former blog post on Civil War veterans.
The Weber children -- William, Mary, Robert and Carl
Herman and Susan had four children who all grew up on the family dairy farm in Kendall, Wisconsin. The land, like the Wisconsin Dells, is beautiful with large rolling hills, fields, forest and amazing rock outcroppings. My dad shared memories of his childhood on the farm.
"On Sunday afternoons Dad always washed the milking machines. One time when I was probably five or six
years old, Dad was down in the milk house doing this weekly chore when I
decided to go down and join him. The
town road ran between the farm buildings, the house was on one side and the cow
barn, and the granary and the milk house were on the other.
Spring Brook Farm
Being a playful five-year-old, I picked up
several pieces of gravel and one at a time threw them up on the roof of the
granary, which was above the milk house.
My father was very displeased with this.
He came up from the milk house and over to where I was standing with my
pocket full of stones, “Robert,” he said.
(Dad always called me Robert, never Bob), "Robert, every time one of those
stones hits the roof it chips off the galvanized coating, leaving it so that the
roof can rust and eventually start to leak.
I don’t want you to do that any more.'
And father returned to his job in the milk-house. Well, being a somewhat obedient child, and
fearing the wrath of my father, I decided to quit throwing stones on the roof,
but thought it wouldn’t hurt to throw just one over the roof. With all my might, I heaved the biggest one
that I had in my pocket over the roof.
"Except that it didn’t go over the roof. It hit right on the peak and came -- boink,
boink, boink, -- down to the ground. The
stone hit the ground about the same time my father hit me. He flew up out of that milk-house, which, by
the way, was in the basement, took me across his knee, and commenced to whale
the whoopies out of me. It was a good
lesson. Never again during the time when
I was at home did I ever cross my father.
That was the only time I ever remember getting spanked.
"When we were little, Dad had us boys
take turns
following the mower that was cutting the hay to pick the weeds out
and stack them in piles. This was to
prevent the weed seeds from going into the barn and the hayloft. I remember how hot it used to be and how far
it was around the field even though we took turns and only had to each do one
out of every three turns around the field.
I didn’t see why we had to pick the weeds out of our hay and the
neighbors didn’t. We used to burn the
weeds after they dried out. I realize now that Dad was a very good farmer."
"One of the tasks on the farm that I enjoyed quite a
bit was haying. We usually put up quite
a bit of hay. We had two barns, a cow
barn and a horse barn. Both had large
hay lofts. And we almost always filled
both lofts with hay. I usually got the
job in the field of mauwing (his spelling) the hay back.
My oldest brother and my dad would throw the hay on the wagon and I
would distribute the hay around. I used
to pride myself that I could load a load of hay so that it could be taken up
into the haymow in four dump forks full and leave a perfectly clean wagon. "
This photo of Herman and the family was taken in 1950 with the advent of his first grandson!
"Well, another interesting part of my youth was that
in Wisconsin
William and Ella Jane Sherwood with Herman Weber sugaring maple trees. Photo likely taken by Susan Sherwood Weber, probably around 1920 or so, years before this story.
"Although the whole family seemed disinterested in
the project, one really happy memory occurred as a result of it. It was toward the end of the sugaring
season. We had had a cold night the
night before and the sap was running pretty heavy. When I finished gathering the sap and started
home, I had two full ten gallon cans of sap on the sled which is about 160-180
pounds of sap. Because it was late in
the spring, the snow was still only patchy and there was lots of bare
ground. I did pretty well coming from
the woods until I got to the flat of the valley. The snow was all melted in the open areas as
I approached the buildings.
Far acreage facing the maple trees across the valley.
And with
about 170 pounds of sap on the sled it didn’t move very easy on the muddy
grass. I was able to only move it 10-15
feet at a time and I would have to stop and
rest. I had made it about a third of the
way across the open area when Dad saw my predicament and walked over to meet
me. What a proud day it was to have my
Dad pulling that sled with me the rest of the way to the house. I get all choked up today, thinking about it.
"
I never knew my Grandfather Herman as he passed away before I was old enough to have any memory of him. He passed away on September 28, 1952. He had a heart attack and left his family at 72 years of age.
Happy 137th birthday today Grandpa Herman. You are gone from us, but not forgotten.
