March 1999    Volume 2  Issue 12

in the headlines this month

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Birthdays
Dies und Das
New Kids - A Whole Bunch!
A Word From Uncle Don
My Great Uncle
Links
Animation of the Month
Audio of the Month
Online Humor

Birthdays in March

1st:   Rolene Peters Plautz near St. Paul MN celebrates her 49th. 12th: Cheryl Ann Bartlett Johnson near Orlando, Florida will be 39. 21st: Kathryn Schwenk Axtell in Sunnyvale, CA turns 36. 26th: Joyce Schwenkbeck Spencer near Niagara Falls, NY will be 62.

Dies und Das

Ellen Schoenfeld was recently made a vice president of Oppenheimer Funds where she has been employed for several years. Her office is located far above the city in one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in NYC...A new Konrad's Kid, Elizabeth Rose Zbichorski (though not yet online) was born to Gretchen Carlson Zbichorski and husband Dan on 12 Feb 1999 near St. Paul MN...A Jürgen Schwenkglenks from Passau, Bavaria recently sent Gordon Schwenk a email after visiting the SchwenkNet WS and indicated his father was born in Laichingen. We believe he too is a descendant of Konrad Schwenk, 1601, and are awaiting his reply to Don Schwenk's email to Jürgen...Gordon Schwenk recently sent the editors an interesting link:  http://www.arlingtoncemetery.com/medalofh.htm  In that WS are listed all the Medal of Honor recipients, America's highest honorees. One of these is a George Schwenk, Sergeant, United States Army, who was Awarded the Medal of Honor for services rendered during the Civil War at Millerstown, Pennsylvania, in July 1863 while serving as Sergeant, Company B, 6th United States Cavalry. He was born in Germany on April 28, 1839 and died on June 20, 1924. He was buried in Section 17 of Arlington National Cemetery. He was also-known-as George Martin. At this point, neither his birthplace nor possible kinship connection is known to us...Peter Hayes near Albany, NY recently sent Don Schwenk four CDs which contain all the data of the extensive Schwenk family tree. In addition to this is  the entire Uncle Don's Corner Website. Thanks to Peter, these precious data are now preserved on compact disc, and should Don's computer suffer a bad crash, these

data will not be lost... Did you notice the revised SNNL masthead?... Did you know? of the current 45 Konrad's Kids, 21 can send/receive html email (16 use Netscape Communicator and 5 Microsoft Outlook Express), 15 use AOL and the remainder use other email programs. Six use Macintosh, and the balance use PCs....Dieter Rehse, police commissioner in Laichingen, reports his  team is investigating an armed robbery of an armored car which occured on the 12th of February on the main hiway between Ulm and Laichingen. The bad guys escaped with 20K Deutsch marks (ca.12 K US$). Dieter is confident the perpetrators will soon be apprehended.

New Kids

On Feb. 9th, Don Schwenk received an email from a Jeff Erwin after he had visited the SchwenkNet Website. Jeff indicated that one of his ancestors was Barbara Schwenk, 1795-1846, who married a Johann Georg Erb in Laichingen. Don then went to the local LDS library and traced Barbara's paternal ancestry back to our patriarch, Konrad Schwenk, through his son Bernhard. Jeff also has Schwenkschuster ancestry in Laichingen, but this line does not descend from our Konrad. Another ancestor of Jeff's - common to about half of us - is Richard Warren of the Mayflower.

Jeff was born in 1974 in Torrance, CA,  now lives in Virginia and works as a librarian in Washington DC. He soon will  begin his masters program in the field of fine arts (he is a writer and artist). He is a passionate genealogist reflected by his family tree which contains some 11,000 individuals! His address is: JeffJErwin@aol.com

Jeff brought the count to 40. But through word from Joyce Schwenkbeck Spencer on Feb. 22nd, we now have 45 Konrad's Kids. All three of her children are online. Cherlyl Bartlett Johnson at: BJOHN1621@aol.com  - David Bartlett at: Bartsca@aol.com  - Kimberly Bartlett DeMarco at: DeMar923@aol.com  - Joyce's brother's son Duff Schwenkbeck at: Schwenk12@aol.com - and her sister's daughter Loretta Andrews Broecker at: Brokes118@aol.com - Two of them live in NW NY State, one in NH,one in FL and one in CA near LA. Welcome to the Klub, all of you! Click here to view a map of the location of these 45 Kids.

A Word from Uncle Don

This issue marks the 12th consecutive monthly newsletter sent in the form of a graphic file. Prior to April, 1998, it was sent as plain text, although occasionally we sent an html (richtext) version to those Kids who can "read" html. This graphic file format for the NL seemed to be a happy compromise because everyone can open it. And it is far more attractive than the plain text earlier version  because of  color, formatting, and inclusion of images which are possible. There are, however, a few drawbacks associated with a graphic attachment NL. One is that a reader cannot copy parts of this newsletter. For example, you want to copy a joke or a story and email it to someone. It won't work. Another problem for some of us is we cannot successfully print out the NL. Another hitch with the present form of the NL is that you cannot click on an URL and be linked to that Website. Well, that's not quite true; you can click on it, but nothing happens! Download time is another negative because the NL is usually 200-225 K in filesize. So, is there a better alternative to this graphic attachment form of newletter?

Several of the respondees to the recent Questionnaire suggested an html format. To keep this simple (the lack of knowledge of this subject leaves me no alternative anyway), an html format would be a newletter which works like any Webpage you have visited. But this would be sent to you instead of in the present form. But a lot of technical things must be worked out before we convert to this kind of a format. What is of chief concern to your editors at this time are problems some of you may encounter in opening such a file.  More on this subject in later newsletters.

An advanced computer user, Michael Rehse, suggested that I launch the newletter in a new page in my Website.  I have done that effective with this month's issue. You will find that page, SN Newsletter, at the bottom of my homepage at: http://www.webpak.net/~uncledon/index22.htm
Whether this experiment will prove worthwhile is anyone's guess. I will need your feedback!

Replies to the Questionnaire are trickling in. The results will be published in the April Newsletter.

My Great Uncle by Jim Schwenk, co-editor

If you, the reader, go to the SchwenkNet Website, http://www.cyberhighway.net/~gordons/ and "Click" on HISTORY, you will be amazed to read some interesting information about the seventh and eighth generations of Schwenks living in America. (Ed. note: that site no longer in operation. See page on Schwenk Ancestry in the present location, that is, this Web site). In doing this, you will be able to add even more to the following story about a man who lived so long, that I cannot tell all of what I know about him in the limited space of one newsletter. What we know about Johannes Schwenk ( John The Immigrant) and his wife Sophia Maria and their family is discussed in these history webpages. Your reading this will help me tell my story. Some of this information you will find there was supplied by their son John Wesley Schwenk in a video taped interview in January, 1991.

Born in 1889, my great-uncle John Wesley Schwenk was 102 years old when my brother Ric and I recorded this first-hand account of 19th century Schwenk immigrants of Missouri. Uncle John lived in a rest home in Maplewood, MN, and Ric and I went there to hopefully verify our family tree and have John fill in some of the gaps missing in the story of the Schwenks. With a bright smile he shuffled himself into the room in his own wheel chair. He listened attentively to our questions, and with a keen memory, sight, and hearing responded to all that we asked. We deeply regretted having waited so long in our attempt to capture the memories of this man who had always been the greatest of story tellers! Unfortunately, this was our last opportunity to visit him, as John passed on nine months later.

His parents called him "Johnny", and as the youngest of nine Schwenk children, he followed his father closely around the farm near Macon, Missouri and "knew what his father thought and what he was going to do next".  His father was known as a meticulous farmer and horticulturist and made the best of the few acres he owned on the stage coach road (now Missouri Highway 36)  linking Hannibal and St. Joseph, MO. One can only imagine the sights and sounds a young boy would be a part of along that narrow gravel roadway during the continuing westward movement of the 1890's. John was slender, yet a strong athletic lad, who enjoyed working and roving the Missouri farmland. Like all pioneer families, they must have owned some kind of gun for hunting, but John choose to go hunting with his own home-made archery equipment and became a crack bowman for game of all sizes. He found that arrows made from the steel stays of retired umbrellas were the very best for this useful sport that helped supply the larder of this large farm family.

The farm proved all too small for a family of nine growing children, and the older brothers moved "out on their own".  John also left the farm as a young man and headed West to seek his fortune in Colorado where he worked in a gold mine and supervised a power plant. He made good money there. $3.00 per day during the time a farm hand was making $1.00 per day.  This venture was short-lived however, when out of a great love and devotion to his mother, he was called back to help her work the farm after his father died in 1899.  In 1910 he married his bride Nell Pfeiffer and they continued to run the family farm even after his Mother Sophia died in 1911. In 1916 John and Nell traveled to southwestern Minnesota to help John's older brother Arthur Elmer (my grandfather, who preferred the name Elmer) and his two sons Lloyd and Earl carve out a new farm near near the town of Raymond.  Earl remembered Uncle John in his memoirs, as "simply a grown-up kid at heart", and delighted in pranks such as warning and worrying very young Earl and his brother Lloyd about wolves, bears, and eagles in the surrounding area. He goes on to tell of Uncle John sneaking up on Earl in bed, and making growling noises, then grabbed Earl's arm which was extended over the edge of the bed.  "Of course he enjoyed it and laughed loudly about his scaring me. It cured me, however, regarding my arm ever hanging over the edge of the bed, even after I outgrew being scared of bears and the dark."

Uncle John and Aunt Nell were never blessed with children. In those days, orphaned children or children from a broken home often were taken care of by other family members to avoid their becoming wards of the state. In 1916 John's sister Emma Schwenk Fletcher  died, leaving three children behind. John and Nell consented to care for and rear one of Emma's daughters, Virginia. Before the terrible winter of 1917 set in, John, Nell, and seven year old Virginia returned to Missouri. John and Nell continued to farm, bought and sold land at a profit and then lost all of his money in the bank closing during the depression. This, of course, left John and many others during this period with a major problem to overcome. How to survive in a great crisis. This short story about a long and famous life will be continued in the April issue of the SchwenkNet Newsletter.

Links 

This is a new column. Hopefully you will find these Website links useful. Your editors would appreciate being sent some of your favorite and useful Website URLs.

http://www2.switchboard.com/bin/cgiqa.dll  - Online telephone book for the USA.
http://www.teleinfo.de/abfragen/bin/neuabfrage.pl - Online telephone book for Germany.
http://www.dogpile.com/  - A multi-engine search tool. Saves a lot of time with searches.
http://www.snap.com  - Another excellent search engine.
http://www.mapquest.com/  - Type in a street address or the name of a community, and a map of that will appear on your screen which you can then download. Neato!
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/ - PC Magazine online.
http://www.entry.de/ - A clickable map of Germany.
http://www.dvorak.org/home.htm  - The Personal Portal/Universal Home Page of one of the writers of PC Magazine and contains many interesting and useful WS links.

Animation of the Month

Audio of the Month

Online Humor
(unknown author on the Internet. A few expletives have been bleeped by your editors.)

Dear Diary:

December 8:  6:00 PM. It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife andI took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge, soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses Print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!
December 9:  We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in  the Whole World? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had. Shoveled for the first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a  perfect life.
December 12:  The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment. My neighbor tells me not to worry, we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Our neighbor Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. I don't think that's possible. (Bob is such a nice man I'm glad he's our neighbor.)
December 14:  Snow lovely snow! 8" last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. Didn't realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn't huff and puff so.
December 15:  20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly.  We aren't in Alaska, after all.
December 16:  Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.
December 17: Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for 5 hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her.   Guess I should've bought a wood stove, but won't admit it to her. I hate it when she's right. I can't believe I'm freezing to death in my own living room!
December 20:  Electricity's back on, but had another 14" of the damn stuff last night. More shoveling. Took all day. Damn snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they're too busy playing hockey. I think they're lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower and they're out. Might have another shipment in March. I think they're lying. (Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and bill me. I think he's lying.)
December 21:  Bob was right about a white Christmas because 13 more inches of the white bleep fell today, and it's so cold it probably won't melt till August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel and then I had to piss. By the time I got undressed, pissed and dressed again. I was too tired to shovel (Tried to hire Bob who has a plow on his truck for the rest of the winter; but he says he's too busy. I think he is lying.)
December 23:  Only 2" of snow today. And it warmed up to 0. The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What is she nuts!!! Why didn't she tell me to do that a month ago? She says she did but I think she's lying.
December 24:  6". Snow packed so hard by snowplow, l broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. (If I ever catch the son of a bleep who drives that snowplow, I'll drag him through the snow by his bleeps.) and then he comes down the street at a 100 miles an hour and throws snow all over where I've just been!  Tonight the wife wanted me to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was busy watching for the damn snowplow. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shoveling.
December 25:  Merry Christmas. 20 more inches of the slop tonight. Snowed in. The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. I hate the snow! Then the snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel.  (The wife says I have a bad attitude.)  I think she's an idiot.  If I have to watch "Its a Wonderful Life" one more time, I'm going to kill her.
December 26: Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever move here? It was all HER idea. She's really getting on my nerves.
December 27:  Temperature dropped to -30 and the pipes froze.
December 28:  Warmed up to above -25. Still snowed in. SHE is driving me crazy!!!
December 29:  10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in. (That's the silliest thing I ever heard.)  How dumb does he think I am?
December 30:  Roof caved in. The snow plow driver is suing me for a million dollars for the bump on his head. The wife went home to her mother. 9"predicted.
December 31:  Set fire to what's left of the house. No more shoveling.
January 8:  I feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me. (Why am I tied to the bed?)