SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE

John Peter Anderson was born August 17, 1932 in Stockholm, Wisconsin, the fifth child of George Herbert and Mabel Elenora Johnson Anderson.  He was the name sake of his grandfathers, John Peter Johnson and Peter Anderson (Per Andersson).  John was baptized at the Little Pl um Lutheran Church located in Frankfort, Wisconsin, a few miles outside of Pepin.  The Little Plum church was the Johnson family church. John entered the Air Force on July 30, 1951 and graduated a year later from radio school at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. In 1953 he was stationed in Gottingen, Germany.  He served in the Korean and Vietnam Conflict as a radio operator.   John married Mary Elizabeth Thompson on July 28, 1956.  They were blessed with the birth of two daughters, Denise and Diane.   John passed away at his home in Red Wing, August 1, 2020  at the age of 87.

My cousin, Jude Tropp, emailed the other day asking about whether John B. Kauffman (JB), our grandfather, had been in a railroad accident at some time in his career.  Railroad accidents were extremely common when the railroad was at its height in the 1900's so it wouldn't be surprising.  The reason Jude asked was that his mother had shared a story about JB being in an accident that caused him to have all his hair burned off and when it grew back his hair was pure white. John B. Kauffman began working for the Chicago and North Western Railroad in 1904 working continuously for 41 years and 6 months and retiring in 1947.  It is likely that he heard about many railroad accidents over the years that he was employed.  Upon researching the accidents that occurred in Janesville involving the Chicago and North Western railroad during the time that JB was working I found three accidents that I would categorize as being quite severe and injuring railroad workers. In the reports that I rea

In the old days of genealogy, it was difficult to always see the original source.   Because of distance and time constraints I relied on letter writing and the goodness of others to help me research family stories.   Such was the case when trying to find records of the Anderson and Long families in Stockholm, Wisconsin.     I wrote a letter to the Pastor of the Sabylünd Lutheran church in Stockholm where Dennis’ family worshipped.  This is the reply to my question regarding the Lång family.   In fact, twice in this letter Pastor Fehr named the wife of Peter Nilson Lång as Stina Kajsa Long.   Not being familiar with Swedish names, for years I assumed her maiden name was Kajsa.   While researching the family at one point I noticed that many other researchers had listed her name as Kristina Olson.   Where did they get that from?   When I was finally able to look at the original document, I understood why Pastor Fehr gave me the information that he did.   Stina’s information is the second

While preparing to write a Life Story on my grandmother, Emilie Stark Schachtschneider, I reviewed some of the documents that I had collected.  What power there is in review of what you already have!  I was looking at the New York ship manifest (which gave me a reminder that Emilie came through Ellis Island) when it came to my attention that Emilie was not traveling alone.  Listed with her was an Edmund Stark, age 26.   This made many things go through my head.  Of course, the first thing was, who the heck is Edmund Stark?  I had never heard of him before.  Then I thought, is this the correct Emilie?  Could this be a husband and wife instead of my grandmother and potentially a brother?  The one notation that made me continue to think that this was my grandmother was the destination of these two Starks:  Edgerton, Wis.  What are the odds that two young people from Germany would specifically say they were going to the exact small Wisconsin town that they lived in for years afterward? So