The back hillside of Wisner Cemetery had some interesting markers I wanted to see. Especially the two white bronze (zinc) markers I noticed.

The white bronze marker for Auguste Nathen is simple but it tells you what you need to know, even if it’s written in German. Auguste was the wife (or “frau”) of Johann Nathen. She was 52 when she died. I’ve seen this particular marker in several other cemeteries, so it must have been a popular model in the Western White Bronze Co. cataglog.

I tried to find out what I could about Auguste but there was only a few ship listings from the right time period from Germany (then called Prussia) and she was alone. So I’m not sure I had the right person.

I suspect she and Johann were German immigrants that came to Nebraska later in their marriage and may have never been included in any censuses taken. There are a few other Nathens listed on census records as living nearby but I could not draw any connection between them and these Nathens.

Not far away is another white bronze marker but this one is much grander and has some lovely symbolism attached to it. I took pictures of it from every angle.

I had little success in finding out much about Gust (possibly short for August) Janssen. He was 31 when he died. There are no other Janssens buried at Wisner Cemetery. The sweet inscription on his monument appears to be in German.

I used Google Translate to figure out what the it said:

We lay down, weeping, in this silent sleep.
Never will you return to us again.
Oh, so we are weeping thickly.
But the hour is long, when we meet again
And unite in a happy covenant, before the throne of God.

One panel features a bird in flight, which is symbolic of the “winged soul.” The representation of the soul as a bird goes back to ancient Egypt. Some older burial art features only wings to convey the symbol of divine mission.

Finding an ear of corn on the side of a white bronze marker was a delightful surprise. I learned that it was a country custom to send a sheaf to relatives on the death of a farmer. Gust Janssen was clearly a farmer.

I was curious to find out just how much corn Nebraska does produce today. According to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service in 2012, Nebraska’s corn crop results in $9.1 billion from 9.1 million acres harvested. While Nebraska ranks third among states in overall corn production, it ranks #1 in white corn production.

The monument for Ethel Westerhold is on the same hillside and it’s hard not to stop when you see it.

August and Emily Parks Westerhold were both German immigrants who married sometime in the 1890s. Ethel Westerhold was born on March 5, 1896. After only 16 months, she passed away on July 8, 1897.

August and Emily had a daughter, Hazel, in 1899. Emily died in 1905 and August married Augusta Wieland in 1906. Together they would have four children who survived well into adulthood. Hazel, who is buried behind her sister Ether, married William Goree in 1921. Hazel died in 1924, a day after she gave birth to her son, Harvey.

Back up on the flatter land, I snapped a picture of this monument for Milton B. Fraser. By checking on Ancestry, I found he’d spent almost his entire life in Oneida County, New York. Born in 1818, he married Laura Mason and they had several children before her death in 1861. She was 37 at the time. He married Alzina Mowers a few years later. She was 22 years his junior.

According to the 1870 U.S. Census, he was listed as a dealer in patents. What did that mean? Apparently, Milton was a cheese expert and applied for several patents involving cheese presses and hoops. I found a book discussing the merits of Fraser Gang Hoops and the Fraser Gang Press. The illustration below details one of his hoops.

Sometime after 1880, Milton and Alzina left Oneida County with their family and headed for Wisner. I’m not sure why. He died only six years later of inflammatory rheumatism. The obituary published in an Oneida newspaper reported he made and sold cheese (with his patented gang cheese press) at a site on Front Street in Wisner.

His obituary also notes his relation to a brother, Dr. C.E. Fraser. I couldn’t find conclusive information about him. But his brother living in Wisner may be why Milton chose to move all the way to Nebraska from the comforts of New York.

Christopher Bowden and his wife, Elizabeth, emigrated from England to Wisconsin sometime in the late 1840s with their two children. When they moved to Nebraska is unclear, but it was in the 1880s. Their daughter, Elizabeth, died in Wisner in December 1887 at the age of 29. Her marker is broken in two but I had Christi lift it up temporarily so we could photograph it.

Elizabeth’s epitaph reads:

I now shall slumber in the ground
Till the last joyful trump shall sound
Then burst the chains of sweet surprise
And in my Savior’s image rise.

Not far from Christopher’s grave is the monument for one of his sons, Lewis. He married Jennie Sheldon in 1882 in Wisconsin. They had one son (William) before moving to Wisner. This is around the time that I believe his parents moved there and some of his brothers. But by 1887, Lewis had returned to Wisconsin with Jennie, where they had three more children.

According to the 1900 U.S. Census, Lewis is listed as married but working as a farmhand in Plymouth, Wisc., while Jennie and the children are living in Brodhead, Wisc. I believe the couple had separated at this time. He is listed in the 1910 U.S. Census as living back in Nebraska and was divorced, while Jennie remained in Wisconsin, always listed as widowed.

Lewis won a prize for his Legal Tender variety of corn at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition of 1905, held in Portland, Ore. During the exposition’s four-month run, it attracted over 1.6 million visitors, and featured exhibits from 21 countries. He also bred short-horn cattle with his bachelor brother, John Edgard Bowden. Their mother, Elizabeth, lived with John in her last years. Brother Francis had success breeding pigs.

Lewis died at the age of 55. I don’t know if he ever saw any of his children again after he returned to Nebraska.

Finally, on our way to the car, I caught sight of this marker. I never knew that Thor was actually a surname before now. But apparently it is!

There’s a rather sad footnote to this post. I learned that a few months after our visit, a man vandalized both Wisner Cemetery and nearby Beamer Cemetery. I’m not sure of the extent of the damage (it looked like it was more destruction of items on the graves and not the actual markers) but the local residents were understandably upset. The culprit only received a ticket for his crimes, I read. I hope he was charged with more than that.

As we headed out of the cemetery, I got a nice picture of one of Nebraska’s many barns.

Then we got back on the road for our last stop, Blair Cemetery, where my very first cemetery “hop” took place some years ago. Where it all began…

About 12 miles from Pilger is the town of Wisner, Neb. When looking on Find a Grave, I saw that only 42 percent of Wisner Cemetery was photographed. Being able to help add photos while seeing a new cemetery is a great “double shot” for me so we decided to make a stop. I had no idea what a wise choice we’d made.

First known as Elmont Precinct, Wisner was platted by the Elkhorn Land & Town Site Company with the actual filing submitted July 22, 1871. Wisner was named after S.P. Wisner, a vice president with the railroad company. On or about July 20, 1871, the railroad was completed, and on July 26 town lots were sold at auction to the highest bidder. Wisner became an incorporated village on May 14, 1873.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I didn’t look at the map properly when determining where the cemetery entrance was. We drove to the back of a subdivision and walked up a steep hill to find the back gate. Oddly enough, we found animal bones scattered on the road.

Once I realized my error, we backtracked and found the proper route to the front gate. Wisner Cemetery is well tended and laid out in an organized manner. There’s a very helpful master directory inside of a metal box to help you find where graves are located.

One of the first markers near the front gate that I saw was this one for David Svatos. There’s a big rig carved into his marker and a metal one was attached on top. I learned from his obituary that David had driven trucks from an early age. He was only 50 when he died.

It wasn’t long before I made a wonderful discovery. Wisner Cemetery is the final resting place of a Medal of Honor recipient.

The Medal of Honor is the U.S.’s highest and most prestigious personal military decoration that’s awarded to recognize U.S. military service members who distinguished themselves by acts of valor. The medal is normally awarded by the President in the name of the U.S. Congress. The Medal of Honor has been awarded to 3,496 different people.

There are three versions of the medal, one for the Army, one for the Navy and one for the Air Force. Personnel of the Marine Corps and Coast Guard receive the Navy version.

The son of Peter and Lillian Schulz Hansen, Dale Merlin Hansen was born in Wisner on Dec. 13, 1922. While attending schools, he helped out on the family farm. He graduated from high school in 1940.

Dale’s younger brother, Forrest, remembers growing up with Dale and his other brothers, Larry and Don. “Typical boys. There were four of us you know how they are, riding the ponies and horses and stuff like that.”

Dale was inducted into the Marine Corps Reserve on May 11, 1944. He completed training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, Calif. and was assigned to the Infantry Training Battalion at Camp Pendleton, where he underwent four weeks of infantry indoctrination and two weeks of training with the Browning Automatic Rifle, scoring 175 to become an Expert Automatic Rifleman.

Dale headed for the Pacific Theater on Nov. 12, 1944 with a replacement draft. In December, he joined Company E, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, at Pavuvu in the Russell Islands. While there, he underwent bazooka training before sailing with the 1st Marine Division for maneuvers at Banika Island and Guadalcanal in February 1945. In March, after a few more days back at Pavuvu, the division left for Okinawa where Dale landed with his unit on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945.

The action which brought him the Medal of Honor occurred in the battle for Hill 60 on the Southern part of the island. On May 7, after destroying a strategic pillbox with a rocket launcher, his weapon was destroyed. Continuing his assault alone, he bravely destroyed a mortar position and 12 enemy soldiers during the course of battle. His determination and total disregard of personal danger helped his unit take a well-defended enemy position.

Three days later, Dale was killed by a Japanese sniper on May 11, 1945 in the Wana-Dakeshi Ridge. He was 22 years old.

Forrest Hansen remembers being at home, when the family received the last telegram. “Figured something was wrong because we hadn’t heard nothing for 30 days,” he said.

The Medal of Honor was presented to Dale’s parents on May 30, 1945 by the officer in charge of the Midwestern Recruiting Division as part of Wisner’s Memorial Day observance. He was initially buried in the 1st Marine Division Cemetery on Okinawa, but his remains were returned to the U.S. in 1948 for burial in Wisner Cemetery.

Built in the 1950s, Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler is a collection of facilities and satellite installations on Okinawa. Camp Hansen is one of them and was named in honor of Dale Hansen. It houses about 6,000 Marines and holds the record for the most Marines that re-enlist in the Marine Corps.

Dale’s younger brother, Don, also served in the U.S. Marines as a PFC from May 11, 1944 (inducted on the same day as Dale) until May 11, 1946 in Okinawa. He was a recipient of the Purple Heart. He died in March 2012 and is buried right behind Dale.

I took a moment to say a prayer of thanks for the brothers. To think about what it all meant. Two farm boys who left the innocence of the Nebraska prairie to face the brutality of war. Both left for Okinawa in 1944 but only one came back. The Hansen family, as many others touched by war, would never be the same.

One much less historic but very useful feature unique to Wisner Cemetery is that it has its own functioning outhouse! At first, I thought it might be a shed for tools and equipment, but happily found it was an authentic vintage “Port a John”, complete with toilet paper.

The inside looked much better than I imagined, which tells me that those caring for the cemetery actually use it. I tried it out myself because to be honest, I really had to go. I wish more cemeteries had them for hoppers like me!

The Ziebell family has five markers at Wisner Cemetery. Arthur Ziebell, a native of Indiana, married Elsie Sherrifs in 1902 in Iowa. The 1910 U.S. Census indicates they had three children: Charles, Francis and Earl. They later had a daughter, Margaret, in 1913.

Arthur and Elsie both died in 1918, which leads me to believe it was from the Spanish Flu. Arthur’s exact day and month of death is unknown, but Elsie died on Nov. 5, 1918. Margaret died at the age of 9 in 1922. I believe all their other children survived well into adulthood. Arthur’s father, Anton, is also buried at Wisner Cemetery.

I found another potential Spanish Flu victim not far away. A native of Norway born in 1846, Carrie Johnson married Ole Field sometime before 1868 in Wisconsin. They had three children together and were living in Wisner by 1880. Ole died in 1886, his cause of death is unknown. Carrie, who never remarried, died 32 years later on Oct. 29, 1918. This was only a few days after Elsie Ziebell died.

We’d only just gotten started at Wisner so I’ll share more about our visit next time.

Last week, I shared about my visit to Prospect Hill Cemetery in Norfolk, Neb. I thought our next stop (after the Norfolk Hospital for the Mentally Insane cemeteries) was Blair Cemetery but after going through my photos, I discovered two stops I totally forgot about on the way to Blair. The first one is Pilger.

Pilger Cemetery is just off the corner of Highway 275 and 574th Ave. Pilger itself is tiny. The current population is around 350. Brothers Charles and Mitchell Sharp were the first settlers in 1865 near Humbug Creek, a tributary of the Elkhorn River. They returned to Omaha to spend the winter, but came back the following spring with other families.

Pilger stands on what was the Peter Schauble homestead. The first residence, a log cabin built by Andrew Schauble, later became a stage coach station. A post office, established in July 1868, was given the name “Canton.”

In 1874, John Peter Pilger and his wife purchased 160 acres along the Elkhorn. Five years later, when the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley Railroad was being planned, the Pilgers sold their land and moved to Stanton.

In May 1879, bonds were issued to help build the railroad through the county. A depot was built immediately and the first train arrived in Pilger on September 15, 1879. The following year, the Pioneer Townsite Company purchased the land, platted the town, and managed the sale of lots. Records indicate that the name of the post office was not changed to “Pilger” until July 1884.

During the village’s centennial celebrations in the 1980s, the motto “the tiny town too tough do die” was born. It was meant to celebrate the fact that through many decades of change, Pilger had managed to survive despite having a small population.

That motto was put to the test on June 16, 2014 when twin tornadoes destroyed about 75 percent of Pilger’s homes and businesses. Two people died and 16 were injured. To get an idea of how bad it was, take a look at these photos and a map of the town.

Pilger is still in the long process of rebuilding but they are determined to not let the tragedy snuff out their small town.

Pilger Cemetery is not hard to find and is located against a somewhat steep hillside. It made for good exercise. According to Find a Grave, there are about 1,400 marked graves. There looks to be room for plenty of future burials.

Pilger Cemetery’s most famous resident is Major League Baseball player Lyle Forrest “Bud” Tinning. I didn’t know that when we stopped to visit. His marker is very simple so it didn’t stand out. His mother, a member of the pioneering Allison family of Stanton City, died in childbirth when he was two.

Bud attended Pilger High School for two years but quit to help his father on the family farm. In the summer, Bud played baseball with country teams on local sandlots or in pastures. He was first noticed by professional baseball scouts while pitching for the Genoa town team, and began his professional career with the Omaha Packers, a franchise in the Western League.

Bud played professional baseball from 1932 to 1935 as a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals. In the 1932 World Series, Bud pitched three shutout innings against the Yankees in two relief appearances, and struck out Babe Ruth. The Baseball Almanac described Bud as “a crafty pitcher who started about one third of his games”.

An injury in 1935 ended Bud’s career, although he had a brief comeback attempt in the minor leagues. He served as a minor league manager for several years. During his baseball years, Bud regularly returned to his hometown of Pilger to visit. Bud died of a heart attack in 1961. He and his wife, Inez, had no children.

The monument for the three Olk children got my attention during out visit. All died quite young.

Jacob Olk, a native of Germany, arrived in Nebraska in the 1880s and opened the Pioneer Blacksmith and Repair Shop. His younger brother, Theodore, came over in 1888 and opened an implement shop. Theodore was 31 at the time and a bachelor.

At some point before 1913, Theodore married a fellow German immigrant named Marianna. Only a teenager, she was 31 years his junior. Together, they had three children: Gretchen, Evelyn and Bernhard.

Gretchen, the youngest, lived the shortest time. Born in October 1916, she died less than a month later. Cause of death is not known.

But her siblings Bernhard and Evelyn may have died of the Spanish Flu. Bernhard, who was born in July 1913, died on Dec. 18, 1918. His sister, Evelyn, was born in October 1915. She died only a day after her brother on Dec. 19, 1918. If the Olks had any other children, they did not survive. According to future U.S. Census records, Theodore and Marianna had no children living with them.

Theodore outlived his younger wife and died at the age of 88 in 1955. Marianna died at the age of 51 in 1947.

There were several lamb-topped markers signifying the graves of children at Pilger. But this kneeling lamb was a little different than the others.

John and Minnie Foy were the parents of little Alta Belle. She had two brothers and two sisters, along with a sibling who had died before her birth. Alta Belle died at the age of three for unknown reasons. Most of John and Minnie’s children would survive into adulthood.

Not far from Alta Belle’s marker is one for Fern Caauwe. She was born on Aug. 31, 1908 and died only a few months later. I’ve seen doves on graves quite often but not usually on an infant’s grave. It was still just as poignant.

The last picture I took at Pilger was randomly chosen. For some reason, Otto Melcher’s monument got my attention. He died at the age of 35, the prime of his life.

Otto and his siblings were born in Nebraska, their German parents having emigrated some years before. He married Anna Woehler in 1906 and their only daughter, Olga, was born a year later.

For reasons unknown, Otto died in 1909. Anna and Olga moved in with Anna’s parents, William and Doris Woehler. Anna died in 1911 and Olga continued to live with her grandparents.

I was hoping for a happy ending for Olga but she, too, would die fairly young. She married Waldeman Nissen in Sioux City, Iowa in 1923. She and Waldeman had four children. One died in infancy, one died at the age of 19, and the other two lived well into their 70s. Olga died at the age of 23, about four months after the birth of her last child. She is buried at Pilger Cemetery with her parents, husband and two of her children.

On the end of that visit, standing on a hillside looking out across the graves and nearby farms, I was grateful that I’d made it to (almost) 48. So many of the people buried at Pilger didn’t have that blessing. But the ones that did kept the town going. And many of their descendants stayed to continue that effort.

Even twin tornadoes won’t keep Pilger down. It’s just too tough to die.

 

It was evening by the time we reached Norfolk. It’s about 85 miles Northeast of Central City, where we were driving from.

The next morning, we settled on seeing Prospect Hill Cemetery before heading out toward the former Norfolk State Hospital for the Insane and its cemeteries. You can read about that part of our trip here.

In late 1865, three scouts left from a German Lutheran settlement near Ixonia, Wisc. to find farmland they could claim under the Homestead Act. On September 15, they reached the junction of the Elkhorn River and its north fork, and chose that area as a settlement site. On July 15, 1866, 124 settlers in three wagon trains representing 42 families from the Ixonia area arrived. A second group from Wisconsin arrived in July 1867.

Before we arrived in Norfolk, Christi told me to be sure to pronounce it “Nor-fork” instead of “Nor-folk” (like the city in Virginia) or I’d sound like an out-of-towner. I wondered about this until I read more about Norfolk.

The original name of the colony was a variant of “North Fork”, but accounts differ on the exact name: “Northfork”, “Nor’fork”, and “Nordfork” are all suggested. The name was submitted to federal postal authorities, and at some point was transmuted to “Norfolk”. So that’s the story behind the distinct pronunciation.

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Norfolk’s population was 24,210. This makes it the ninth-largest city in Nebraska. Norfolk’s main claim to fame is one man: Tonight Show host and TV icon Johnny Carson.

John William “Johnny” Carson was born on Oct. 23, 1925, in Corning, Iowa to Homer Lloyd “Kit” Carson and Ruth Elizabeth Hook Carson. The family moved to Norfolk when Carson was eight. He was fascinated with magic. At age 12, Carson’s mother sewed him a cape, and his first performance was staged in front of the local Kiwanis Club. He debuted as “The Great Carsoni” at age 14 and was paid $3 a show.

After a stint in the U.S. Navy, Carson attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln to study journalism but switched to radio broadcasting. He ended up at WOW radio and television in Omaha in 1950. Carson hosted a morning TV program called The Squirrel’s Nest. One of his routines involved interviewing pigeons on the roof of the local courthouse that would allegedly report on the political corruption they had seen.

A few years later, Carson headed for California and his career took off from there. But he never forgot his Norfolk roots. I wish we’d had time to drive by his boyhood home. It was nearly destroyed when a man accidentally plowed into it with his SUV in 2011. But someone bought it in 2014 with plans to bring it back to its former glory.

Carson ended his run on the Tonight Show on May 22, 1992. Bette Middler, a singer I usually don’t like very much (please don’t hate me) sang “One For My Baby” to him. Like most of the country, I bawled my eyes out watching her pay tribute to a man who’d been part of my life ever since I could remember. He died on Jan. 23, 2005 and was cremated, so he is not buried at Propsect Hill (or any cemetery).

I found very little information about Prospect Hill Cemetery online. The original 10 acres were donated by the Hon. Samuel Storrs Cotton. A gentleman named James Y. Craig, then superintendent and landscape gardener for Omaha’s Forest Lawn Cemetery, remodeled the cemetery in the 1890s. According to the 1895 book I found this information in, the cemetery was then at about 30 acres. I don’t know what the current acreage is.

I unwittingly photographed Samuel Storrs Cotton’s monument while I was at Prospect Hill. From what I could piece together, the Connecticut native didn’t come to Nebraska until after 1880. He appears on the 1885 Nebraska Census with his daughter and other family members. He was 61 at the time and listed as a mill proprietor.

Because of that, I don’t think Prospect Hill was officially established until sometime after 1880 since he provided the land. I did see a marker with a burial date of 1870 so my thought is that the land was already being used as a cemetery. From Find a Grave, I saw it has around 6,800 burials recorded but I know there are more than that. It’s still an active cemetery.

One of the first things you see when you drive up into Prospect Hill is a large statue of Abraham Lincoln. The base says that it was dedicated in 1939 by the Women’s Relief Corps, relatives and friends to honor of Norfolk’s Civil War veterans.

I liked the rugged simplicity of the DeFord monument for Dick and Gertrude DeFord.

According to the 1920 U.S. Census, both Dick and Gertrude were photographers. Although they are buried in Norfolk, I can only find records that indicate they lived in Lincoln. A native of Illinois, Dick came to Nebraska with his parents when he was a child. He and Gertrude had one child, Dick Jr.

According to many Lincoln newspaper ads I saw from the early 1920s, Dick was also a popular jazz orchestra leader. He appeared at many venues around Lincoln, traveling to Iowa and Kansas occasionally. He died at the age of 45. Gertrude lived on several more years and died at the age of 90 in 1872.

I did feel a tug on my heart when I saw the graves of the three Heath children. Andrew Warren Heath and Myrtle “Mertie” Sewell Heath were both Nebraska natives. They married in February 1909 and lived much of their lives in Battle Creek, not far from Norfolk.

Between 1916 and 1919, the Heaths had three children. All of them (as far as I can tell) died at birth.

I could find no children listed as living with them in any of the U.S. Census records. I don’t know if they had other children who died. Neither Mertie or Andrew have markers at Prospect Hill as far as I know. They both died in the 1970s.

Richard Lidmila’s monument is a simple cross but I haven’t seen one with two crossed tree logs like this one before.

Born in 1927, Richard served in Germany during World War II. His twin sister, Elayne, died in 2015. I recently heard from Ramona Lidmila that the twins’ mother, Mary, died shortly after their birth. Richard died in 1947 from injuries he received in a motorcycle accident.

This one is a puzzler. No birth/death date. I found his name listed in a few newspaper articles as being selected to help with Norfolk elections. But that’s all I could find. He was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) No. 46 but my research indicates that camp was based in California.

This small marker for Johney Farrell is in need to repair. He was only 18 months old when he died in 1893. His parents may be buried beside him but if so, their graves are unmarked.

As we prepared to leave, I noticed there were a lot of Mullers buried in one area. Because my maiden name is Muller (what some might say are the Smith/Jones of Germany), I always get excited when I see it in cemeteries. I am related to Claars in Nebraska (whom I revisited in Blair the next day) but I don’t think any of my Muller relatives made it out that far.

At the same time, I felt it was my duty as a Muller to stop and wish them well before we left.

Next time, I’ll wrap up the Nebraska portion of my April 2016 trip at Blair Cemetery.