A Family Lost to Time Rediscovered

Growing up as a military child is a great life with many advantages. Still, one disadvantage is being separated from extended family and never really getting to know them. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change a thing. I have traveled, seen a world that most will never know, and continue to do so. Still, something is missing from my life. Now that I have grandchildren, I'm reflecting on my relationship with my grandparents, with whom I really never got to spend much time. I don't remember my father's father at all, and my mother's father only vaguely.

Now that I have had a military career and given my sons the same experience, I must give their children a window into my world and my generation. Something that wasn't entirely lost to me, only because I got to spend a few summers with my father, my mother, and my grandmother.

Grandmother Anderson, who stayed with us during the summer in Washington State. She would come out to go salmon fishing with my father and me, one of the great experiences in my young life. There were many times just like this one. 

I had hooked a big King Salmon when the three of us were fishing. It was probably 30 lbs or more. While I was fighting it, she talked about how she was going to cook and can it. I got the fish right up to the boat, and it got off the hook. Well, you can imagine she was a little upset and let me have an earful. It is one of those things you'll always remember, "Curtis!! X(&^%$ w  did you let that fish get off? You should have given the fishing pole to your father!" My Dad and I just laughed.

When we were home, she would tell me stories about growing up and the great depression, all while teaching me how to play blackjack and poker.   I remember her stories about living in Milwaukee, where she met her husband, Robert Anderson. When the Great Depression hit, she and my Grandfather had to leave and return to her hometown of Merrill. Everyone lost everything because all the jobs disappeared overnight. She was part of the depression era generation that would no longer borrow money for anything.

Her father and Mother, August and Gottliebe Skofronick, gave them a plot of land in Merrill to build a house. She worked at a Tannery, a glove factory, and then a Shoe Factory in her life. Robert A erson started a successful Wrought Iron Business.    You can still see some of his work on the stairs and porches of houses in Merrill today.

My father, who didn't want any part of small-town life, joined the Navy, and he and my mother left Northern Wisconsin for good. My father never really looked back, just as his Grandfather did, who left Germany. They were headed to Hawaii, where I was born. Just imagine Hawaii in the late 1950s; what an adventure.

She also told stories about her father and mother, who immigrated in the late 1800s. I know that she said that her parents came to the USA because of a few prospects in Europe. After doing his required service in the German Army in the 1880s, he was allowed to immigrate. It is a good thing that they did, avoiding the carnage of both WWI and WWII. That area of East Prussia that is now Poland was decimated by WWII, with every German of German heritage being expelled. I learned a long time ago that life is always about timing, with a bit of luck thrown in.

Note that if it weren't for Jean Klebenow's research in the 1990's, I probably wouldn't have many details about August and Gottliebe Skofronick.