A Family Lost to Time Rediscovered

Growing up as a military child is a great life that has some great advantages. Still, one disadvantage is being separated from extended family and never getting really 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, it is something 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 dad at all, and my mother's father only vaguely.

Now that I have had a military career and gave my son's the same experience, I must give their children a window into my world and generation.  Something that wasn't entirely lost to me, only because I got to spend a few summers with my Fathers, mother, 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 that 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 ear full.  It is one of those things you'll always remember, "Curtis!!  X(&^%$ why 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 happened, she and my Grandfather had to leave and go home to her hometown of Merrill.  Everybody 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 Skowronek, gave them a plot of land to build a house in Merrill. She worked at a Tannery, a glove factory, and then a Shoe Factory in her life.  Robert Anderson 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 the small-town life, joined the Navy; he and my mother left Northern Wisconsin for good.  My father never really looked back, just like his grandfather, 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 little prospect 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 one of German heritage being expelled.  I learned a long time ago, life is always about timing, with some luck thrown in.

Note that if it wasn't for the research of Jean Klebenow in the 1990's I probably would not have many details of August and Gottliebe Skowronek.