Tuesday's Tall Tales! - On the run from the Czar

Tabor, Czechoslovakia at the end of the 19th century

My maiden name is Tabor.  From what I've encountered, this is said to be a Czech surname, but my Tabor ancestors aren't from the former Czechoslovakia, so why were they called "Tabor"?  Time for some tall tales, courtesy of my dad......

My great-grandpa, Adam Tabor, and his brother were on the run from the Russian Czar.  They were caught cutting down and selling trees that were the czar's so they fled to the United States.  They didn't take the direct route.  Apparently, they feared the czar's men would be able to catch them more easily if they took a direct route, so instead they traipsed around Europe for a bit and found themselves in a town named Tabor in what used to be Czechoslovakia ("B" on the map).

Now why did they pick this city's name for their own.  Well, I'm told that it was a rough, bad-ass town and they fancied the comparison with themselves, so Tabors they became.  My dad says that they eventually went through Germany and then on to England before heading over to the US and eventually settling down in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Quite the journey.


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What are the nuggets of truth in this rather tall sounding tale?  It's hard to tell.  My great aunt, Lillian Ruminski nee Tabor, is the only surviving child of the above-mentioned Adam and his wife Jadwiga.  I've only had the privilege of sitting down with my Aunt Lillian once in the past 10 years.  My father was there and let's just say that he polluted the pool more than a little.  I asked him before driving to visit to please not answer questions for her.  The answers needed to be from her and unprompted or his tales and memories could influence her answers.  Sadly, my father rarely does anything he's asked, but I gotta love him.  Unfortunately, his need to interfere could mean that I'll never know the truth.  What Aunt Lillian did manage to tell me, was that her father didn't like to talk about his past.

Adam and Jadwiga are the couple on the left.

So now what I actually know about my great-grandfather...

Adam was born between 1874 and 1885 in Russia (this later became Lithuania in later censuses as borders changed, which is helpful at narrowing down his region since Russia is rather large!).  He arrived in America between 1884 and 1890 and became a citizen in 1896.  He married Jadwiga Paszkawicz on April 2, 1902.  They had four children, Aldona, Clarence (my grandpa), Adam Jr, and Lillian.  He passes away in 1958.  He ran a shop in Scranton and joined the Polish National Catholic Church because (according to Aunt Lillian) the majority of the people that patronized his store belonged to that church.

I've never been able to find that "brother" of his.  The only thing I have is a picture of Adam and Jadwiga with another couple and children.  I've been told that the other gentleman is his brother, but no name is given and really just hearsay. I haven't been able to find his passenger record or naturalization papers, but I'm working on it.

Should we disregard these tall tales that our colorful family members pass on?  No.  They could hold that little piece of truth that can break through a brick wall or two.  If nothing else they're entertaining when taken with a tablespoon of salt!

The Villers Saga - Guilty Verdict Article Found

The Bismarck Daily Tribune, 18JAN1898

So it didn't take too terribly long to find it once my internet stopped fighting me (it does that almost instantly when my husband gets on a plane to go on a business trip).  I imagine that it didn't come up in the Ancestry.com search because of the clarity of the article.  I knew from the other articles that he was sentenced during the January session so that narrowed my search down.  The last article I found before the sentencing was announced on him was on January 13th so I started on the 14th and found it on the 18th.

"Villers Guilty

Jury in the Trial of the Prisoner Villers at Jamestown Finds Him Guilty of Murder.

Punishment is Fixed by the Jury At Imprisonment in the Penitentiary for Life.

Stay of Proceedings is Granted Until February 1, When a New Trial Will be Asked.

Found Guilty.

The jury in the case of Martin J. Villers, on trial for the murder of August Tromer, today returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree and fixed his punishment at imprisonment for life.  A stay of proceedings was granted to February 1, and a new trial will probably be asked.

The trial of the case was completed yesterday afternoon, and the jury went out this morning after having heard the arguments of counsel.  The verdict in the case was not unexpected, as the circumstantial evidence against the man was strong, and his record probably told against him.  The case has been one of the most peculiar in the history of the state in that the prisoner was serving a sentence of ten years in the pen when the evidence of the murder of the man whom the jury decides to have been his victim, was discovered and he was then removed from the pen to be tried for the greater crime.  It was peculiar also that Villers was serving a sentence for a murderous assault on the wife of his victim when the body of her husband was discovered and he was put on trial for murder.

The trial of the Villers murder case was concluded in court at Jamestown yesterday afternoon, and the attorneys made their addresses to the jury.  The case has been tried rapidly, and little time has been wasted.  The Jamestown Alert says on the demeanor of the prisoner on the witness stand:

On the cross-examination Villers made a fine witness.  His answers were ready, sharp and crisp and often times he had to wait for Attorney Guthrie to conclude his question before he could ejaculate a denial.  Questions requiring a simple yes or no for an answer, either one of which would have compromised the witness, were answered promptly, but evasively and in such a manner as to throw from him an imputation of wrong doing.  Throughout the five hours he was on the witness stand the prisoner sat quietly in his chair and only once did he show great excitement.

When Attorney Guthrie asked the witness if he remembered the burning of a hog pen in this city the night of Nov. 5th, when Mr. Villers was here, also that he was seen by Mrs. Cooper standing in front of the engine house when the fire alarm was turned in, the prisoner straightened in his seat, became greatly excited, the blood rushed to his face and he grasped the arms of the chair a little harder.  When charged with the death of Peter Sterling, who is supposed to have worked for Mr. Villers that fall and with having thrown the body into Josiah Pierson's pig pen after having robbed the body of a large roll of money which Sterling was seen to have late that night and then set fire to the structure burning to body with the hogs, the witness kept his head, and only raising his voice a little emphatically denied all knowledge of the affair.  He said he did not know of the fire until the next morning, he didn't "know the man" and bracing himself seemed to defy the state to prove him guilty of the crime.

When asked where he had been for the last three years the witness stated, "I was in Valley City, here, at LaMoure and Bismarck and back again."  This made the audience laugh and the judge rapped for order.  The witness said he had been thirty-two months in Bismarck when he was "working for the warden of the state penitentiary."

I've got to say that after transcribing this article I'm stunned.  I didn't read it before transcribing.  I didn't really think that there would be anything new, but to accuse him of another murder during cross-examination.  I've heard nothing about the murder of Peter Sterling, although you can bet I'll be looking into it.  Was the prosecution just trying to throw him off?  Most certainly.  What gets me though is the fire regarding the disposal of the body of Josiah Pierson.  It's a similar m.o. to what he was found guilty of doing with Mrs. Tromer...but she lived.

Oh, well, all that's left is to transcribe the court documents.  They are (for the most part) more difficult to read, but you can be sure I'll be setting on them in the near future.  I was hoping to find something to tell me why Villers would have done something like this, if he did at all, but it just seems like the more I look, the more I find additional questions.  Gotta love family history...even if you don't love some of the things the people in it did!

Sunday's Obituary - Martin F. Rosbeck

"Martin F. Rosbeck (hand-dated Feb. 4 - 1973)

Martin F. Rosbeck, 81, of 313 Third Ave., West Bend, a retired farmer, died Sunday at St. Joseph's Hospital, West Bend.  He was born Jan. 16, 1892, at St. Kilian, a son of George and Margaret Thelen Rosbeck.  He married Theresa Kiefer at St. Theresa Catholic Church, Theresa, on May 8, 1923.

After the marriage they lived in Milwaukee for 15 years, then moved to St. Kilian where they farmed for 22 years and finally moved to West Bend in 1961.  Mr. Rosbeck was a member of World War I Barracks 2617.

Surviving are his widow; four children, Mrs. William Brill of Menomonee Falls, Robert of Theresa and Ralph and Norbert both of West Bend; 26 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

Mr. Rosbeck was preceded in death by two sons, Greg, in infancy and Raymond John, who died in the Korean Conflict.

Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Miller's Funeral Home, Kewaskum and at 10:30a.m. at St. Kilian Church at St. Kilian.  The Rev. Elroy Pesch, OSF, will officiate and burial will be in the parish cemetery.

Family and friends may call after 4 p.m. Tuesday at the funeral home.

Newspaper clippings were passed on to me by my mother-in-law, Dolores Cayemberg nee Kuehl.  They were collected by her mother, Leona Kuehl nee Boegel.  Unknown which Wisconsin paper they were clipped, but most likely from the Brown and/or Fond du Lac county areas.

To Do List: Request military records for Martin.  Have a ton of these obits that I've only recently scanned and haven't thoroughly read, so I discovered Martin was a WWI vet when transcribing this.  So cool.

Funeral Card Friday - Maria Beisbier

I just love the German funeral cards I have!  I particularly love it when funeral cards (of any language) when they have pictures on them.  I do get a giggle out of the stern look on her face.  It's commonplace to smile when getting your picture taken today, but apparently not always!  Or perhaps she wasn't very happy in general, although I'd hate to think that.

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History - Winter

Don't worry..I'm not eating yellow snow (1974-ish)

I grew up in a small-ish city in northeastern Pennsylvania called Hazleton.  I've got great memories of the city and growing up in it.  Today though the crime's up and the city's down.  It's an old coal mining town and looks like a city that once had seen better days.  I loved the school system.  I loved the fact that we had sidewalks (silly me I thought sidewalks were everywhere until I joined the Army and moved away!).  And I loved the fact that we had four seasons.

I didn't realize how much I loved the four seasons until I joined the Army as well.  I lived in California, Texas and Hawaii when I served.  Needless to say Honolulu, San Antonio, and Monterey don't see much snow!  But we're talking winter here, so best to get on with it...

I have great memories of looking out the front window of the house with the snow-covered roads (before the plows would get there and the snow would turn black).  Watching the cars driving by slowly on the fresh snow was so peaceful.  It's like the world became quieter and everything just seemed more relaxed.  We had a mock-orange tree in the backyard.  Now I say "tree" but mock-orange really aren't supposed to get THAT big.  It was a "bush" gone wild.  My dad had a peat-moss/compost heap right next to the mock-orange and I'm sure that the decades of those extra nutrients seeping into it helped to create this monster bush!  During the winter the snow we would get was generally wet.  Not that dry powdery stuff.  This was heavy and great for snowballs...although crap for shoveling.  When we'd get a good heavy snow the mock-orange would get so weighed down that it's branches would bend over and touch the ground.  The result was our own personal igloo!  Seriously...it looked like we had a giant igloo in the backyard when it happened, and we would find a way in and use it as our own personal fort!  I'm amazed that tree lived through all that!

Snow never bothered me.  In fact, when it would snow, my spirits would rise.  I didn't mind shoveling at all.  My dad would complain incessantly about shoveling and the snow plows plowing him back in.  It never bothered me.  Not when I was a kid and not later when I was driving.  I love helping other people and when it would snow we'd try to shovel out some of the elderly people that lived near us as well.  I remember one time (and it is a nice memory) of my younger sister and I helping our father shovel his car out when someone got stuck trying to go up the side-street by our house and getting stuck.  It was uphill, which pretty much describes Hazleton to begin with, and he got stuck.  Spinning tires and no traction.  Having been stuck in slush down by my college and having had two strangers soak themselves to push me out always stayed with me so my sister and I went over to help him get up the hill.

It had to have looked silly.  Two teenage, petite girls walking over and offering to give his car a push.  My dad tried to stop us before walking over.  Telling us that we wouldn't be able to help, but we didn't care.  When other people see you helping, chances are someone else will stop by and help out too.  And someone did....my dad finally put down his shovel and helped us push him out of the snow.  Then we all went silently back to our own shoveling.  Things like that make you feel good inside though and I like to think that it may have turned his grumpy "I hate snow" off for five minutes.

My maternal grandparents were teachers, but pretty much everyone before them were coal miners or married to coal miners.  Knowing this now, I think of how the winter must have been a difficult time for them.  Walking to work had to have been freezing.  At least the mines were a constant temperature throughout the year so they could get a warm up...when they weren't worried about a subsidence, I suppose!

It does give you pause to think about how things were so much harder years ago, yet we still find something to complain about.  I suppose we always will.  I suppose that in 100 years our descendants will look back and think about how hard we had it!

Tuesday's Tip - iGoogle Homepage

About a week ago I attended Legacy's Webinar on "Google for Genealogists" presented by Thomas MacEntee and I've got to say it was probably the BEST Webinar I've been to.  There is so much you can do with Google!  If you'd like to buy a copy of the Webinar you can find the link to the Legacy store to preorder it from the Geneablogger homepage.  You will NOT be disappointed.

But that's not what today's tip is about.  A couple days after the Webinar (when my children gave me some time to breathe), I jumped onto my iGoogle homepage for my HaveYouSeenMyRoots Gmail account and decided to give it a proper set up. I found lots of neat gadgets to place on my iGoogle page that were genealogy related as well as Google gadgets for different aspects of Google that Thomas talked about in his Webinar.

The image is of how my iGoogle homepage is set up right now.  It'll change and that's OK.  What I like is that it's nice to have one page to go to with most of the tools I like to use...plus you've got the awesome Google search engine at the top.  You can even access your Gmail and Google Reader right there with nice preview panes!

I'm going to try to do my best to make the most out of Google in my research.  I know I've only scratched the surface, but it's time to dig.  Set up your iGoogle homepage today and bring your tools to one page!

Amanuensis Monday - The Villers Saga, The Final Newspaper Chapter

Bismarck Daily Tribune, 19FEB1898

Under "State News"

"The Jamestown Alert says the prisoner Villers is reported growing weaker but it is possible that he is shamming to gain sympathy.  He has constant services of a physician."
 

Under "State News"

Bismarck Daily Tribune, 23FEB1898

"Judge Fisk at Jamestown today hears the motion for a new trial in the case of M.J. Villers convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penitentiary.  If the motion is denied, Villers will probably be brought at once to the pen, where he will remain unless the supreme court should grant him a new trial.  It is stated that Villers health is poor and that his life sentence will be no more of a punishment than the ten years sentence under which he was formerly held, as he is not likely to live that out."

I noticed that this article already says that he has been found guilty.  I don't have the article with that "breaking news" so maybe the search engine missed it and I'll need to go back and manually search.  So the above "shamming" (gotta love seeing that phrase in an old newspaper) was to gain sympathy for the sentencing portion.

Bismarck Daily Tribune, 25FEB1898

"Villers Sentenced.

No New Trial is Asked in the Villers Case and He is Sentenced for Life.

Prisoner Declares He is Innocent of the Crime for Which He Has Been Convicted.

Various Items of Local News Gathered in and Around the City of Bismarck (doesn't pertain to Villers so will not be transcribed).

Villers Sentenced.

Martin J. Villers, convicted at the January term of court in Stutsman county of the murder of August Tromer, was Thursday sentenced to confinement in the state penitentiary at hard labor for life.  Sentence was pronounced by Judge Fisk of Grand Forks who tried the case, because of inteligibility of Judge Glaspell.  The prisoner heard the announcement unmoved.  No application for a new trial was made.  Since his confinement and trial the prisoner has grown visibly weaker.  He is an old man of 60 or more, and it is thought by his friends that he will not live out the year.  But it is believed the regular habits and work at the penitentiary will bring the old man back to his former health.  The absence of employment in the county jail was a serious disappointment to him.

This is the first and only "lifer" Stutsman county has ever sent to the state penitentiary.

A peculiarity of the Villers case is that all of the precautions that were taken by the murderer to conceal the body of his victim, were set at naught by the burrowing of a badger.  One of the little animals dug its hole just over the place where the body of Tromer had been buried, and its burrowing threw out pieces of bone, and shreds of clothing, which attracted the attention of a farmer who was plowing in the field, and who made an investigation which led to the discovery of the body.  Had it not been for this little animal, the body might never have been discovered and the disappearance of Tromer have always remained a mystery.

When Villers was arrigned for sentence, Judge Fisk asked the prisoner if he had anything to say or had legal cause to show why judgment should not be pronounced against him and it was with an effort that Villers controlled himself.  His face grew white and his mouth twitched as he rose and replied "No." He stated the jury had found him guilty.  He said he was innocent of the crime charged against him but supposed he would have to suffer for it.

Attorney Ellsworth made a merely formal motion for an arrest of judgment which was denied and then asked that the time in which to prepare a statement of the case, to be used in a motion for a new trial, also the time for making such motion, be extended to June 1.  This the judge granted.  An appeal of the case, it may be stated, may be taken with within one year after sentence, according to law.

The court directed, in view of the weakened condition of the prisoner stated by his attorney, that the prisoner be kept at Jamestown until the sheriff considered his condition proper for removal to Bismarck."

Gotta love the mentality that hard labor would make him healthy again.  Martin Villers did manage to live until 1904.  Whether he was ill at the time he was sentenced isn't known.  I guess putting his death certificate on my "To Do List" is next!  I also find it interesting that even though they acknowledge that this case was special, it didn't make the front page.  It was on page 3 of a 4 page paper!

All errors are intentionally left in the transcription.