“Shaking My Family Tree”

10A English 2nd Period ~ Central High School – West Allis, WI

April 12, 1946

My great-grandparents are the first ones able to be traced on my Mother’s side of the family. My grandmother’s mother and father, Henry and Albertina [Caroline] Passehl, left the province of Mecklenburg, Germany, in 1884 [1873] in order that my great-grandfather might escape conscription in the German army. He had been a soldier during the Franco-Prussian War and did not wish to again become a soldier.

Here in America they settled in the Town of Johnson, Marathon County, Wisconsin. They became farmers and my grandmother, Pauline Passehl, was born there on June 28, 1891[1880]. My grandfather’s mother and father, Frederick and Fredericka Schrader, left Germany about 1875 [1873]. They settled on a farm in the Town of Centerville, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. My grandfather was born there December 28, 1880. Soon after that the Schrader family moved to the Town of Johnson. After my grandmother and grandfather were married in 1906 they moved to Wausau, Wisconsin, where my Mother was born.

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My paternal grandparents also came from Germany. My grandmother, Albertina Fischer, was born in 1872 in Hasenheide, a small suburb of Berlin. At the age of sixteen [1889] she left Germany and came to Milwaukee to join relatives. My grandfather, Otto Polzin, was born in Kolberg, Prussia[Gutzlaffshagen, Germany]. When he was nineteen[twenty-one], in 1885[1886], he left Germany to escape conscription. He landed at New York and from there went to Winona, Minnesota, where he had relatives. He was not satisfied there and soon moved further west. For several years he worked as a lumberjack in the Pacific Northwest. After that he came to Milwaukee and settled down for good. My grandmother and grandfather were married in 1894 [1895]. My Father was born in Milwaukee in 1901.

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My Mother was born in 1907 at Wausau, Wisconsin. When she was about eight years old, my grandmother and grandfather started a grocery store which they operated until my grandfather died in 1943. Since my Mother was the oldest of four children she was the most help in the store. At the age of twelve, while my grandfather was in the hospital, she operated the store all by herself. She attended the Wausau High School and by taking a heavier schedule she was graduated in three years at the age of sixteen. Then she went into commercial work. At the office where she was employed she met my Father while he was doing auditing work there.

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My Father, the younger of two boys, was born in 1901 in Milwaukee. He grew up on the North side and attended the Zion Parochial School. He was interested in music, having inherited this from his Mother, and studied music, the piano in particular. Then he attended a business college and took a course with the Walton School of Commerce in Chicago. He worked first with the Milwaukee Road and then secured a position with an auditing firm.

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After my Mother and Father were married at Wausau they decided to make Milwaukee their home.

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