July 2008 Archives

These are the senior photos of Larry Dale Koftan, Bloomfield (NE) High School class of 1943.  The two smaller are those wallet size for trading.

The football uniform was from his brief time at the University of Nebraska.

And, likewise, his brief time in an Army uniform, Grandpa getting him discharged.

The 1943 Bloomfield High senior class play cast, with Larry in the back row, third from the right, Betty at the left end of the back row, just right of the blackface character.

Betty in front of her home.

 

The two at left seem photo booth pictures taken on the same day, Earl holding Mike and Denny by himself.  The photo at right is Up West at the Peters homestead north of Newport, as are the next two, though just of Mike with Grandma and Grandpa Koftan from the summer of 1946.

 

We still were well acquainted with Great Grandma Peters' family in Muscatine, as proven by the following photos, taken on the trip I remember, which sticks in my mind as the same 1948 as embossed on the narrow photo of Leo Maher.  What I certainly remember is the long, narrow, scary bridge over the Mississippi, clearly evident in the background.  Mom was driving, as usual, and it even unnerved her.  My other memory is that Grandma's cousins lived on high river bluffs.

  Grandma Koftan (Fern Peters, daughter of Mary Maher Peters) stands with Miles and Stella Maher individually.  Miles Edward Maher (b. 24 September 1901-d. 4 December 1967) was the son of Peter W. Maher (b. 30 December 1864-d. 5 July 1939), a younger brother of Great Grandma Mary Maher Peters.

The final photo from that family seems to be a high school graduation picture of Joseph Glen Maher's daughter, Frances Joanne (b. 4 November 1932), Tom and Maggie's granddaughter.  Because so many of the family are buried in Muscatine's St. Mary's Cemetery, I'm assuming the initials stand for St. Mary's High School. 

 

If you look closely, the caption is written on this photo at the upper left.  From the family records we have, I have to say the boys are Ted (Edward) and Len (Leonard) with their sister Margaret.  We have other photos of the same boys, the ones following.

Given the clothes, those photos seem to be the Twenties and Thirties.  The following skip several years,  Apparently written on the back is my caption, but I think the L-R order should be Len, Tom, Joe, and Ted, the two younger brothers flanking the two older brothers.

The names on the left photo are clear enough, though the little girl, Kitty, is named in the top border, Kathleen Ann, b. 25 November 1945 ( which helps date the photos), the daughter of Leonard Francis Maher, the son of Thomas Francis Maher.  At the right are the wives:  Mae was married to Robert, Tom and Maggie's oldest son; Wilma was married to Joseph, Tom and Maggie's fourth son; Sylvia was married to Leonard, Tom and Maggie's third son; and Frances was married to Edward, Tom and Maggie's second son.

The following two photos confuse me, because I have labelled both "Leo Maher," though there seems to be a possible age difference in the uniform styles.  But embossed on the more formal pose at the right is "May 1948," and Leonard's birth year was 1911.  As I recall, the family provided Irish policemen to Muscatine.

    

 

     We have several Iowa connections past and present, not least that all the Peters of Great Grandfather Edward's family were born in Wapello, Iowa, according to a great niece of his; and, of course, Great Grandmother Mary Jane Maher Peters was born in Muscatine, as were her five brothers.  Their father, Edward Maher, was born 19 May 1821 in Waterford, Ireland, of glass-making fame, died 21 October 1902; married Mary Wise, also probably from Waterford, with simply the birth-death years of 1821-1869.  The latter couple are buried in St. Mary's Cemetery, Muscatine, Iowa.

     Great Grandmother Peters' youngest brother was Thomas Francis Maher (3 December 1866-16 November 1933), married to Margaret Brossart (29 June 1878-18 July 1942), both also buried in St. Mary's Cemetery, Muscatine.  One of our oldest photos is of their third child, Robert.  The photo below has the caption, "Robert Maher aged 3 years," after which I added "b. 30 June 1902 to Thomas Francis and Margaret Brossart Maher, Thomas being the youngest son of Edward and Mary Wise Maher and the youngest brother of Mary Jane Maher Peters."

Clearly the closest connection was to "Uncle Tom" and "Aunt Maggie," as Grandma Koftan called them, for we have the most photos of them and their family.  Their children's families are the ones I remember visiting in the 1940s.  Here are Tom and Maggie.

Their first two children, Albert and Mary Frances, died young, at the ages of three and two, respectively, in 1900 and 1902.  Then come Robert, (30 June 1902-13 May 1965), Edward (23 July 1904-7 February 1968), Leonard Frances (5 June 1911-?), Joseph Glen (8 February 1913-15 August 1971), and Margaret (12 May 1918-25 August 1941).

The following three photos have no data, but the first is clearly of Tom and Maggie with their sons, a good guess, and perhaps a brother, the figure at the right stocky like Tom.  The next two are Myrtle with, first, Maggie and Len (Leonard) and then with Tom and Ted (Edward).  I might have the boys reversed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The small cemetery, mostly Bennington families, is on the west end of Standing Bear Lake on 144th Street about two blocks north of Fort Street in the northwest corner of Omaha.  JaVee is at the front near the gate, west of the flagpole plot.  Her daughter, Cianne, designed the tombstone.

 

 

This will be the umpteenth time I've battled the annoying editing functions, though at least I was able to go back and mostly correct the recent Peters cemetery entry, which originally apparently saved any error or glitch I made for the finished product.  So here goes.  This is mainly pictorial anyway, with the row of family graves around Martin Hlinovsky.  I've already cited the dates and will make very few comments.

According to the family records, this was a daughter of Martin and Rose Hlinovsky, a sister of Mary and Frances (Fanny), the first wife of Joseph Zelenka, Jr..  According to Robert Clayton's findings, Great Grandma Koftan (Fanny) at 13 was living with her father, Martin, and the Joseph and Kate Zelenka family in the 1880 census in Franklin, Richardson County, Nebraska.  Joseph is buried with Mary, his first wife, in the Beranek Cemetery, Pawnee County (NE), as earlier noted.

The next gravestone is for Ernest Zelenka, and all I have are the inscribed dates, May 1855-July 1898.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Likewise for Philipp Zelenka,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I need to return to make a rubbing of this tombstone for Catherine Zelenka, a bit of a mystery, since some records have Kate Hlinovsky Zelenka originally Catherine, though this one's dates [b. 23 September 1819-d. 17 March 1881] clearly overlap Martin Hlinovsky [11 November 1819-13 May 1891].  There are two Joseph Zelenkas, Sr. and Jr., the latter married to the two Hlinovsky women by our records, but that may be the key to this lady.  (And I didn't check out the Zelenka graves at Springfield, SD.)  It would be handy if she were married to Joseph, Sr., and the mother of all these Zelenkas. 

Partially covered by the iris around the Koftan spike is Holly Zelenka, obviously an infant death.

And these two would have been sisters to Laurence Koftan, daughters to Joseph and Frannie, granddaughters to Martin Hlinovsky, two of the three (an Edith is missing) who allegedly died of diphtheria, though we had different dates for them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Zelenka, Elmer, simply noted by his years, 1897-1975.

And a look back southward from Martin's grave down the family row.

West of Tyndall a half mile or so is the Tyndall Cemetery on the south side of the road.  (A newer, larger cemetery is farther west where Emil and Elsie Kaftan, Laurence's cousins, are buried.)  It didn't take long to find Martin Hlinovsky, the father of Great Grandmother Frances (Fannie) Hlinovsky Koftan, at the north end of another family row, just like the one his wife, Rose, is at the south end of in the Pawnee County (Nebraska) Beranek Cemetery.  Same small white stone, unfortunately broken.  Born 11 November 1819; died 13 May 1891.

Running south of his are all Zelenkas except for a tall spike for two Koftan infants.  Next to him is Elmer Zelenka, the stone simply dated 1897-1975.  Then the Koftan spike for Eva, 2 years, and Clara, 5 months.  Holly Zelenka, her stone almost hidden under the iris around the Koftan spike, has simply 1900.  Next is the mysterious Catherine Zelenka, b. 23 September 1819, d. 17 March 1881.  Philipp Zelenka, b. 17 July 1889, d. 24 September 1910, has the little lamb.  Next is Ernest Zelenka, for whom I should have made a rubbing, the days hard to read:  b. May 1855, d. July 1898.  At the south end is Katie Zelenka, b. 14 September 1854, d. 30 March 1902.  I'll show the individual stones in the next entry, but below simply show the row looking north along the first lane into the cemetery from town.

 This means that the listing above is in reverse, from Holly Zelenka to Martin Hlinovsky here.   Just west of the main entrance lane, in the third row, are Vincent, b. 27 October 1859-d. 24 October 1894, and Elnora Ann Koftan, b. 13 February 1871-d. 22 December 1929. 

As the photo below shows, Joseph Koftan's brother, Laurence's uncle, and his wife are on the main road in where the cemetery title is, the next one after the Hlinovsky-Zelenka-Koftan grouping.

 A bit west of the next, third lane are the two Kaftan couples, John (1870-1936) and Elsie (1880-1957) and Frank (1867-1952) and Marie (1872-1950), only the years on the stones.

I intended to include the Bloomfield Cemetery graves of Laurence and Fern Peters Koftan to go with the following, but it was raining by that time and the new maintenance couple have left the graves looking shaggy.

Saturday morning I cut across the middle of the state on a Sandhills route up to Bassett where I took new photos of the John and Nellie Peters Feddersen gravestone, this time including the infant grave of Robert I'd missed previously.  Why had I missed it?  Because I never looked beyond the front tombstone and Mervin and Donley's infant brother's marker is at the foot of his parents.  Checking the computerized grave records alerted me to my oversight.  We are lucky when someone has labored to catalog graves for our genealogical uses.

This view looks east toward Bassett.  Often, the town cemetery is on the west edge of town, as with Tyndall, South Dakota, and Bloomfield, Nebraska, or a mile or so west of town--though the National Czech Cemetery at Table Rock is east of town. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The little marker for the infant Robert Feddersen at the foot of his parents is clear in the two views below. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday afternoon I stopped at the Randolph cemeteries, this time northeast of town, the front one the Protestant where Myrtle Peters Wefso is the third gravestone in from the south edge road.  This front view looks east toward the country road to the cemeteries at the northeast corner of Randolph, off U.S. 20.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the view below, her stone is second from the lower left corner.  I took this northward view for aid in locating her grave from the Civil War Soldier overseeing the site up there on the hilltop. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I liked the sight of the soldier keeping his watch in the cemetery circle so well on this beautiful day that I added this photo. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got a surprise when I went a half mile farther up the road to the Catholic cemetery.  I think I'd mentioned before that I didn't know where Great Uncle Glenn's first wife, Mabel Bruner Peters, the mother of Darryl, was buried.  In the meantime I had learned from the Bloomfield Monitor's "100 Years Ago--1908" items a month or two ago that she was not one of the Bloomfield Bruners I'd grown up knowing:  "Mabel Bruner, a teacher in the Bloomfield Schools, spent last weekend with her parents at Randolph."  I won't locate my previous photos of Glenn and Paula Nordhues Peters gravestones in front of Ed and Mary Peters, our great grandparents, because I found the following, clearly indicating a new tombstone and a reburial.

This view looks east, up in the northeast corner, Glenn's (and Nellie's, Fern's, Myrtle's, Forrest's--but he's in Montana) parents back of this new tombstone, as below. 

  

Did 725 miles from Saturday morning to Sunday night, trying to cover four different family cemeteries and the all-class Center High School reunion.  Saturday evening when I arrived at Center, I immediately went out to the two farm sites of our grandparents, Laurence and Fern Koftan, the Old Brick House and the Bloomfield farm (because it was merely two-three miles from Bloomfield).  Other than explaining from where I took the photos, I think further comment is unnecessary, Americans perfectly familiar with disappearing past landscapes,.

This is looking south from the present Highway 84, one mile south and six miles east of Center.  Dad helped Grandpa Koftan farm the land on the right all the way down to the dark row of distant trees along a small stream.  Once--you can check out the Old Brick House sites--a row of cottonwoods ran along this road on the right, the west; and then two rows of eastern red cedars edged the lane into the farm. 

If I had to guess roughly, this or the fourth photo is where the original cedar-edged farm lane went to the two-story brick house and its outlying farm buildings.  This and the fourth photo look straight west.  Perhaps the wild plums (?) are where the trees stood around the house. 

The photo below looks back north up the side road (just out of sight to the right/east) to the highway, the exact opposite to the first photo.  In the 1920s-1940s, I would've been looking straight up the row of cottonwoods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Likewise, the view of the Koftan farm I grew up with.  The first photo is looking east up the former Highway 84, the main (gravel) road to Bloomfield for us, the postal route too, a mile north of the present asphalt 84.  At the top right was the farm of Gerhardt and Lizzie Clausen with their two daughters, Vivian, a bit older, and Mary Lou, my age, who by sheer coincidence was half the Wausa Cleaning Ladies entertainment at our alumni dinner that night.  She and I talked how much we were back and forth and how close the friendship was between the Clausens and the Koftans.  Lizzie was the longtime Royal Neighbors of America camp recorder, i.e., secretary-treasurer, and, of course, Gram became a regional deputy selling that insurance.  Mom and Gram were very active in Camp No. 42, as were many of Grandma's friends; and I was an active Juvenile and have the photo to prove it, being a marshall, one of the two drill team leaders. 

The lane in would have been to the left/north not far beyond the pole in the foreground.  We cousins vied to be the one running out to the mailbox.  (I got back and forth by riding with the mailman when absolutely necessary.)  Trees lined the road up to the lane and then all along the Clausen farm.  One still knows where farms stood by the remaining rectangles of trees

This is looking northeast from the intersection of the old highway and the side road up north to Bells and Lawsons, if I remember.  Nowadays all the country roads have citified signposts.  I forgot to put this address down, but go to the first intersection north of the Bloomfield cemetery and a mile and a half west.  This view would be blocked by the roadside trees, but I'm looking straight into the farm, the apple orchard at the right, the house surrounded by black walnut trees at the left, with the farm buildings beyond. 

I took a few steps farther east for this view, the only remnants of the giant cottonwoods a few derelicts at the left/north.  The intersection sign is at the far left.  The farm buildings such as the big barn and the chicken coops would have been about a third of the way up the background hill. 

 

 

 

 

If you go back to earlier entries on the Bloomfield farm, here where there are dark shadowed areas tracing wheel tracks into the field through the deep brome is the old back/northwest entrance to the farm, by the oats bin, the hoghouse, and corncrib.  I think there are photos of Larry and Grandpa with the team in front of the opening, those old views looking west to the Fisk farm.