Category Archives: Family Story

Life in the homeland

The Kanapka family’s roots are in the Biržai district in modern-day Lithuania. Vilis Kanapka was born there to a family of tenant farmers.

Vilis’ wife Elizabeth Gegners (nee Hemmelreihe, in the US this surname changed to Schmidt), who he later married in the US, was also born in modern-day Lithuania, in Žagare district. She married Rudolf Gegners in 1914 in Lithuania, and in 1917 their son Oswald was born. Rudolfs died of pneumonia in 1917 during the war, where he worked as a doctor’s helper.

Travel and Arrival in the USA

Vilis Kanapka left home at the age of 19 to avoid military service in the Czar’s army, and arrived in the United States in December of 1904, immediately heading to Lincoln, where his uncle had moved approximately ten years earlier.

In 1922, widow Elizabeth Gegners arrived in the United States with her son Oswald, and headed to Minneapolis, where her parents already lived. They had adopted the surname Schmidt. Elizabeth worked in the Munsingwear underwear factory for approximately two years.

Life in Wisconsin

After arriving in Wisconsin, Vilis Kanapka first worked in a sawmill, where he earned good money. Sawmill and logging work were the main sources of income in those early years, since the area was mostly covered in virgin forest. After awhile, he moved to New York, where he worked in a slaughterhouse, then returned to Wisconsin in 1907 and bought a farm, where he raised and slaughtered cattle.

Lizzie Mossak, who lived in Lincoln, but whose husband worked in Minneapolis, is believed to have introduced Vilis with Elizabeth Gegner. They married in 1924 and bought a farm in Lincoln.
As with all Latvian farmhouses, it was properly kept and ready to always accept guests – Elizabeth always had a cake in the cupboard, while Vilis had blackberry brandy to offer to visitors. They had two gardens – one with flowers, the other with vegetables.

Vilis and Elizabeth had three sons and three daughters, and all left to the cities for work.

Family Today

Some Kanapka family members still live in Wisconsin, in the Lincoln area, in the city of Wausau, while others are all over the world, including Germany.

Cynthia Wachsmuth says that her Latvian roots have become more important “…now having visited Rīga and learning more about what life was like in [the Baltics] when they immigrated to the US. My grandparents were very brave, hardworking, kind, religious, and good neighbours to their community of Gleason. I also have a love of flowers just like my grandmother, and a love of sour cream and dill, maybe that’s genetic?”

Life in the homeland

The Pike (originally Piķis) family’s roots can be found in two Kurzeme districts – the Pike family’s origins are in the Kuldīga district, while the Bērziņš family – Talsi district. Information about the Pike family can be found in the church records of Kuldīga and Snēpele congregations. In the Snēpele records for 1876, one can find the baptism record for the Lincoln Pike family patriarch Brediķis, with parents listed as Bertulis and Margrieta.

On May 26, 1902, Brediķis married Anna Ješkevics in the Snēpele church. Their son Fricis (later Fred) was born in March of 1903. Brediķis had already left for the United States before his son was born. Anna and Fricis arrived in the US in 1907.

Travel and Arrival in the USA

Brediķis Pike is believed to have arrived in Philadelphia in the summer of 1902, and then headed almost immediately to Lincoln County. However, his name cannot be found in passenger lists, and he may have travelled under a different name. Five years later, his wife and son also arrived under different names, as Anna and Francis Šteins.
Did Brediķis have to leave because of political activities? Or to escape from mandatory military service?

Jānis Bērziņš and his wife Edna, three daughters and one son arrived in the United States in 1904. At first they lived in Boston, then Scranton, and slowly moved westward. Their daughter Grace was born. After living in Michigan for awhile, Jānis died in 1926, and the Bērziņš family moved to Lincoln.

Life in Wisconsin

Anna Pike died in 1927. Two years after his mother’s death, Fred Pike married Grace Bērziņš. They lived in Lincoln and raised eight daughters (including Shirley and Dorothy) and one son Alfred, born in 1932.

Latvian families celebrated Jāņi (Midsummer, St John’s Day) enthusiastically, and they were often joined by locals of different backgrounds, since there was free beer available.

In the time of Prohibition, Latvians brewed their own beer. For other celebrations, such as for Fred and Grace’s wedding, they also distilled gin. Celebrations like the wedding took place in the hay loft of the barn, where hay would be stored in the winter.

Since the Pike family were relatively late arrivals to Lincoln County, they could only buy what land was left, which had swamps and lots of rocks. It was the job of the children to pick out all of the rocks. Already at the age of 12, Alfred started to work with his own threshing machine, as well as his own hired man.

Alfred and his sisters went to the local school, which was just across the road from the Pike farmstead. It was a one-room schoolhouse. The family was fairly poor, sometimes only having lard sandwiches for lunch. They were embarrassed about this, and would sometimes hide from the other children during lunchtime.

Alfred joined the US Air Force, and served in Germany. After returning to the US, he sold and repaired heavy machinery.

Alfred and his wife Jean returned to Lincoln in their retirement years. They lived in a retirement home in Merrill until Alfred passed away in June of 2015. Alfred, as well as most of the Pike family, are not buried in the Latvian cemetery, but rather in the Doering cemetery, south of Gleason.

Family Today

The large Pike family is scattered all across the United States and beyond, but are united by their faith in God. They have regular family reunions, which continue to take place in Lincoln County.

Dorothy (Pike) Richardson writes, “…our grandparents and dad (Fred Pike) left Latvia due to political reasons, I think it influenced our generation to believe in God and be active in church and/or community–not taking our freedoms for granted”.

Life in the homeland

The precise place of origin for the Krauklis family is not known. According to the documentary evidence, the Krauklis family, and related Smēdulis (Smedul) and Zīberts (Siebert) families, are from Panevežys district in modern-day Lithuania. At the end of the 19th century, approximately 7% of Panevežys district was Latvian. As can be seen on the map, it is clear that most Latvian communities that ended up in the US and later in Lincoln had origins in the border districts. The older generations, those who had immigrated to the US, rarely talked about life in Europe, and, if they did discuss such matters amongst themselves, they would do so in Latvian, so that the younger generations would not understand.

Jānis and Lavīze Krauklis were married in approximately 1866. They had ten children, of whom three died in infancy. The first to leave for the US was eldest daughter Lavīze, who was by this time married to Jurģis (George) Smēdulis and had a daughter, Amālija. The Smēdulis family was accompanied on their journey by Lavīze’s 20 year old brother Jurģis (George) and 9 year old sister Minna, who was registered in the Hamburg passenger lists as another daughter of Lavīze.

Travel and Arrival in the USA

The Smēdulis family, along with Jurģis and Minna Krauklis, departed from Hamburg on the ship Moravia. They arrived in New York on June 9, 1891, where they were processed through the Castle Garden Immigration Depot – New York’s immigration centre prior to the opening of Ellis Island. Their residence in Europe was shown as Kaunas, and their destination as Boston.

Jurģis Kraulis’ first work in Baltimore was in box-making.

In the fall of 1891, Jurģis’ future wife, Lavīze Zīberts (nee Kalniņš) arrived in New York with her husband Jānis, son Adolf and daughter Amālija. The Zīberts also headed to Baltimore, where in 1892 they welcomed another daughter, Emma. Jānis died suddenly in 1894, and Lavīze was so heartbroken, that the following year, on the anniversary of his death, she published a poem (possibly self-composed) in the Baltimore Sun in his memory:

O when the day on which he died
Comes circling around through all the years
I can but think how lone and wide,
How cold and dark the world appears.
Poor heart, what hope hast thou perceived,
That still thy pulses beat so strong;
I did not think I could have lived
Apart from him so long – so long.

It is unknown when Jurģis Krauklis and widow Lavīze Zīberts met, but they married in 1898 in Baltimore and the following year welcomed their first daughter Jūlija.

1899 was an important year for the Krauklis and Smēdulis families. More Krauklis family members arrived in 1899: sister Amālija, brothers Jūlijs and Kārlis, and mother Lavīze, who was listed as a widow. It is unknown when her husband died. In this same year, Jurģis Smēdulis was the first of the family to head to Wisconsin. He had heard about the good prices for land in Lincoln, and thus headed there on his own and was later joined by his family.

Life in Wisconsin

Jurģis, Jūlijs and Kārlis Krauklis arrived in Lincoln before 1901. By 1905, all of the family had moved to Lincoln with the exception of Jurģis’ stepdaughter Amālija Zīberts, who married in 1906 in Baltimore and stayed there with her husband.

Life in the virgin forests was not easy, but Latvians were strong and tenacious, and they were not worried about the harsh conditions. A family story illustrates this tenacity: In November of 1903, Jurģis and Lavīze Krauklis were awaiting their first son, Georgs. On that day, Lavīze, preparing for the cold winter ahead, was splitting firewood, when she felt labour pains coming on. She went up onto the porch, gave birth to the baby, wrapped him in a blanket and tucked him behind the stove to keep warm – and then went back outside to finish up with the firewood!

The Krauklis family earned good money from selling the logs cut down in the forest, and after the forest was cleared they were able to start using the land for farming. They built a barn and bought several cows.

Around 1908, Jurģis had the opportunity to buy a saloon not far from a growing logging worker community, and the family moved there. In 1910, they lost the saloon and hotel in a devastating forest fire that ravaged the area, and had to move back to the farm until they were able to rebuild and return to the saloon.

In 1912, Jurģis suffered a massive stroke, and could not walk for two years. He slowly regained the ability to walk, but never recovered fully, and died at the age of 62, 21 years after the stroke.

When the family lost the saloon in yet another fire, the family moved back to the farm permanently. After Jurģis’ and Lavīze’s children grew up, they headed out of the community, living in Baltimore and Chicago, and occasionally returning home to Lincoln County.

Family Today

The Krauklis family has many descendants in the US, and the family historian Jeff Krauklis is a professional musician and teacher. Jeff writes, “Working on genealogy, I’ve learned how fragile life and its relationships are. My Latvian ancestors not only survived, they persevered. If any of them along the way had taken the path of least resistance, there’s no way I’d be here today.”