Genealogy: Vaskies and Fredericks

 Howdy all! 

The Old Man here. 

In a previous blog, I briefly went over Ma's family line, the Howes and Kundes. This time around I'm going to touch on Pop's family, the Vaskies and Sieferts.  In my younger days, these two lines are who I was closest to, and I guess it holds true today. I love Ma's family dearly, but I just never felt close to them. Part of this was because they lived about an hour away from us, while Pa's family lived a few miles away and we were always doing stuff with them. Grandpa V always took me hunting and fishing and I stayed at their house quite a bit. They lived at a private resort called Fish n Fun in rural McNabb, IL, and it was a great place to be a kid. A lake for fishing, three swimming pools, tennis and basketball courts, and all of Grandma and Grandpa's awesomely hilarious friends. I don't remember ever knowing any of Grandma and Grandpa K's friends, as they just seemed to keep to themselves. They had a little Winnebago motor home and would go fishing in Minnesota, or to the Amana Colonies in Iowa for vacations. Grandma and Grandpa V had a place in Florida and would spend a month every winter down there with all of their friends and family. Pop was very close to his family, so us kids grew to be close to them as well. 

Grandpa V's family was Hungarian. His father was born Janos Viszokay on June 28, 1886 in Biste, Hungary. His parents were Mihaly Viszokay and Maria Kovacs, and he had an older sister, Anna, and a younger sister, Maria. I have found when Mihaly came to America, but I haven't found out much of anything about Maria or the girls. I haven't found when Janos came over either. After talking to a genealogist from Hungary, I found out that after WWI, Hungary lost about 1\3 of their land and population to surrounding countries as punishment for siding with Germany, which resulted in Biste becoming part of Slovakia and changing its name to Byste. He explained that some of these countries will not digitize any records because they fear ancestors would look for reasons to file claims for reparations for property that may or may not have been taken under shady circumstances. This makes finding information a fight. You can pay someone who lives in Hungary to go to these towns, churches, etc.. to do research for you, but that ain't cheap. I do have Janos' baptismal certificate from Hungary, and have found Anna and Maria's baptism records online. Maria Kovacs is problematic in that her last name in Hungary is like Smith in the US, extremely common. At some point Janos became John, Mihaly became Michael, and Maria became Mary. The last name became Vaskie. Or Visakie. Or....who knows? It is known for sure that John's last name became Vaskie. The rest of his family becomes a mystery. I haven't found any info about them in census records, death notices, or marriage records. John got married to Rose Frederick in Congo, OH in 1911 and they had their first two sons, John  and Albert, while living there. From there they went to southern Illinois where John would find work in the coal mines in the area, and Grandpa V was born in Buckner, IL in 1917. They eventually moved to Dowell, IL when John got hired at the Kathleen Mine. Most of them lived their lives and died in Dowell. John Paul was the first to die. He had married a gal from De Soto, moved to Chicago and had a son, Ronald. At some point in the early 40s, John began having health problems and died in 1944 from what was believed to be ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease. He was 32. Great Grandpa John was next, passing in 1962 from complications of black lung. It was election day so all of the taverns were closed. Grandma Rosie always claimed he choked to death because he couldn't go to the Vets to wash down the coal dust. Albert and Grandpa V both served in WWII. Albert was in the Army in England, while Grandpa served in the South Pacific in the Navy. They were both overseas when John Paul died. Rosie died in 1985 at the age of 94. Her twin, Minnie, had passed in 1983 and she went downhill fast. They always said they wanted to die together, and they didn't quite get to. Grandpa V was next in 1986. He died after a 6 month battle with pancreatic cancer. He was larger than life to me, and he weighed less than 100 pounds when he died. I struggled hard with his death. He was the first really close family member of mine to die, and I miss him like crazy. Uncle Albert passed in 2007 at the fine old age of 94. He never married or had children. Ron, John Paul's only son, was murdered in his Chicago home in 1987. He was stabbed multiple times, and his crime went unsolved for decades until a guy admitted to it on his deathbed. He and Ron had been in a romantic relationship for a while, and they got into an argument that got violent and resulted in Ron's death. That leaves me as the matriarch of the Vaskie clan. Scary, I know. 

Rosie's family, Frederick, came from Hungary as well, but I'm pretty sure Frederick is the Americanized version of what their real last name was. The problem is, without knowing what their Hungarian name was, it's been next to impossible to figure out who they were.  What I do know is the parents were named John Frederick and Julia Fodor, or Fedor, or Fedox. I think Fedox is actually Fedor because in old style cursive handwriting, the lower case "r" looked somewhat like an "x". Figuring out the Frederick clan has been a massive challenge, simply because I started out with a few names and nothing else. The oldest daughter, Lizzia or Lizzie or Elizabeth, was born in Hungary from what I can tell. She is the only Frederick sibling who I have found nothing on. The search goes on. Their oldest son, John, was born in Detroit, MI in 1886. He does not appear in the 1900 census, so he probably died at birth or at a very young age. I never knew that Detroit was an entry point for immigrants, so I'm thinking the Fredricks came into the US from Canada through Detroit. Anna was the first of their children to be born in Ohio in 1888. Then it gets a bit confusing when the twins, Rose and Minnie, are born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey in 1891. My theory is they had all went to NJ to either visit relatives or meet a relative who came over from Hungary. It's one of those things I never thought to ask Grandma Rosie about. James was the next sibling born in 1894 in Congo, OH. Mary was the youngest and born in 1899, also in Congo. It appears that they stayed in the Congo area for quite some time. Rosie married Great Grandpa John in Congo in 1911, and Minnie married Steve Getzie a year or so later. John and Steve were best friends and were best man in each others weddings. Rose and John's first child, John Paul, was born in 1912, then Albert came along in 1914. Both were born in Congo. At some point after Albert was born, they moved to southern Illinois looking for work in the coal mines. Steve and Minnie went as well. Grandpa V was born in 1917 in Benton, IL, and they all moved to Dowell, IL shortly there after. In 1931, Steve Getzie was killed when a large chunk of coal fell on him while he was walking to get his lunch pail to go home for the day. He and John had worked at getting the big rock out of the ceiling for most of the day, and had decided to leave it to the night shift to finish up. It was then the boulder fell on Steve, crushing him to death. For the next several decades, John helped the Getzie family any way he could.  The rest of the Frederick family, apparently, stayed in the Congo, OH area. I have found where John and Julia are buried. John died in 1913, while Julia passed in 1919. They are buried in St Malachi Cemetery in Corning, OH. James showed up in a census as living with Minnie and Steve in Dowell, apparently he got a job in the coal mine as well. He got married, had a daughter, and, I believe, lived in Dowell until he died in 1958. The other daughters grew up in Ohio, got married and had families. I ran all of them down except Lizzia. I think I found when she got married, but I'm just not ready to call the records I found as fact. I was more and more stunned as I kept finding info on the Frederick kids. I don't remember hearing Rosie or Minnie talking about their family at all, and, sadly, I never met any of their family.

Next week I'll go over the Sieferts and Bowlins. 

Until next time......

The Old Man