Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Hsiang-Yi Angela Wang was born on October 23, 1984 to Y.T. Wang (王有⼟) and Phyllis Lee (李黛琪). Y.T. Wang and Taichi Lee, along with Angela and her younger brother, John Wang (王瑋強) lived in New Taipei City, Taiwan.

As a child, she loved being active, swimming and climbing, eating good food, and often visiting the zoo. After graduating from high school, Angela attended the National Taipei University of Business, where she received her bachelor’s degree, according to the Ballard-Sunder Funeral and Cremation website.

In 2011, she moved to the United States, working as a source analyst for Advanced Auto Parts before transferring to Koch Industries in a similar role.

Hsiang-Yi Angela Wang met Jason Richter at their place of employment, and they were united in marriage on July 6, 2011, in Bloomington, Minnesota. Angela took in Jason’s daughters, Selina and Melanie, as her own without hesitation.

Family was incredibly important to her. Together, they all enjoyed traveling, visiting almost every state in the U.S. and going to many different countries, including visits home to Taiwan. Angela was able to go to Thailand and Hong Kong with her mother and tour Europe with her brother, a trip that was always on her wish list.

In her free time, she loved cooking, doing arts and crafts, and hiking. She had a great sense of fashion as well, always staying up to date with clothing styles and makeup. She also had a passion for nature and protecting the environment and was super caring for all people and animals. Hsiang-Yi Angela Wang Richter supported children through World Visionand Feed My Starving Children.

Angela’s faith was also extremely important to her. She was a member at Friendship Church for many years where she taught in the children’s ministry and participated in small groups.

Angela was called to serve with her husband to spread God’s word in her home country of Taiwan, but was unable to due to her declining health; however, Angela maintained her hope and passion for Christ and obtained a master’s degree in theology with her husband at the University of Northwestern, St. Paul in 2018.

Lynette Hindal had the honor of helping Angela when she came to the Mayo Clinic for her care. She felt that Angela touched her heart. Lynette remembers Angela’s fighting spirit.

Hsiang-Yi Angela Wang Richter passed away on Monday, December 20, 2021, in her home at 37 years old.

Angela was charismatic, optimistic, creative, and energetic. Always caring and deeply cared for, she will be greatly missed by her husband, Jason; daughters, Selina and Melanie; grandfather, Lee Shan Shou (李善守); parents Y.T. Wang (王有⼟) and Phyllis Lee (李黛琪); brother, John Wang (王瑋 強); and many other loving family and friends.

After a celebration of life at the Friendship Church in Shakopee, Hsiang-Yi Angela Wang Richter was buried at Valley Cemetery in Shakopee.

Bibliography

“Hsiang-Yi Richter/Angela Richter.” Ballard-Sunder Funeral & Cremation. https://www.ballardsunderfuneral.com/obituaries/hsiang-yi-angela-richter.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Hiram Adam Flecken was born in Limberg, Zittert, Holland on November 11, 1840. His parents were Hubert Flecken and Mary Johnson. Hiram was usually called Adam.

In 1863 Adam and his parents moved to the United States, and Adam settled in Carver County, according to Little Sketches of Big Folks in Minnesota, 1907.

When the Civil War started, Adam volunteered. At age 23, he was assigned to Company H, Second Regiment of Minnesota Calvary of the Grand Army of the Republic. Adam was in the army from February 22, 1864 until April 28, 1866.

The Second Minnesota Cavalry Regiment was mustered at Fort Snelling for three years’ service on December 5, 1863, and was mustered out on November 17, 1865 and May 4, 1866. It served entirely in Minnesota, Dakota Territory, and Montana Territory.

Adam remembered the trip west “through South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming into Idaho in the summer of 1864 and the brush strokes of his reminiscences paint a scene of the primitive west – monotonous stretches of prairie, strips of desert sand, streams fringed with gaunt cottonwoods, willows, and scrubby oaks, and then, far ahead on the horizon the beckoning mountains, shrouded in their purple mantle of haze, first the Black Hills, then the Big Horn range and the foot hills of the Rockies,” said in the article, “Pioneer Day Recollection: Adam Flecken Tells Interesting Story About the Primitive West” in the June 18, 1925 Shakopee Tribune, and now published in the book Recollections of Early Pioneers 1925, edited by Betty Dols in 2000.

Adam knew that the company from Fort Snelling was there to escort a train of gold-seekers bound for the mountains of Idaho. Of course, there were other people already living here, even though they mentioned there was “no sign of habitation save for the blackened tents of the Indians.” Indigenous people lived here for years at Paha Sapa (Black Hills), Ȟeyúškiška (Bighorn Mountain), and, as one member of the Navajo Native Nation Len Necefer called the Rocky Mountains’ Longs Peak the Arapaho name: Neníisótoyóú’u, according to an article “This Account is Reclaiming the Indigenous Names for Mountains One Geotag at a Time,” in Smithsonian Magazine.

The people have stewarded it throughout the generations. Important resources including plants, migratory big game, rock shelters, tipi poles, stone for tools, the bison, fish, deer, elk, roots, and berries are critical for the people.

Adam was part of an escort of 300 or 400 men and a few women and children heading west, and some people were nervous about the Indians. In Missouri, Adam noted, “Two of our pickets were killed by Indians one night. It was my turn to go on guard duty a night a few days later, and I remember that night as well as if it were yesterday. The night was cloudy and there was a faint light from the moon. A light moved the branches of brush and blinds of grass gently, and I was ready to fire at everything that moved. Nothing happened though and we didn’t lose another man on the trip.”

During the trip to Idaho, Adam said, “The members of the escort didn’t have much time to study the country, anyway. We were kept busy most of the time. We had our horses to look after and many other military duties, which were increased greatly by conditions in the western country. We slept in little tents, three feet high and just large enough for two men. We ate only two meals a day, chiefly hardtack, pork, and coffee.”

When he was discharged in 1866, Adam worked as a farmhand for several years, cutting grain with a hand sickle, building it by hand and experiencing the usual conditions of farm life in Minnesota.

Adam married Maria Josepha Dieken at St. Mark’s Church on April 27, 1869. Maria Josepha was born on March 5, 1850 in Gangelt, Rheinland, Prussia, daughter of Peter Leonard Dieken and Maria Catherina Busch. They had 12 children.

In the 1870s Adam lived in Shakopee, employed in the Omaha machine shops for three years, and then established a brickyard a mile southeast of the city, where he operated for five years. In 1888 he sold the brickyard and Maria Josepha and Adam ran the Occidental Hotel, on First and Sommerville Street from 1889 until 1914. It then stopped serving meals and became a boarding house for salesmen until 1931. The building was torn down in April of 1956.

Maria Josepha Dieken Flecken, age 74, died on October 27, 1924.

Hiram Adam Flecken died on June 30, 1931 at 90 years old. He was the second last survivor of the Civil War in Shakopee. They both were buried at the Shakopee Catholic Cemetery.

Bibliography

Dols, Betty. Recollections of Early Pioneers 1925, Shakopee Heritage Society, 2000.

Fessenden, Maris. “This Account is Reclaiming the Indigenous Names for Mountains One Geotag at a Time.” Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Feb. 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/social-media-can-let-people-know-about-mountains-indigenous-names-180968186/.

Little Sketches of Big Folks in Minnesota, 1907.

“Pioneer Day Recollection: Adam Flecken Tells Interesting Story About the Primitive West.” Shakopee Tribune, 18 June 1925.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Maria Josepha Dieken was born on March 5, 1850 in Gangelt, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, daughter of Peter Leonard Dieken and Maria Catherina Busch.

When she was 13 years old, Maria Josepha and her parents immigrated to America. Maria ended up in Shakopee, where, on April 27, 1869, she married Hiram Adam Flecken at St. Mark’s Catholic Church. Maria was 19 years old.

Over the next twenty years, Maria Josepha and Adam had twelve children, though several died as infants. While Maria Josepha took care of the children, Adam was employed in the Omaha machine shops for three years, and then established a brickyard a mile southeast of the city, which he operated for five years. In 1888 he sold the brickyard and Josepha and Adam ran the Occidental Hotel, on First and Sommerville Street.

The Occidental Hotel was built in 1874 on the northwest corner of First and Sommerville Street. It was built by G.W. Gellenbeck, and was opened for business at the beginning of the first week of the new year, 1874.

It was a “two-story frame building with a large dining hall and commodious parlor on the first floor, besides the kitchen and two sleeping rooms. The second story was divided into sleeping rooms” according to the Shakopee Argus, 8 Jan. 1874. It had accommodations for about fifty guests, according to The Shakopee Story, p. 110.

Maria Josepha and Hiram Adam Flecken ran the hotel from 1889 until 1914.

For several years, the Occidental Hotel at the northwest corner of First and Sommervile Street was the scene of colorful banquets, according to The Shakopee Story, p. 238. It was also the place for the annual meeting of the Old Settler’s Associations. It stopped serving meals in August of 1913, according to the Shakopee Argus, August 8, 1913. It continued for several more years as a rooming house. The boarding house was closed in 1931. A portion of the hotel was torn down to make a smaller house for Henry and Mary, two of their children who were unmarried.

What was left of the Occidental Hotel was torn down in April of 1956, as noted in The Shakopee Story, p. 496. Later, a modern filling station was erected on the corner, after it had served for a time as a used car lot, according to the Shakopee Argus-Tribune, April 19, 1956.

Maria Josepha Dieken Flecken died on October 27, 1924. She was 74 years old.

She was buried at the Catholic Cemetery in Shakopee.

Hiram Adam Flecken died on June 30, 1931 at 90 years old. He was buried next to his wife in the Flecken area of the cemetery, Section 33, Lots A and B at the west end.

Bibliography

Shakopee Argus, 8 Jan. 1874.

Coller, Julius A. II. The Shakopee Story.

Shakopee Argus, 8 Aug. 1913.

Shakopee Argus-Tribune, 19 April 1956.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Alois Plut was born in Krupp, near Semich, diocese of Ljubljana, Province of Carniola, Austria on June 21, 1841, son of Joseph and Catherina Starz Plut.

Alois, along with 16 other ecclesiastical students, decided to move to the United States. Alois, age 23, completed his theological studies and was ordained in the Cathedral in St. Paul on February 12, 1865. He became a priest in Stillwater, New Prague, Winona, Cedar Lake, Sleepy Eye, New Ulm, and Glencoe.

As Father Plut traveled to various missions, he mostly traveled on trails. There were no roads at that time. Bitter cold and howling blizzards, pelting rain, mosquitoes, and the heat of summer made it hard, but Father Plut was young and energetic, though it taxed the body, according to The Shakopee Story by Julius A. Coller II.

In June 1876, Fr. Plut became pastor of the Church of St. Mark’s in Shakopee, where he stayed for ten years.

Meanwhile, in Shakopee, starting in 1862, sisters from the Benedictine Convent of St. Joseph at St. Mary, Pennsylvania arrived. The sisters, with ecclesiastical approval, founded the Convent and Academy, according to Julius A. Coller II in The Shakopee Story.

In a letter to King Ludwig of Bavaria on December 2, 1862, Abbott Boniface Wimmer noted that he founded a little mission for the sisters “to the great joy of the English and German Catholics. The new convent has its own story. First, it was a cow shed, then a horse barn, and now it is an embryo of a woman’s convent, but it only serves, in any event, only the most necessary purposes.”

The sisters erected a large two-and-a-half-story limestone building at the corner of Fourth and Atwood Street, south of St. Mark’s Church. St. Gertrude’s Convent and Academy by the Sisters of St. Benedict was incorporated on May 4, 1866, said Edward D. Neill in the History of the Minnesota Valley including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota.

The first commencement exercises of St. Gertrude’s Convent and Academy took place on June 20, 1871. On September 4, 1871, the academy had an enrollment of 46 young ladies. The board and tuition for the season were $40.00. Bedding and laundry were $5.00, piano lessons were $8.00, and guitar lessons were $3.00. Lessons in cloth, wax works, and the making of paper flowers were extra.

Mother Gertrude Flynn was the prioress. She was admired, and she put the convent and academy in firm financial foundation. By mid-1878, the debt of St. Gertrude Convent and Academy was practically paid off.

When Father Plut arrived in Shakopee in 1876, he and the sisters did not get along.

Father Plut, pastor of St. Mark’s and intensely German, decided in 1878 to refuse to re-employ the Benedictine Sisters as teachers at St. Mark’s School because he contended that they were unable to teach German properly. Father Plut and the sisters had a mutual antagonism that developed.

At one point, Father Plut refused, for a time, to give the nuns pews in the church.

At this time there were thirty sisters staffing the academy, convent, and three schools in Minneapolis, Carver, and Belle Plaine, and the orphanage in St. Paul. Father Plut replaced the Benedictine Sisters with the School Sisters of Notre Dame from Milwaukee in May 1878.

On August 31, 1880, Bishop Ireland advised the sisters that St. Gertrude’s was suppressed, and the thirty sisters needed to join St. Benedict’s Convent in St. Joseph, Minnesota or be dispensed from their vows. Sister Gertrude Flynn, OSB, and the other sisters who had come originally from St. Mary’s Pennsylvania moved reluctantly to St. Joseph.

According to a letter to Bishop Ireland, Abbott Alexius Edlebrock of St. John’s Monastery noted: “They believe they were wrong, and in my own impression is that they were wronged.”

In Shakopee, Father Plut was called to St. Paul in 1886. He filed various pastorates until 1903. Then he returned to St. Mark’s in Shakopee. While there, Father Plut was made a Domestic Prelate by Pope Pius X in May 1906, and by July 24 he became Most Reverend Archbishop.

Monsignor Alois Plut’s vigor and health waned, according to Julius A. Coller II.

Monsignor Alois Plut, the oldest priest in the diocese of St. Paul, died at the age of 76 on February 20, 1917. He was buried at St. Mark’s Catholic Cemetery, now called the Shakopee Catholic Cemetery, on February 23.

Bibliography

Coller, Julius A. II. The Shakopee Story.

Neill, Edward D. History of the Minnesota Valley including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

Johanna O’Brien was born in Ireland ca. 1830, and arrived in Boston on May 24, 1848 on the ship Brig Lively. Her future husband, John Spearman, was born in Ireland ca. 1820, and moved from Canada in the 1840s and then to Minnesota Territory.

John and Johanna married in America.

In 1854, the Spearmans settled in Chanhassen on 92 acres beside Lake Riley. Johanna and John were Catholic and attended St. Mark’s and St. Mary’s Catholic Churches in Shakopee. In fact, Johanna was baptized in 1872 by Father Gregory Koering.

The Spearmans had 11 children: Anne, John, Ellen, Bridget, Mary, Katherine, Jenny, William, Margaret, and Peter and John who died in childhood.

John and Johanna were successful at farming. In July 1860, an Agricultural Census found that they had: 8 acres of improved land/84 acres of unimproved land, Cash value of farm = $500/Value of farm implements = $30, 3 milch cows, 2 working oxen, 4 other cattle, 6 swine, Indian corn in bushels = 160, Irish potatoes in bushels = 139, Butter in pounds = 200, Hay in tons = 6, Value of animals slaughtered = $40.

On October 1, 1877, John and Johanna purchased Block No. 106, Lots 1 through 10, in Shakopee. They paid $1,200.

They built a farmhouse, 1 ½ stories high, at the edge of town. The location is between 8th Avenue and Shakopee Avenue, and between Spencer and Sommerville Street. The house had a kitchen, parlor, two bedrooms, and a back porch. The house was situated in the center of the block. On the homestead included a barn and a chicken coop.

In 1890, the Spearmans had one cow, some hens, and a cat. John walked his cow to the Minnesota River daily to be watered. The retired couple were quiet people who kept to themselves. They wore homespun, unstylish clothing. Johanna was seen in public on Sundays, where she attended mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church. The couple was described as industrious, economical to the point of penuriousness, and miserly. John paid for all his purchases in cash.

When Anne Spearman Russell Lynch, the eldest daughter, was widowed in 1880, she left California and returned to Shakopee with her three children and stayed with her parents.

Georgie, who was two years old, was loved by the grandparents, and when Anne moved to Minneapolis to marry again, Georgie stayed in Shakopee. George Russell helped with the horses around the farm and helped with correspondences since the grandparents were illiterate.

George was an altar boy at St. Mary’s. But one Sunday in December of 1890, the family was not at mass. The church members went to their house. John Spearman was sitting in front of the kitchen stove, with a bullet hole in the back of his head. The people of Shakopee continued into the house, and saw Johanna O’Brien Spearman, who was lying in a pool of blood on the parlor floor. And in the other bedroom lay George, age 12, dead beneath the bed where he hid.

Nothing was touched. Two certificates of deposit were on the table. It was not a robbery.

The murder had taken place several days ago. The famished cat had eaten several of Johanna and John’s fingers.

The chickens had starved to death. The cow was so weak that it had to be killed.

The City Council of Shakopee offered a $1,000 reward for the capture of the guilty parties.

An inquest occurred, and several people testified about the murder of John and Johanna O’Brien Spearman and their grandson, George Russell, who were murdered in their Shakopee farmhouse on or about the evening of Saturday, December 13, 1890.

Who did it? Some possibilities:

William Spearman? William was working as a hack driver for a livery stable. He had a reputation for being a heavy drinker and was known about town as “Whiskey Bill.”

Joseph? A clairvoyant and Johanna’s niece predicted that a man named Joseph did the deed.

Mr. Farr? Myrtle, a granddaughter, remembered a man who helped around the house. His last name was Farr.

O.S. “Red” Brown? Red Brown got some wood for a fence from John Spearman, and he never paid John back. They had some words, and Brown called John Spearman a son of a bitch.

Two men with an overcoat and a buffalo robe? Two men drove past his house fast toward Shakopee. One had a buffalo overcoat on, and the other one had an overcoat. The men were intoxicated.

A man dressed as a woman? A servant met a person between the church and the priest’s residence, dressed in women’s clothing, but looking like a man. He walked fast to her left, going in the opposite direction.

The triple funeral of John Spearman, Johanna O’Brien Spearman, and George Russell was held at St. Mary’s Church on December 19, 1890.

They were buried at the Catholic Cemetery. No death certificates have been found. It might be that the certificates were overlooked in the sensationalism of the time.

The murders of Johanna, John, and George were never solved.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Crete “Sandy” Esmeralda Ngatoro Buesgens, age 82, of Shakopee passed away on Sunday, August 13, 2023.

Sandy was born January 26, 1941, in Te’ Ararora, New Zealand. She was a Māori. Her mother was Te ‘Hinganoa Pera Ngatoro.

New Zealand, which Māori called Aotearoa, is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses – the North Island (Te Ika-a-Māui) and the South Island (Te Waipounamu) – and more than seven hundred smaller islands.

As she grew up, Sandy attended Te’ Wana o Rerekohu area schools.

In the East Cape of New Zealand, Sandy could visit Gisborne, the first city in the world to see the sunrise. Or she could slide down the Rere Rockslide or walk along New Zealand’s longest pier. Or she could visit the small town of Te Araroa, in the place where she was born.

After graduating from high school, Sandy relocated to Wellington, New Zealand to pursue her career in nursing. In Wellington, Sandy met James Buesgens, who grew up in Belle Plaine. They married at St. Mary of the Angels Catholic Church in Wellington on October 27, 1961.

James Elroy Buesgens, who was born January 26, 1943, was the son of William Buesgens (1892-1968) and Crescence Marie Schug Buesgens (1900-1989).

In 1962, Sandy and Jim moved to Shakopee. They continued to grow their family. They had four children: Shona (married Bob Pulk), Monica Jimece (married James Siegle), Alana Loni (married Albert Trende), and Shane (married Bonnie Luce).

Jim died in a car accident. Sandy and her children lived on Fifth Avenue and Spencer Street in Shakopee.

Sandy worked at St. Francis Hospital for over forty years.

St. Francis Regional Medical Center has a rich tradition of providing quality healthcare for the people living in Minnesota’s Scott, Carver, and western Dakota counties. Emerging in the middle of the Great Depression, when the nearest hospital was thirty miles away in Minneapolis, Shakopee was once an isolated rural city with a population of 2,400, according to St. Francis’s website.

To serve the community, a group of Franciscan sisters sought to open a hospital in Shakopee and, with community support, they purchased the Scott County poorhouse and soon founded St. Francis Hospital and Home in 1938. St. Francis served 128 patients from the surrounding area in its first year.

By the late 1940s, the original hospital could no longer support the expanding healthcare needs of the post-World War II baby boom. In May 1953, a new fifty-bed hospital replaced the former poorhouse to accommodate the area’s population growth. That first St. Francis provided care for more than 1,300 patients from surrounding communities.

In 1982, St. Francis Hospital was renamed St. Francis Regional Medical Center and, in 1987, the Franciscans transferred sponsorship and ownership of the hospital to the Benedictine Sisters at St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth and the Benedictine Health System. By October 1993, a new alliance was formed between St. Francis, the Benedictine Health System and HealthSpan (a predecessor organization of Allina Health).

Growing healthcare needs and exceptional community support enabled the new St. Francis to build and open its current facility in July 1996.

St. Francis is currently jointly owned by Allina Health, HealthPartners Park Nicollet, and Essentia Health. Its Catholic identity is sponsored by the Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth. This unique structure combines the caring and compassion of a community hospital with the modern medical technology, specialties and services found in large metropolitan areas. St. Francis provides a full range of inpatient, outpatient and emergency care services on a medical campus with more than thirty other clinics and more than four hundred providers noted, according to the St. Francis website.

After working at St. Francis for over forty years, Sandy retired in 2012.

Her greatest joys in life were spending time with her nine grand and ten great-grandchildren. Her love for them showed through her smile as she lit up every time she saw them.

Sandy spent many mornings enjoying toast and coffee at Wampach’s in downtown Shakopee, she loved playing bingo and hearing the chimes and bells of a winning slot machine she was playing.

She was an amazing cook where friends and family often benefited from recipes she got from one of the beloved cooking shows she watched, especially her homemade egg rolls and strawberry cheesecake. She also spent time with her interests in knitting, ceramics, occasional part-time jobs, and daily walks down Tenth Avenue.

Crete “Sandy” Esmeralda Ngatoro Buesgens, age 82, of Shakopee, passed away on Sunday, August 13, 2023.

Celebration of Life for Sandy was held at McNearney-Schmidt Funeral and Cremation. Sandy was interred at Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery in Belle Plaine.

Bibliography

“History.” St. Francis Regional Medical Center. https://www.stfrancis-shakopee.com/about-us/history/.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Margaret Bridget Haley was born on May 24, 1824 in County Cork in Ireland. Her parents were Daniel James Haley (1803-1876) and Johannah Barrett (1802-1882).

In the 1840s, Margaret moved to New Orleans. She was there to join her brother in Pennsylvania. According to the Life Story of the O’Loughlin Familyby Dennis O’Loughlin III, while Margaret was on a sailing ship to New Orleans, she met a well-to-do woman who talked her into going to work for her in New Orleans. The woman said that if Margaret didn’t like it, the woman would pay for her way to her brother’s place in Pennsylvania.

According to Margaret, she never saw her brother or any of her relatives again!

In New Orleans, Margaret met Dennis O’Loughlin, who had been born on May 24, 1824, in County Clare, Ireland. Dennis was a medium-sized man with light complexion, though he turned darker after contracting yellow fever. Margaret was a good-sized woman, very outspoken, and could express herself in no uncertain terms.

Margaret and Dennis married in New Orleans. Around 1850, they took a steamboat to St. Paul, Minnesota Territory. Dennis worked on the Mississippi River on the levee, and owned lots where the state capitol now stands. The first of nine children were born in Minnesota, starting with Mary Ann, who was born in St. Paul in 1851, and the rest in Eagle Creek Township.

When visiting relatives in Le Sueur County, Dennis stopped in Shakopee. He met another old country Irishman who persuaded him to locate in Eagle Creek Township, where they bought 160 acres of unsurveyed land from Minnesota Territory for $1.25 an acre. The land, according to Dennis O’Loughlin III, was mostly covered with hardwood timber, some natural wild hay meadows … There was a creek across one corner and a small part of a lake on the property. Most of the land had to be cleared. The first buildings were upon a rise of ground near the center of the land, but a log house and others were built near the creek.

Margaret knew that Dennis was a hard-working man, but he often would go to Shakopee and met with his old cronies. He wouldn’t come home until someone went after him. Then he wouldn’t go again for a couple of months. He was well-liked and never quarrelsome.

Dennis and Margaret sold their lots in St. Paul to get money to bring Dennis’s parents over from Ireland. Michael O’Loughlin (1803-1865) who swore in Gaelic, and Bridget Moran O’Loughlin (1803-1862) both were buried at the Catholic cemetery, but no markers were located.

The Civil War had been going on for three years in 1864 when someone from Shakopee came out and told Dennis that his name was on the list soon to be called up. If a man enlisted, he could go to whatever regiment he wanted to, and his family would get $300 bounty. So, Dennis went to Fort Snelling and enlisted in the Ninth Minnesota Volunteers because there were other men from County Clare.

Margaret walked to church regularly, five miles and back. Someone from Shakopee came to tell Margaret that Dennis had enlisted at seven in the morning. She walked to Fort Snelling, arriving at 1 p.m. Dennis was allowed to come back home for her for the last time. The children remembered the stick candy he brought to them, and the youngest ones got to wear Dennis’s soldier cap.

Meanwhile, Margaret cared for the nine children. The oldest was 13, and the youngest was six months old. Margaret had 12 acres cleared, dug ditches, and built rail fences. The family owned cows, but hardly anyone had horses at that time. Oxen was the main source of power, but it is not known if the family owned any.

The adjoining neighbors included Thomas Turner, Thomas Kennedy, Edward Smith, and Mr. Manning. The children remembered that potatoes piled in their jackets, and salt and milk was sometimes all they had to eat. The early settler-colonists were very neighborly. Whenever anyone of them needed help of any kind, other others pitched in to help without being asked or expecting pay for it.

Dennis joined the Union forces into Nashville. In a letter home, Dennis said, “I am in the highest courage and good health, but I feel very much homesick and lonesome after the children.” A few days later, he was hit with a bullet hole between the left thigh and groin. He got gangrene which ate through an artery, and he bled to death. Dennis was buried in Nashville, Tennessee on December 29, 1864.

Margaret was left as a widow with nine small children. She got only six dollars a month pension at first, but twelve dollars by the time she died. She never considered marrying again. Margaret was a midwife and would also lay out the dead. At the wakes she would sing a death chant, but the children hated it and asked her to stop.

A squatter built a cabin on her land. If she allowed it, she would have lost the creek and the lake. When the squatter went to get his family, Margaret burned his cabin down. He did not try to build another. Margaret’s strength and fortitude were great. She was also a singer and dancer. It was said that she could play tunes on the floor with her feet and bring them out as well as if she had been playing some musical instrument.

Margaret was one of the hardest workers in getting donations to build the Church of the Immaculate Conception in 1864. She would ask for donations from people no one else would think of and got them, too. The church was dedicated in March 1866. It was snowing, raining, thundering, and lightning all day, but Margaret and her daughter, Nellie, walked to the dedication.

Margareth Bridget Haley O’Loughlin died on October 7, 1886, in Eagle Creek, Shakopee, Minnesota, and was buried at Calvary Cemetery on the top of the hill.

Bibliography

O’Loughlin, Dennis III. Life Story of the O’Loughlin Family, 1959.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Katherina Freihaut was born on December 11, 1802, in Biblis, Kreis Bergstraße, Hessen, Germany. Her parents were Wilhelm Freihaut (1764-1813) and Katherina Reis (1768-1807).

Katherina married Valentin Bartholomaus Reis on November 25, 1823, in Biblis, Bergstraße, Hesse, Germany. Valentin was born on January 11, 1795, in Biblis, Bergstraße, Hesse, Germany, son of George Bartholomeus Reis (1763-1838) and Anna Maria Freihaut (1771-1834.)

Katherina and Valentin had twelve children, including Bartholomaus, Valentin F., Elizabeth, Johann, Anna Maria, Michael, Elisabeth, Katharina, a stillborn child, Heinrich, Barbara and George Reis.

Valentin, Katherina, and their family headed to America, arriving on July 20, 1846 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Reis family then moved to St. Louis, Missouri. Valentin was a shoemaker for several years.

The traditional shoemaker would measure the feet and cut out upper leathers according to the required size. These parts were fitted and stitched together. The sole was next assembled, consisting of a pair of inner soles of soft leather, a pair of outer soles of firmer texture, a pair of welts or bands about one inch broad, of flexible leather, and lifts and top pieces for the heels. The insole was then attached to a last made of wood, which was used to form the shoe. Some lasts were straight, while curved lasts came in pairs: one for left shoes, the other for right shoes. The “lasting” procedure then secured the leather upper to the sole with tacks. The soles were then hammered into shape; the heel lifts were then attached with wooden pegs, and the worn out-sole was nailed down to the lifts.

The finishing operation included paring, rasping, scraping, smoothing, blacking, and burnishing the edges of soles and heels, scraping, sandpapering, and burnishing the soles, withdrawing the lasts, and cleaning out any pegs which may have pierced through the inner sole, according to James Paton’s “Shoemaking” in Encyclopædia Britannica.

Valentin had a knack for finding jobs that were essential to the communities in which he lived — and working as a shoemaker was no different. Making and repairing shoes, whether for work or dress, required skill and a whole array of specific tools. And in the 1870s, before the mass production of footwear, a town’s shoemaker could count on a steady stream of customers. And that is what Valentin did.

While Valentin was a shoemaker, Katherina took care of the children. It was a big job, but Katherina loved being closer to the children.

By 1860, the family moved to Shakopee, Minnesota. Within a few years, Katherina Freihaut Reis died on December 10, 1867. She was 64 years old. Katherina (also called Catherine) was buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Eagle Creek Township in Shakopee, Minnesota.

Katherina’s husband, Valentin Bartholomaus Reis, died on June 4, 1874. He was buried next to his wife at Calvary Cemetery, up the hill in Eagle Creek Township.

Bibliography

Paton, James. “Shoemaking.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 1902.