Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Catherine Stevens was born Aug. 7, 1792, in Chester, New York. Her parents were Elisha Stevens (1759-1814) and Rachel DeMott Stevens (1772-1847). Catherine’s grandparents were Jonathan Stevens (1721-1795) and Jemima Blackman Stevens (1718-1800); and James DeMott (1745-1791) and Catherine Westlake DeMott (1752-1810). And Catherine’s great-grandparents were Ephraim Stevens (1680-1729) and Hannah Clark Stevens (1686-1729); John Blackman (1677-1732) and Jemima Harlbut Blacksmith (1680-1757); Michael DeMott III (1715-1790) and Sarah Collier DeMott (1719-1766); and George Westlake (1725-1803) and Elizabeth Wiggins Westlake (1727-1810).

When Catherine was 16 years old, she married Jacob Frederick, Jr., on Jan. 11, 1809, in Chester, New York. Jacob was 18. Within a year, they had their first of eleven children, about one every two years. Their children included Sarah (1809), Albert (1812), Rachel (1814), Sally (1816), William (1817), Polly Ann (1820), Benjamin (1922), Francis (1824), a baby who died at three months in 1827, Jacob (1829) and Harriet (1831), who was born when Catherine was 39 years old.

Catherine’s husband, Jacob Frederick, Jr., was born in Orange County, New York on Jan. 3, 1791, son of Jacob Frederick, Sr. (1758-1844) and Marytje Polly Tours Frederick (1759-1810). Jacob Frederick, Jr., was a private in the New York Militia for three months during the War of 1812. He was a cook and stationed on Staten Island. This entitled him to Bounty Land under the law of 1850. Jacob legally disposed of the warrant of forty acres granted, so in other words, he sold the scrip.

When Catherine was 67 years old, she moved, along with her husband and five of her children to Scott County, Minnesota around 1856, according to Arlene Gable, probably by covered wagon. Arlene sent the information to the Shakopee Heritage Society.

Why would Catherine and Jacob, in their later lives, set out on such a rigorous adventure? Probably because of the availability of Bounty Land. Or maybe because five of their grown children and their families left New York to the wilds of Minnesota. Probably the hype praising the Eden of the West, though the Dakota and other Indigenous people had been here for years. Or maybe they didn’t realize that the pioneer conditions in the wilderness weren’t as bad as the settler-colonists thought. And maybe they were hale and hearty enough to handle whatever lay ahead. And so, in the mid-1850s, they headed to Scott County where, in September 1858 Jacob received 144.65 acres of land.

Jacob was entitled to 160 acres under the Bounty Land Act of 1855, according to Arlene Gable, a descendant of Jacob. She intensely researched the family. So, Jacob applied for the 120 acres. On the Scott County, Minnesota Deeds, Book M, pp. 411-412, Warrant #19552, “Whereas, in pursuance of the Act of Congress approved March 3, 1855 entitled “An Act on addition to certain Acts granting Bounty Land to certain Officers and Soldiers who have been engaged in the Military Service of the United States” there has been deposited in the General Land Office Warrant N. 19552 for 120 acres in favor of “Jacob Frederick, Private, Captain Horton’s Company, New York Militia, War of 1812, with evidence that the same has been duly located upon the East half of the South West quarter and to Number Three of Section Three in Township One hundred and fifteen North of Range Twenty two West in the District of Lands formerly subject to sale at Red Wing now Henderson, Minnesota containing One hundred and forty four acres and Sixty five hundredth of an acre….”

The 144 plus acres was because the Minnesota River cut into the north end of the claim. The location of the land is now where Valleyfair is located.

In 1866, their son and son-in-law, Josiah Cooper and Jacob S. Frederick, picked out homestead sites in Stearns County. Later called Ashley Township, the two families plus Jacob and Catherine sold their land and moved again. Catherine and Jacob, Jr. homesteaded on land in Pope County, just west of the claims of Josiah and Jacob.

Jacob Frederick, Jr., died in January 1870 of palsy, which the family called a stroke. He was 79 years old. He was buried in Lake Amelia Cemetery, near Villard, in Pope County.

Catherine received a Widow Pension from the War of 1812. According to Stearns County on Nov. 22, 1875, “she is the widow of Jacob Frederick, who served the full period of 60 days in the military service in the United States in the War of 1812…who was the identical Jacob Frederick who enlisted in Captain Benjamin Horten’s Company, New York Militia…that was stationed on Staten Island, New York and time in Frederick’s was cook of his company… (Catherine) claim and obtain the pension certificate…..” Her mark was documenting, showing that she did not write her name.

Catherine became blind, and she lived with various children in her very old age. She died at age 91 in Sauk Centre, Minnesota on Aug. 9, 1883. Catherine was buried at Lake Amelia Cemetery.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Catherine Neafsey (or Nefsey) was born in Ireland around 1834. She immigrated to the United States, and married John O’Connor in LaSalle, Illinois, near Chicago, in 1858.

The family came to Minnesota in 1859 or 1860. In 1861, the family lived in Glendale Township, Scott County, Minnesota, which is near present day Savage.

The O’Connor family in 1865 consisted of John and Catherine, along with their children: Edwin, age eight, Mary, age seven, Julie, age five, Catharina, age two, and John, Jr., age one.

While Catherine took care of the family, John O’Connor volunteered and joined the Ninth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, Company I.

John returned to his family in Glendale and shortly after, bought a house in downtown Shakopee. This is the neighborhood where Catherine and their neighbor, Anna Hilgers, resided. Henry and Mary F. Hinds sold their house on Second and Market Street to the O’Connors for $200. It was near the train tracks.

Catherine didn’t have much money. She couldn’t read or write, and signed her name with an “X.”

Catherine and her family spent regular time at the Church of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Shakopee.

The church was often called the Irish Church. The Church of the Immaculate Conception, which was just a few blocks from St. Mark’s, was erected by 1866. It was not until 1876 that the church became St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

John worked at the Schroeder Brick and Lime Manufacturing Company. It was one of the leading and most prosperous business enterprises of the city and was well known in the northwest. The brickyard was located north of Bluff Avenue between Market and Minnesota Street. The bricks were from near the Minnesota River, near Huber Park. Many of the early buildings in Shakopee were made from these bricks. John only worked eight months of the year. The rest of the year, he was out of work.

To make it worse, John and Catherine’s son, Johnnie, died suddenly.

Catherine’s husband, John, had a long and lingering illness due to an eye injury he suffered in the war. The injury turned cancerous. He died in June 1878.

Catherine was upset. Really upset. And she had enough. She grabbed a frying pan and headed outside and went next door to Anna Hilgers.

They were neighbors living on Second and Market Street in downtown Shakopee around 1873, and the two ladies started an argument. The two ladies escalated to the point of Catherine hitting Anna over the head with a frying pan!

Catherine was found guilty of assaulting her neighbor, and was fined $38, which was a lot of money in those days. But somehow, Catherine paid it.

Catherine Neafsey O’Connor died April 13, 1897, and was buried at Calvary Cemetery in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Catharina Lyons was born in 1818, daughter of Phillippi Lyons and Maria Hanser Lyons in Ireland. She was baptized on Feb. 26, 1818, in Limerick, Ireland.

Limerick (Luimneach) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is in the Midwest, which comprises part of the southern region. It was founded by Scandinavian settlers in 812, during the Viking Age. The city straddles the River Shannon, with the historic core of the city located on King’s Island, which is bounded by the Shannon and Abbey Rivers. Limerick is at the head of the Shannon Estuary, where the river widens before it flows into the Atlantic Ocean, according to Wikipedia.

The Great Famine, also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852, according to Wikipedia.

No statistics exist on how many people in the Limerick area died during the famine. Nationally, the population declined by an average of twenty percent, half of whom died and half emigrated. While the Great Famine reduced the population of County Limerick by seventy thousand, the population of the city rose slightly, as people fled to the workhouses.

Francis Spaight, a Limerick merchant, farmer, British magistrate and ship owner, noted “I found so great an advantage of getting rid of the pauper population upon my own property that I made every possible exertion to remove them … I consider the failure of the potato crop to be the greatest possible value in one respect in enabling us to carry out the emigration system.”

The quaysides were the departure point for many emigrant ships sailing over the Atlantic to America. This is the time that Catharina Lyons headed to the United States, probably in 1845-1846.

In New York, Catharina met and married Thomas Mullen, Jr. (1843-1930).

Catharina and Thomas had eight children: Mary (1847-1901) in Wisconsin; Bridget (Sr. Mary Carmel) (1850-1941); Thomas (1852-1872), all born in Indiana, and Catharina (1853-1933) in St. Paul; and Ellen (1855-1865); Ann (1856-1941); Margaret Maggie (1858-1888); and Julia (1861-1929) all born in Eagle Creek in Minnesota.

Like many Catholics, Catharina and Thomas’s second child was Bridget, who became Sr. Mary Carmel of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (1852-2021). Having one of their children in the faith was thrilling for Catharina and Thomas, and something that many parents wanted with at least one of their children.

Bridget (Sr. Mary Carmel) worked in Los Angeles, according to the Immaculate Heart Community. In 1848, Canon Joaquin Masmitja de Puig, in response to the spiritual, educational, and social needs of young women challenged by living in wartime Spain, founded the Daughters of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary in Olot, Catalonia. By 1868, their reputation as skilled educators prompted Bishop Amat of California to invite them to found an educational apostolate in Los Angeles.

In 1871, ten pioneer sisters arrived in California and were assigned to several locations before ultimately arriving to work in Los Angeles itself.

When St. Vibiana Cathedral School opened in 1886 in the center of Los Angeles, the sisters staffed the school, including Sr. Mary Carmel. In 1906, the sisters opened the Immaculate Heart Convent and Immaculate Heart High School on Franklin Avenue in Los Angeles. In 1916, they chartered and opened Immaculate Heart College on the same property. In 1924 they became independent of Spain and formed a Pontifical Institute aligned with American customs and sensibilities.

The decades following their independence from Spain were self-defining for the Immaculate Heart Sisters. They opened a Novitiate and Retreat Center in Montecito, began hospital ministries, and staffed many Catholic elementary schools and Catholic high schools. Gradually, over the next few decades their service extended beyond California to include schools in Texas, Arizona, and Canada. Innovation, creativity, and hospitality were hallmarks that characterized the broad scope of their ministries and their service to communities.

Catharina and Thomas loved all their children. Unfortunately, Catharina got sick and died on June 13, 1865. She was 42 years old. She was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Eagle Creek.

Thomas Mullen and his children ended up moving to Walnut Lake, near Faribault, Minnesota. On June 22, 1869, Thomas married Ellen Helen Fullman, and they had several more children.

Thomas died July 20, 1930, and was buried at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cemetery in Easton, Minnesota.

In the 1840s and 1850s America began to recruit Chinese laborers. Wah gung was the name of the migrating laborers. Chinese immigration was influenced by the first opium war, depressed agricultural output, and peasant rebellions.

At that time, war, famine, and a poor economy in southeastern China caused many Chinese men to come to America.

Most hoped to find great wealth and return to China. Between 1849 and 1853, about 24 thousand young Chinese men immigrated to California. The Chinese immigrants mined gold.

Chinese immigrants soon found that many Americans did not welcome them. In 1852, California placed a high monthly tax on all foreign miners. Chinese miners had no choice but to pay this tax if they wanted to mine for gold in California.

Chinese workers were also the targets of violent attacks in the mining camps. The legal system offered little protection. It often favored Americans over Chinese and other immigrants.

After the gold rush, many Chinese immigrants worked as farm laborers, in low-paying industrial jobs, and on railroad construction.

Some immigrants worked on the railroad. From 1863 and 1869, roughly 15 thousand Chinese workers helped build the transcontinental railroad.

They had to endure hazardous, unfair conditions and backbreaking labor. They were paid less than American workers and lived in tents, while white workers were given accommodation in train cars. The work was tiresome, as the railroad was built entirely by manual laborers who used to shovel twenty pounds of rock over four hundred times a day. They had to face dangerous work conditions – accidental explosions, snow and rock avalanches, which killed hundreds of workers, not to mention frigid weather.

Few other jobs were allowed for people from China. On May 6, 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was signed which prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States. This act, signed by President Chester A. Arthur, provided an absolute ten-year (which was extended) moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. For the first time, federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities.

Most of the Chinese men who came to the Midwest moved from the west coast to escape the violence.

The first Chinese immigrants arrived in Minnesota in the mid-1870s. Wang See Ling arrived in 1875, and was an entrepreneur who started restaurants, stores, import shops and hotels, in the Twin Cities and Stillwater, Iron Range, Duluth and ten smaller towns.

By the late 1800s, more than one hundred Chinese immigrant men had entered the state, with most settling in St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Duluth.

In Stillwater, in the mid- to late-19th century, several Chinese laundrymen set up shops. The first one, belonging to Sam Lung, operated a shop in 1879. After a few years, The Stillwater Messenger exalted the owners of the laundry, stating, “They are honest, industrious gentlemanly fellows, who have made many friends among our citizens.” Stillwater was the home of a Chinese laundry for more than twenty years.

A man named Charley owned a Chinese laundry in downtown Shakopee in 1901.

Popular during the late 19th and early 20th century, these laundries were usually run by Chinese immigrants who hand washed and pressed clothes for their patrons.

One of the first laundromats in Shakopee was recognized on Sept. 20, 1901, in the Shakopee Tribune.

Discrimination abounded toward the Chinese, even in our own local papers, calling them chinks and Celestials.

A stereotype developed around the Chinese laundrymen and eventually their shops closed.

Though the newspaper called the man “Charley Sam,” it is likely that was probably not his name. “Charlie” was a derogatory term for a Chinese man. The people in Shakopee probably never learned the Mandarin or Cantonese name.

No more information was found about Charlie Sam and the laundry man in downtown Shakopee.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021

When Herb and Ray Strunk were involved in the glider in 1906, many friends visited and watched and participated in the glider flying. One of them was Charles “Speed” Holman, who later became a famous pilot. Most Minnesotans know the name Charles Lindbergh, but they’re probably less familiar with another local Charles whose dazzling aviation career rocketed him to fame, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press on Sept. 11, 1949.

Charles Willis “Speed” Holman (Dec. 27, 1898 – May 17, 1931) was a stunt pilot, barnstormer, wing walker, parachutist, airmail pilot, aviation record holder, and airline pilot.

Charles was born in Bloomington, Minnesota, the son of William Judson Willis Holman and Jane Elizabeth Rowlands, according to the Shakopee Holman Family Tree.

The real fascination of flying is some big, undefinable thing. But admittedly it was the supreme thrill of it that drew and held Speed Holman to aviation.

Many of the things he did with an airplane hadn’t been done before and some of them haven’t been duplicated since. Without him and men like him, aviation would have been set back by many years.

Strangely enough, Charles Holman didn’t win his nickname because of his flying ability. He was named “Speed” while still in Union School in Shakopee when he built a motorcycle and won a race with it in Minneapolis. Charles also lived in Shakopee at that time. He was a telephone cable splicer for Northwestern Telephone Company in 1918.

He always had a deep interest in flying, however, and when the first World War came along, he tried to enlist in the Air Force. But he was rejected there and by every other branch of the service because of a defect in one ear. So, he had to find some other way to learn to fly. He ended up learning to fly from Walter Bullock, a veteran Minneapolis airman.

Charles married Elvira Marie Swanson (1902-1975), daughter of Frank Emil Ferdinand Swanson and Mary Maria Källström, on July 31, 1925, in Bayview, Michigan.

His name became a household name, and when the newly organized Northwest Airways looked for its first pilot, they hired Speed.

He became operations manager and pioneered airmail routes across Wisconsin and into North Dakota.

In 1928, Holman set a world record of 1,433 consecutive loops in an airplane in five hours over the St. Paul Airport. It has been said that Speed could do things with an airplane that no one else would even think of trying. In 1929 he made the first outside loop, a particularly dangerous maneuver, with a commercial tri-motored airplane. And at the National Air Races in Cleveland in 1929, he had all the veteran pilots calling him crazy when he told them he was going to take a big 14-passenger ship aloft for stunting purposes. But he went up regardless of their warnings and people watched unbelievingly as he put the big plane through loops and spins and rolls.

His airline career was punctuated by wins in national air races, including the prestigious Thompson Trophy Race in 1930, part of the National Air Races in Chicago, where Holman set a looping record that stood for many years; visiting every corner of the state, lobbying the cities to build airports. He was considered one of the country’s top aerobatic pilots, and every fragment of his life was spectacular.

Stunt pilot Charles Holman was killed in a plane crash on May 17, 1931, during an impromptu aerobatic performance at the dedication of the Omaha Airport in front of twenty thousand spectators. He was 32 years old, according to an article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press called “The life and death of local aviator ‘Speed’ Holman.” By his own philosophy, he had “lived 90 years and died the way he wished,” on a website, “So Minnesota: The Amazing Life of Stuntman and Daredevil Charles ‘Speed’ Holman” by Joe Mazan.

His funeral was the largest in state history, with one hundred thousand people turning out along the funeral route and at the cemetery. Airplanes flew overhead and dropped thousands of roses.

Holman Field, St. Paul Downtown Airport is named in honor of Speed Holman, as was Holman Street in St. Paul. Holman is also inducted in the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame, according to George Smedal in Popular Aviation, July 1931.

And it all happened because Charles W. “Speed” Holman watched the two Strunk brothers, Herb and Ray, learn to fly a glider in Shakopee, and Speed knew that he wanted to fly, too!

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Bernhard Sawatzki Sawatzky, a native of Germany, was born Sept. 13, 1850, in West Prussia. He was baptized that day, according to documentation at Laseczno, or in German, Groß Herzogswalde. It is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Iława, within Iława County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. The village has a population of 382, according to Wikipedia.

On Sept. 28, 1877, Bernhard married Pauline Buttler according to the Hesse, Hesse-Kassel, Hess Darmstadt, Hess-Marburg, Hess Reinfels, Rhineland, and Waldeck, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1661-1957. The marriage happened Sept. 28, 1876, in Sommerau, Poland. Sommerau, now known as Ząbrowo, is southeast of the regional capital Gdańsk in Poland. It is close to the Czech and German borders. Prior to 1945 it was in Germany. Sommerau was founded in 1383. Until 1772 Sommerau was in what was known as Royal Prussia (also known as Polish Prussia) in the Kingdom of Poland. The First Partition of Poland in 1772 resulted in the creation of a new province in 1773, called West Prussia, in which Sommerau was located. Sommerau was situated in the district (Kreis) of Marienburg until the end of World War I, when it came under the jurisdiction of the German province of East Prussia. The village came under the control of Nazi Germany during World War II until February 1945, when it was occupied by Soviet forces and returned to Poland. In 2012 Sommerau was a village in the administrative district of Gmina Stare Pole, within Malbork County, Pomeranian Voivodeship.

Bernhard and Pauline lived in West Prussia, where they had seven children. In 1890, Bernhard and Pauline moved to America, along with three of their children. Two other children died in Germany, and one married daughter stayed in Germany.

The family moved directly to Shakopee, according to the Shakopee Tribune on Nov. 10, 1905. Minnesota, U.S., Territorial and State Censuses, 1849-1905 for Bernard Sawatzka and wife, Pauline, showed they lived in Shakopee in 1905.

For fifteen years, the family lived in Shakopee, where Bernhard worked as a stone mason.

Stone masonry was considered a skilled trade, higher in ranking than a wheelwright or carpenter, for example. Many craftsmen were self-taught and some developed their skills and later became architects and civil engineers. Bernhard worked in Shakopee for fifteen years, probably at part of the Schroeder Brickyard. He worked continuously, never knowing a day’s sickness, according to a Shakopee Tribune article in 1905.

In March 1905, a small spot appeared upon his cheek to which he paid slight attention. But dangerous symptoms developed rapidly, and Bernhard consulted medical specialists who pronounced it as cancerous growth. There was no hope of recovery for the sufferer.

The ravages of his disease which attacked him compelled him to cessation from his labor. During the last few months of his life, Bernhard suffered intensely. For the last three weeks he was unable to receive nourishment in any form.

On Tuesday, Nov. 7, 1905, at age 55, Bernhard Sawatzki Sawatzky succumbed to the inevitable, and though the death struggle was severe, his consciousness remained until near the end. He still recognized the different members of his family gathering around his bedside.

Five of his children survived him, and Bernhard’s father, three sisters, and three grandchildren were left in Germany, as well as brother, Charles Kawatsky of Shakopee, and Mrs. Rudolph Sawatzky Quashnefski of St. Paul.

The funeral took place on Nov. 10, 1905, from St. John’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church with Rev. Carl Ganschow officiating. Interment was at Valley Cemetery in Shakopee.

Pauline decided to return to her native land to make her home with her daughters in Germany. She died there in February 1909, according to the Scott County Argus on March 19, 1909.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2020

Benjamin Emerson Shumway was born March 15, 1823, in Mattawamkeag, Penobscot County, Maine. He resided in Maine for 25 years, working in the lumber business.

In 1848 he moved to Minnesota. In 1850 Emerson’s parents, their nine children (including Emerson), and their in-laws and children, all moved to Ramsey in Anoka County. When they first arrived, Emerson’s parents were both sick with typhoid fever. The nearest physicians were at St. Anthony, and the settlers were skeptical regarding the qualifications of frontier physicians in general. Because she was a skillful nurse, Emerson’s mother directed as best she could the treatment which was given to herself and her stricken husband. They both recovered.

Nathan, Emerson’s brother, built a log cabin. Of course, it was a small cabin, and inadequate for the eight men and six women in one small longhouse, along with 17 children. Some of the relatives decided to sleep outdoors for the first few nights. Emerson built a house not too far from the river, and John Shumway built on the riverbank in front of it, near what was the steamboat landing. Penuel Shumway and his wife had a child on March 22, 1851. That child was Fernando, and he was the first white child in Anoka County. Unfortunately, Fernando’s mother died July 9, 1851.

By 1851 Emerson joined Thomas A. Holmes and friends at the “founding” of Shakopee. After helping build the Holmes Trading Post, Emerson got sick with smallpox in the fall of 1852. After his recovery, Emerson moved to St. Paul.

Emerson then married the servant girl of William Holmes, the brother of Thomas A. Holmes, and Susana Shook Holmes, who were early settlers in Holmes Mill (later called Jordan, Minnesota). Her name was Mahala Conklin, who was born June 9, 1835, in Marion County, Ohio. Julius A. Coller’s The Shakopee Storyand Rev. Edward D. Neill’s History of the Minnesota River says that Emerson and Mahala were married in Scott County and were the first marriage in the county. However, they were married in St Paul, Ramsey County, on June 7, 1853.

The Shakopee Story by Julius A. Coller, the History of the Minnesota Valley by Rev, Edward D. Neill, and an article about Shumway in the Dec. 3, 1909 Scott County Argus noted that in the fall of 1857, Emerson and Mahala joined a wagon train to California and were killed in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre was the killing of roughly 120 immigrants who were passing through southern Utah in September 1857. The massacre occurred on Sept. 11, 1857, in a mountain valley about 35 miles southwest of Cedar City, Utah. The immigrants – men, women, and children – were traveling from Arkansas to California, part of the Baker Fancher wagon train. They were killed by a group of Mormons with the help of local Paiute Indians.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre was an awful part of history.

The only problem is that Emerson and Mahala were never involved.

They were not killed there, although many books say they were. In fact, they didn’t even head west until 1859.

In 1859, Emerson and Mahala crossed the plains with an ox team, and spent the first winter in Honey Lake Valley, California. Emerson was engaged in prospecting and mining in California and Nevada for ten years. Emerson and Mahala located near Horse Lake Valley, California. They ran a stock ranch for twenty years, and then they sold the stock and ranch and moved to Oregon.

Benjamin Emerson Shumway died Feb. 6, 1909, in Logan, Oregon.

The Feb. 19, 1909 Oregon City Courier noted that “Benjamin Emerson Shumway quietly passed away at 6:30 p.m., Saturday, February 6th, at his home on the Norton donation claim, Clackamas County, Oregon at the age of 85 years, 10 months and 2 days.”

“He was born at Mattewamkeg, Maine, March 15, 1823, residing in the state of Maine until he was 25 years of age, following the lumber business. In 1848 he went to Minnesota, locating on land near the Falls of St. Anthony on the present site of Minneapolis, was one of the founders of the town of Shockope, [sic] Minn.”

“In 1859 he crossed the plains with an ox team, wintering the first winter in Honeylake valley, Cal. He engaged in prospecting and mining in California and Nevada for about ten years. In 1869 he located land in Horselake valley, Lossen [sic] County, California, at which place he conducted a stock ranch for about twenty years, when he sold out stock and ranch, removing to Oregon, where he has resided every [sic] since.”

“He was married in St. Paul City, Minn., June 7, 1853, raising a family and three children, two of whom, E. B. Shumway and Mrs. L. Allen, survive, with the wife, Mrs. Mahala Shumway….”

His wife, Mahala Conklin Shumway, died 2 ½ months later on April 30, 1909, also in the city of Logan.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Barbara Hümpfer was born March 2, 1831, in Wipfeld, Germany. Wipfeld is a municipality in the district of Schweinfurt in Bavaria, Germany.

Barbara’s parents were Franz Hümpfer (1796-1847) and Elizabeth Caesar Hümpfer (1797-1836). Her grandparents on her father’s side were Johann George Hümpfer (1762-1827) and Maria Margaretha Schmich Hümpfer (1762-1813). Her paternal great-grandparents were Johan Martin Hümpfer (1720-1805) and Eva Bauer Hümpfer (1723-1786); and Bernhard Schmich (1733-1827) and Maria Margaretha Eck Schmich, who was born in 1739.

Around 1847, her father and Barbara moved to America and lived in Indiana. Her father died in 1847, and Barbara moved to Chicago, Illinois.

It was there, on July 2, 1849, that Barbara married George Schott at St. Peter’s Church in Chicago.

Georgii George Andreæ Adam Schott was born in Bavaria, Nov. 25, 1821. He came to this country in his young manhood and located at Chicago where he engaged in the shoe trade. While there, he met Barbara.

After remaining there for a short time, Barbara and George moved to Neberville, Illinois.

Shortly after, they came to Shakopee, which at that time was merely a settlement of a few houses.

George and Barbara, after two years, crossed the Atlantic to visit their old home. After a short trip abroad, they returned to America and located at Kankakee, Illinois. They stayed in Kankakee for six years.

However, the climate and business opportunities afforded by Minnesota appealed to the family, and they moved back to Shakopee in 1868. They remained in Shakopee for the remainder of their lives.

Barbara and George had 13 children. In 1908, six of the children had died: Leonard of North Yakima, Washington; Casper of Walla Walla; Sr. Claretta of St. Louis; Clara, Michael, and Mathias of Shakopee; and Regina Schott Kohls of North Yakima. Those still alive in 1908 included Sr. Angela of Notre Dame Order, Chicago; Christina Schott Simmer of St. Paul; Henry of North Yakima; George of Chicago; Elizabeth, and Mrs. Margaret Barbara Schott Berens of Shakopee.

Barbara died Dec. 12, 1893, in Shakopee, and was buried at Calvary Cemetery .

George died at age 86 in Shakopee on June 9, 1908. He was a devout member of St. Mark’s Catholic Church from which the funeral with Rev. Monsignor Plut was the officiating clergyman. His remains were laid to rest in the upper Catholic cemetery, according to the June 12, 1908 Scott County Argus.

Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Barbara Brück (also called Brueck or Brick) was born Sept. 5, 1845, in Blankenheim, Hersfeld-Rotenburg, Hessen, Germany. Blankenheim in Regierungsbezirk Kassel (Hesse) is about 190 miles (or 306 km) southwest of Berlin, Germany’s capital.

Barbara’s parents were Pvt. Peter Bruce Brick (1820-1882) and Elizabeth Ehlen Brick (1825-1894). Her grandparents were Johannes Brueck and Anna Barbara Bell Brueck (1781-1820); and Thomas Ehlen (1775-1832) and Ursula Vogelsberg Ehlen (1779-1832).

Barbara and her parents moved to Racine, Wisconsin when Barbara was five years old, and they became settler-colonists in the United States. They arrived in the United States on April 30, 1852, in New York. After a short time, they moved to St. Joseph Township in Scott County.

Barbara’s father was a private in the Minnesota Heavy Artillery in the Civil War. He was inducted on Sept. 27, 1864.

Barbara’s future husband Adam Geiß Geis, at age 21, was drafted into the Fourth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment on June 6, 1964. Adam was a private in the Civil War.

When Pvt. Geis returned from the Civil War, where he served under Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, Adam and Barbara married at St. Mary of the Purification Church in Marystown, near Shakopee, on Jan. 18, 1866.

Barbara and Adam settled on a forty-acre farm in Spring Lake Township. They lived there for 38 years. In 1904 they moved to a smaller farm near Marystown. Ten years later, Barbara and Adam moved to a little house in the shadow of St. Mary of the Purification Church.

Fourteen children were born to Barbara and Adam.

Pvt. Adam Geiß Geis died Aug. 17, 1933, in Marystown. He was buried at St. Mary of the Purification Cemetery, Marystown in Louisville Township.

During the last 15 months of her life, Barbara lived with her daughter, Maria Ann Geis Hennen (1872-1961). Barbara had a slight cold for several days, but three days before she died, she had the privilege of becoming a great-great-grandmother.

Her great granddaughter, Margaret Sand Dellwo, had a child on Feb. 14!

Barbara’s slight cold suddenly became serious, and before medical aid reached her, she died of apoplexy. Apoplexy is rupture of an internal organ and the accompanying symptoms. The term formerly referred to what is now called a stroke. Nowadays, health care professionals do not use the term, but instead specify the anatomic location of the bleeding, such as cerebral, ovarian or pituitary, but in 1934, it was the word used for Barbara’s stroke.

Barbara’s funeral service was by Rev. Father Klein at St. Mary of the Purification Church in Marystown. Barbara was a long-time faithful member of St. Ann’s Society of the Marystown church, and the society attended the funeral as a body. Six grandsons of the beloved woman served as pallbearers, including Paul and Alfred Geis, Leander Scherer, Alvin Hergott, Lawrence Hennen, and Jacob Menden.

Barbara was buried next to Adam, in the cemetery next to St. Mary of the Purification Church in Marystown.

Aurelio Marin Mendez, Jr., was born Dec. 31, 1978, to Aurelio Mendez-Marin, Sr. (1950-2007) and Irma Andrade, who was born in Mexico on Sept. 13, 1948. Grandparents included Amadeo Mendez Tejeda (1914-1997) and Gabina Marin Mendoza (1932-2011), from Mexico, and his great-grandparents were José Clotilde Cleto Mendez, Rita Margarita Tejeda, Maximino Marin Alarcon and Teodula Mendoza Carmona, also from Mexico.

Aurelio, Sr., and Irma were immigrants from opposite ends of Mexico, and as teenagers they came to the United States for work. Federal Naturalization Records show that Aurelio and Irma applied for nationalization on Sept. 20, 1991, in Chicago, were granted citizenship on Nov. 19, 1991, and took an oath of allegiance to the United States.

Aurelio, Sr., and Irma had six children. They worked at a Mexican restaurant in Chicago when a friend from Minnesota tried their food and encouraged them to move to Minnesota, according to an interview in the Shakopee Valley News on April 29, 2021.

The family scouted out the Twin Cities area, packed their bags in Chicago, and the parents and three of their six children, including Aurelio, Jr., moved to Minnesota. They opened two Mexican restaurants in Glencoe and Hutchinson. The restaurant worked for a while, but as Aurelio, Jr.’s brother, Josue said, it was out in the country and they did not know a lot about authentic food, so the demographics didn’t really fit what the family had to offer.

The Mendez family decided to give their Mexican restaurant one last shot. They found the vacant Dairy Queen off County Road 101, across from Rahr Malting Company in Shakopee. They spent what little money they had to purchase it. Aurelio, Jr., quit his job at Lions Tap and Pauly’s American Grill, and Josue put in his two-week notice at his construction job, and they worked on the old Dairy Queen, turning it into Taco Loco.

A few plumbers and electricians were willing to work with an agreement to get paid once they opened and hooked their employees up with catering food. The day the restaurant was scheduled for inspection, rain poured in and the roof started leaking. They failed inspection the day before opening, according to the article, “After 18 years, Shakopee’s Taco Loco says ‘goodbye for now,’” in the Shakopee Valley News, April 29, 2021. They agreed to return the next day.

The brothers patched up the hole and flooded the roof for hours that evening until the leak was fixed, and the next day, they passed inspection. Taco Loco opened, and the family-owned fast-food eatery developed a cult following, even beyond Shakopee’s borders.

Taco Loco was open 24 hours at first. The four Mendez brothers, Noe, Josue, Tino, and Aurelio, Jr., took 12-hour shifts. The restaurant took off by word of mouth.

On March 4, 2007, Aurelio, Sr., the family patriarch, was hospitalized with pneumonia, and he died of a diabetic coma. The vision continued when Aurelio, Jr., took over his responsibilities.

Aurelio, Jr., made sure to ground Taco Loco in the community, and vice versa. “He was our leader, and he led by example,” said his brother, Josue. “When my dad passed, he led us.” When anyone reached out to the restaurant for school fundraisers, sponsorship, or donations, Aurelio, Jr., never turned anyone away.

Along with his partner, Maria Isabel Garcia, Aurelio was the loving father of Brianna, Isaac, Audrey, Ayana, Jessica, and Aurelio Mendez III. Aurelio enjoyed being surrounded by his family, and he loved working at his family restaurant alongside his mother, brothers, and children.

Taco Loco moved to the east side of Shakopee and ran the restaurant near Dangerfield’s. Love, respect, and hard work was the motto.

In 2019, Aurelio, known as Junior, was diagnosed with adrenal cancer. Adrenal cancer is a rare cancer that begins in one or both small, triangular glands (adrenal glands) located on top of the kidneys. Adrenal glands produce hormones that give instructions to virtually every organ and tissue in the body. Adrenal cancer can occur at any age.

Aurelio, Jr., died March 19, 2020, at the age of 41. He was buried at the Catholic Cemetery in Shakopee.

Meanwhile, Josue, his brother, took over at Taco Loco. “I got thrown into this situation when my brother got sick. I wasn’t 100 percent ready to take over. I did what I could with what I had.”

The loss of Aurelio, combined with the hit the restaurant took during the pandemic, was hard for the family, and on Aug. 28, 2021, Taco Loco closed. But Josue said Taco Loco isn’t done for good; it’s just done for now in that particular building!