As mentioned earlier, Conrad Martin Jr. was born December 7, 1866 in Wenona, Illinois. By the age of four his Father and sister had both died. Christina, his mother, had remarried Dominic Moes and he now had a new sister, Susannah - named after Christina. They farmed just east of Wenona until 1874 when they moved to Iowa.
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Conrad Martin Klein
Pre-1900
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The
1880 Census (click HERE) lists Junior as "Mathias", "age 14" and "assisting on farm".
The 1885 Census (click HERE) lists him as "Martin Klein", "age 16" and as a "Laborer" on the farm.
You can see from the above that they weren't exactly precise in their record keeping. By 1885, Junior was 18 at the time of that census.
Both of the census' above list Junior as living in Floyd Township (Hospers), Sioux County, Iowa.
By the time of the 1895 Census only Dominic, Christina, and their three youngest daughters were living at home.
There is a newspaper clipping (click HERE) from the Alton Democrat, April 27, 1889 mentioning Junior as being "Martin Klein of Hospers". Shortly after that, he left for Chicago, Illinois at the age of 23.
Below is an aerial snapshot taken from Google Maps of the Moes original homestead where Junior would have farmed with Dominic.
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Moes First Property
Original Iowa Homestead
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Junior is recorded on the 1892 Voting Registration as living at 85 Waller Street in Chicago's 8th Voting Ward, 13th precinct. You can view that record by clicking HERE. It lists him as living in the precinct for 16 months, and in the county and state for 2 years. Below is a map showing how the 8th Voting Ward looked in 1900 and a snapshot to the right showing how it looks today. His residence would've been approximately deep center field of Smyth Elementary School's baseball diamond near the tennis courts.
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Chicago 1900
Ward 8
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85 Weller as it looks today...
Smyth Elementary School
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Conrad and Maggie Wedding |
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St. Alphonsus Church
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Chicago, Illinois
is where he married his bride, Anna Margaret "Maggie" Roller, on St.
Valentine’s Day (February
14, 1900) at St. Alphonsus Church in Chicago. You can find a history on the church by clicking HERE. They rented a
home in Lake View Township, Chicago, Illinois (according to the 1900 census) right up the street from this church on Wellington Avenue. My wife, Amy and I, went and visited this church and it's quite beautiful. The whole neighborhood has a very cozy feel to it.
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Marriage License
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Conrad Martin Jr. worked construction, as an iron worker, building bridges, with the Iron Workers Labor Union in Lake View Township, northern Chicago, Illinois. Below is a clip from the 1900 Chicago Directory listing him at his address on Wellington as a Bridge Builder. You can see the whole page from that directory by clicking HERE.
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1900 Chicago Directory
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St. Alphonsus Church
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The 1900 census lists both Martin and Maggie renting at the 1345 Wellington address on the June 2, 1900 census (click HERE). According to City Directories, and the 1900 Federal Census, their rental at the Wellington address is shown below with Saint Alphonsus Church in the background.
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1345 West Wellington Avenue
Chicago, IL
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Between June 2nd and June 11th they moved around the corner to Sheffield Avenue in time to be recorded on the June 11, 1900 census. You can see that census by clicking HERE. At first I thought this was some kind of mistake, but I checked their neighbors, on each census, and they did indeed move and are recorded on the Federal census twice in 1900.
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208 Racine
Around the corner from
Saint Teresa of Avila
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Thedore Martin Birth
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By July they had moved even further south and closer to Lake Michigan to Chicago Ward 25, at 208 Racine which is today's Lincoln Park area (see birth register to left) and had their firstborn child.
A son, Theodore Martin Klein, was born in Chicago on July 27, 1901. Young Theodore Martin was baptized at Saint Teresa of Avila Church, in Chicago, on August 4, 1901. His sponsors were: Theodore Geimer and Angelica Roller, Maggie's sister.
Theodore Geimer must have been a good friend of Junior as it appears his first born son was named after him, and he's listed as his Godparent along with Angelica. I found a Theodore Geimer, a plumber, age 26, living in Ward 21 which is neighboring to Junior's area there by Lake Michigan. I'll try to dig on this more a little later to see if I can find any further clues.
Theodore Martin Klein lived a short life and died on February 8, 1903. He was buried in Belgium, WI.
Their second son, Emil Frank Klein, was born in Chicago on May 31, 1902. Emil also lived a short life and died on June 27, 1902. He was buried in Belgium, WI on the 28th.
A notice in The Alton Democrat on April 21, 1900 informed Hospers that Martin's mother, Christina, was "quite seriously ill". September 7, 1903 Martin's mother had passed just before a third son was born to Conrad and Maggie in December of 1903 while still in Chicago. As of this time I have not been able to locate his birth record.
In 1904 Martin must have been reading, or at least heard of the big news from Uncle Sam:
Above is the headline as seen May 8, 1904 in The InterOcean Newspaper in Chicago, Illinois. The US Government was offering a land lottery to expand westward onto the Rosebud, or Lower Brule Indian Reservation. 106,326 names were entered into the drawing for only 2,500 spots. You can read more about the Rosebud Lottery by clicking HERE.
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A Newspaper
article, from The Alton Democrat, July 16, 1904 reads as follows:
“Martin Klein is here from Chicago to visit his halfsister Mrs. William
Walgenbach. He is employed with a
constructive gang of iron workers. He
went from here to Chamberlain to register for the Rosebud drawing. He belongs to the labor union and gets
forty-five cents an hour for work.”
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1900 Federal Census
Martin & Maggie Klein
1345 Wellington Street
Chicago, Illinois
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As a side note, a couple of thoughts come to mind:
[1] In 1904 the average wage is listed at being twenty-two cents p/hour. Conrad, making forty-five cents p/hour, was a pretty good wage back then, and…
[2] He left that good job to farm the land in South Dakota with his new family. He was known, according to his obituary, as a man “who forced a living from the soil even in difficult times and was never given to depend on anyone else for his livelihood” (see quote in his obituary). The quote, "even in difficult times" brings to mind the Great Depression of the 20's and the dust bowls of the 30's known as the "Dirty 30's".
[3] Chamberlain, South Dakota was one of the tamer drawing locations for the Rosebud Lottery. Bonesteel, SD got exceptionally ugly for this drawing according to an article I read.
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Bonesteel South Dakota
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Conrad Martin Jr. was likely standing in line at Chamberlain for days to apply. The article said that in Chamberlain they spent the night in line to apply and the line reached down the blocks for miles.
One of the lottery announcements came on August 4, 1904 and the article was entitled, "THE LUCKY ONES IN UNCLE SAM'S LOTTERY". C. Martin Klein from Chicago, Illinois is listed at number 325 on the full page advertisement. You can view that page by clicking HERE.
Martin's lottery ticket won him the NE ¼ (160 acres) of section 19. Below is the original Land Patent and a picture of the property from above.
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Land Patent
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Section 19
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There’s much to be said about this Rosebud Lottery and the men that made their claims in that area.
A book called The Capital City Saga, by Adeline S. Gnirk details the Rosebud Lottery winnings, the formation of Burke, South Dakota, the Great Depression, the grasshopper infestation, and the “Dirty 30’s” that they all went through.
As a personal thought – I am amazed at what the people of that time went through, not only to survive, but also to my Great-Grandfather’s accomplishments in spite of it all – obviously, a testament to his character.
One of my favorite quotes, concerning this era, from the same book as above (p. 344) is as follows:
“The sunsets of Gregory County were far and away the most beautiful I have seen anywhere. The Saturday afternoon procession of Indians in their buckboard wagons was always colorful and interesting spectacle. There were so many good times; and there were bad times; hail storms which destroyed gardens and crops (one I recall left such an accumulation of ice that, hours later of a July afternoon, there was yet so much of it that had not melted that we made ice cream); tornadoes which sent us scurrying to our cyclone cellar; drouth which parched the earth while the blazing sun burned up the foliage; the dust storms which blackened the sky at noonday and buried fences post-high in the top soil from lands far away; the grasshoppers which came in such numbers as to destroy all vegetation and crunch underfoot on the sidewalks of little towns; the devastating depressions which truly tried men’s souls. Yet through it all, the people had a quality of goodness and love and concern, one for another, and a never-faltering faith in God. Gregory County, and our parents, taught us to be strong, compassionate, resourceful, frugal, and with God’s help, self-reliant.”
Martin won his claim and returned to Chicago for his pregnant wife, Maggie, and their toddler son. They took the train to Bonesteel, South Dakota and traveled to their new home by horse and wagon from Bonesteel. The first building they constructed while "proving up" their claim was a barn where all their belongings were stored including all of their family records and important documents.
Unfortunately, tragedy strikes... and more than once:
An article (to the left) from The Alton Democrat on December 10, 1904 announced his arrival to Hospers from their new claim.
“Martin Klein came to town this week in a covered wagon. He is a son of the late Mrs. Moes. He drew a claim in the Rosebud and quit a good job in Chicago to file on it. The recent prairie fires in that region burned him out of house and home and the Rosebud has lost its charms for him.”
"The recent prairie fires", mentioned in the article above, was the result of revenge. It was printed in The Alton Democrat the same day as the article above that Jack Sully, the "King of the Cattle Thieves", was shot and killed by law enforcement.
What remained of the Jack Sully gang, set out for revenge:
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“Jack Sully, the old "King of the Cattle Thieves," met death at the hands of a posse sent out by U.S. Commissioner Charles Tidrick, formerly auditor of Sioux county, Iowa. A series of prairie fires swept over a large area of South Dakota west of the Missouri river. It was thought that Sully's gang were using the method of wreaking vengeance upon some of the ranchmen who aided the officers in the final campaign against Sully. The entire cattle range in Gregory county had been destroyed by the fires, leaving no winter range in the greater part of the 400,000 acre tract ceded by the Rosebud Indians and opened to settlement the preceding summer. Great quantities of hay put up by the ranchmen was also destroyed by the fires."
Thanks to Jack Sully, Conrad Martin's belongings were burnt up along with his newly constructed barn. According to family account this included all of his paperwork which may have been helpful in my search today. You can read more about Jack Sully by clicking HERE. Google provides plenty of other newspaper articles and write-ups on Sully also.
Below is claimed to be Jack Sully's son, holding the reins of the horse that Sully was riding when he was shot and killed on May 16, 1904.
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Rosebud Indian Reservation
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If the fires were not devastating enough, they faced even more tragedy the following month. As mentioned above, Conrad and Maggie had two boys who had not survived before moving to Burke, South Dakota from Chicago. The article below describes the loss of their third and fourth child.
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Newspaper, The Alton Democrat, January 21, 1905 reads as follows:
“We regret to report the sad bereavement of the Martin Klein home southwest of town. On the eleventh their thirteen months old child died of diphtheria and three days later a little one – which might have taken the others place in the parental hearts – was stillborn.”
Martin and Maggie have left a good paying job in Chicago, they've left two sons buried in Belgium, Wisconsin, Martin's mother has died recently, a newly constructed barn and all of their belongings have been unnecessarily burnt to ashes in South Dakota, and now - not one son... but two are lost. Martin must be feeling a bit like Biblical Job at this point in his life.
As the saying goes, Martin and Maggie pulled up their bootstraps and headed back to South Dakota in the spring.
He and his wife are listed on the Census as living in Hospers, Iowa (no children) in 1905 on lines 248 and 249. You can see this census by clicking HERE. Martin and Maggie are both listed in the South Dakota census for 1905.
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After all of their tragedy, they still moved on to Burke, South Dakota from Hospers, Iowa. 1905-1906 was a busy time for Martin and Maggie. Martin rebuilt a bigger barn and stayed with neighbors while constructing their "soddy" house on section 19.
Below is a picture of two settlers from South Dakota cutting sod for a soddy home.
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If you Google "soddy homes" you'll find all kinds of examples of homes built by stack sod. There are some really shabby ones, and really extravagant soddy homes. Some of the pictures found online look as if they're about to collapse. With Martin's construction experience, I think it's safe to say his soddy home was at the least sturdy and reliable shelter.
Maggie became pregnant with another son around August of 1905 as Raymond Francis Klein was born April 29, 1906.
Their first daughter, Rosa "Rosie" Catherine was named after Maggie's mother Rosalia Catharina (Klos) Roller. She was born September 1, 1908 in the soddy home.
By 1910 Martin was farming on his property which is owned free of mortgage. The 1910 census (click HERE) shows Raymond (age 4) and Rosie (age 1).
Martin built a frame house on his property and by June 20, 1911 my Grandfather, Ambrose Fred Klein, was born in that house.
By 1913, Conrad Martin Jr. had become a successful farmer. A newspaper article from the Hospers Tribune, February 14, 1913 reads as follows.
“Martin Klein, a step-son of Dominick Moes, has been here this week from Burke, South Dakota, to visit his people. He took a homestead near Burke several years ago, and now has a valuable place, as a new railroad is expected to run within a mile of his farm. He had not visited Hospers for several years, and was surprised at the many changes that have taken place here.”
This may have been the last time Martin had seen his step-father alive as Dominic died in 1914.
Shortly after this trip on April 12, 1913 another son, Victor Martin Klein, was born.
June 3, 1917, Conrad Dominic Klein, was born to Martin and Maggie.
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Conrad
Martin Jr. later purchased the NW ¼ (160 acres) of section 17 from Fred Bender on December 1, 1926.
He also purchased the NE ¼ (160 acres) of section 15 from Aristhide LeBlanc on November 2, 1932. According to the auction listing below, only 65 acres of this property had been cleared for farming. The remainder of the property was timber and pasture.
By 1932 Conrad owned 480 acres of land. Below is a map showing the original Klein homestead (lower left, closest to Burke) and his later acquisitions. The red boxes in the map photo below show his properties.
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The pictures below were taken and sent to me from my Dad.
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