Family Recipe Friday: Margaret Post's Apple Pie

My mother's recipe for Apple Pie....this recipe looks too easy to believe!  I've never made it as the recipe has been in the hands of my sister since our parent's death.  Mom was an excellent cook.  I'll be buying some Granny Smith apples at the grocery store soon!  Margaret Troyer Post was the daughter of Elmer and Mary (Motzko) Troyer, the grand-daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth (Schrock) Troyer and Philipp and Maria (Fietzek) Motzko, and the great-grand-daughter of Yost and Martha (Plank) Schrock, John and Elizabeth (Yoder) Troyer, Franz and Francesca (Piechota) Moczko, and Martin and Catherina (Dyga) Fietzek

Mary Post Warren

© copyright 2011, all rights reserved, Mary Post Warren

Saturday Night Genalogy Fun - Birth Order

It's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun as a challenge from our own Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings

My job is to:

1) Pick one of my ancestral lines - anyone - patrimonial, matriarchal, zigzag, from a famous ancestor, etc.; Pick a long one if I can.

2) Tell which position in the birth order that my ancestor was in each generation. For example "third child, first son. Also list how many children were born to these parents.

3) Share my Birth Order on my own blog post.

Here's mine (I picked my mother's line):

1. Mary D. Post 1943- ) - second child, first daughter of Hays Post and Margaret Troyer (2 sons, 1 daughter)
2. Margaret Troyer (1909-1987) - first daughter of Elmer Troyer and Mary Motzko (2 sons, 3 daughters)
3. Mary M. Motzko (1883-1953) - first child, third daughter of Philipp Motzko and Maria Fietzek (2 daughters)
4. Maria Fietzek (1857-1927) - daughter of Martin Fietzek and Catherina Dyga (4 sons, 6 daughters)
5. Catherina Dyga (1816-after 1857) - daughter of Franz Dyga and Unknown (2 (known) daughters)
6. Franz Dyga (1 (known) daughter)

Numbers 4 through 6 were born in Poland but I have no additional information on them. Not a very long line but I'm working on it!


Mary Post Warren

© copyright 2010, all rights reserved

Super Sister Sunday - Maria and Francesca Fietzek

Two of the super-'est' sisters of all in my maternal line are my great-grandmother, Maria Fietzek and her sister Francesca Fietzek.  They traveled together with Maria's husband Philipp Motzko and Philipp's and Maria's baby daughter, Catherina, from Germany to Minnesota United States in the early 1880's.

Through most of my research on Maria I feared she came to a foreign land with no one other than her husband and child.  What a sense of relief  I felt when I discovered that Francesca had came to the United States at the same time.  Maria and Francesca had each other to commiserate with while their husbands went off to work, and while the women stayed home and raised the children.  The thought of Maria being on her own without another woman friend, who spoke her language, was hard for me to understand.  Maria never learned to speak English (according to her grand-daughter - Dorothy Troyer Haines). 

I do not have any information on Francesca - some day hopefully that will change.  I'm not sure if she was married or had children at the time they all sailed to the United States.  She did marry at sometime as she is listed as Francesca Fietzek Reh with the few pictures I have of her among Maria's photos.

My love goes out to these two very strong Polish women who came to the new country, fought all the trials and tribulations and did without so that their descendants could have an easier life than they did.

Mary Post Warren

© copyright 2010, all rights reserved





Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: My Matrilineal Line

Over at Genea-Musings Randy Seaver’s latest Saturday Night Fun assignment is:

1) List your matrilineal line - your mother, her mother, etc. back to the first identifiable mother. Note: this line is how your mitochondrial DNA was passed to you!

2) Tell us if you have had your mitochondrial DNA tested, and if so, which Haplogroup you are in.

OK, I'm game - I haven't gone back that far (in this line) YET but here's what I've got:

Mary Dana Post
Margaret Elizabeth Troyer (1909 ID -1987 CA) m. Hays Coulter Post
Mary Maria Motzko (1884 MN -19523 CA) m. Elmer David Troyer
Maria Fietzek (1857 Nowa Wies Krolewska Opolskie Poland -1927 ID) m. Philipp Motzko
Catherina Dyga (1816 Debie Poland – 1862 ) m. Martin Fietzek (Fiecek)

Mitochondrial DNA tested/Haplogroup - never heard of this and went to Wikipedia to check it out but will have to do further research to understand what it is all about - more on this at a later date.  Actually it all sounded like Greek to me!

Mary Post Warren

© copyright 2010, all rights reserved

Marias Prized Possession

Maria Fietzek Motzko was 24 years old with a husband and a 6 month old baby when she and her little family immigrated to the United States from Poland.  It must have been incredibly hard for them all, especially in the 1800s, to leave everything and almost everyone she knew and loved behind for an uncertain future.  I am sure Phillipp and Maria were more than excited about what lay ahead, but unsure and scared as well.  I cannot even begin to imagine what they must have gone through emotionally as well as physically to make this transition.

Maria never learned English...my grandmother (Mary Motzko Troyer) would have to translate everything for my mother and her sister when they would visit their grandmother. My mom and her sister knew little, if any, Polish.

 One of Maria's most treasured possessions was this map of her homeland.   She would sit for hours on end just looking at it.  How she must have missed her parents, her brothers and sisters, her home.  Did she ever regret that she left there? In the 21st century it's so easy to travel from one country to another and back again - but in the 1800s it was next to impossible.

Maria was fortunate her sister Francesca Reh (in picture on left) also came to the United States. They lived in the same area in Idaho and were able to raise their children together. I don't know if they traveled to the United States at the same time and on the same ship, or how long it was before they were together...but it must have been a huge relief for Maria (and Francesca) to have each other.





 

Mary Post Warren

© copyright 2010, all rights reserved

Philipp and Maria Motzko Family Recap

(note: picture is dated 1896 two children are missing - Frances and Philipp Jr. had not been born yet)

Well, I finally finished the Philipp and Maria Motzko family!  All posts are in my 2010 blogroll.  Next week I will move forward with the grandchildren of  Philipp and Maria.  Doing my postings on the Motzko family I was surprised to see there were not more grandchildren... 

  1. Catherina had one child Raymond Herman
  2. Johanna had no children
  3. Mary had two children, Margaret Troyer (Post) and Dorothy Helen Troyer (Haines)
  4. Hattie had three children John W. Gleason, Thomas J. Gleason, Mary Ellen Gleason (Normoyle)
  5. Theresa had one child Rena Marie Olsen (Coelho)
  6. Frank had one child Helen Bernice (Kaufman)
  7. Thomas no children (to my knowledge)
  8. John had no children (to my knowledge)
  9. Frances had four children: Susan (Martin Grier), Nola (George Grier), Louis, William
10. Philipp Jr had no children (to my knowledge)

I also found it interesting that each child was born almost exactly two years apart.  I cannot imagine 20 years of being pregnant and/or nursing.  On the other hand if Philipp and Maria had not spent 20 years having children there would be a lot of people not here today....including possibly myself and my children.

It's been a pleasure to research these people.  There is much information still missing although I am still researching.  Special thanks to those who helped gather this information - specifically Greg Gleason (grandson of Hattie), the amount of information he provided is worth its weight in gold.  My mother and her sister (daughters of Mary) also left me a rich inheritance of diaries and photos.  Irreplaceable information.

I truly feel blessed to be a part of the Motzko family.  

© copyright 2010, all rights reserved

 Mary Post Warren

Philipp and Maria (Fietzek) Moczko (Motzko)

One of my goals for the new year is to scan 45+ years of family pictures. I also have many pictures going back to the 1800's and even further back. I love genealogy and have found a ton of information on family from both http://www.ancestry.com/ and http://www.genealogy.com/, as well as other similar sites and relations I've 'found' in my research. I've met up with cousins/aunts/uncles that I never would have connected with had it not been for the internet. Mostly these people that I have met are 2nd or 3rd cousins. But on my father's side I found a full-sister that he never knew he had. She is in her late 80's, her children (my cousins) are my age (I ain't telling!!). I will save most of them for a later date. Right now I'd like to center on my mom's side of the family.

My great-grandparents were born/raised and married in Prussia. In 1881 Philipp (b. 1859; d. 1910; buried Mt. Calvary Cemetery, Nampa ID) and Maria (Fietzek) (b. 5-4-1857; d. 5-7-1927; buried Mt. Calvary Cemetery, Nampa ID) Motzko (changed from Moczko) and their daughter, Catherine (b. 4-27-1879; d. 1-5-1945) left Prussia for Germany, where they took a ship (Leipzig) from Breman and sailed to Baltimore (with a final destination of Minnesota), arriving in United States on June 12, 1881. They settled in Minnesota and then Idaho where he was a farmer and she was a housekeeper...they had a total of 10 children.


Anyone reading this who are related to these people please contact me via this blog...I'll get back to you and we can share tons of additional information.

I will be posting blogs in the future about each of the children of Philipp and Maria (changed to Mary when relocating, but I'm calling her Maria for clarity sake)

© copyright 2010, all rights reserved, Mary Post Warren