Detail: Byrne Family
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The following is an expansion of the Byrne family
background. Reverse family tree from Armenia (Byrne) Skroch is
shown here:
Armenia (Byrne) Skroch - married Alphonse Skroch
John Patrick Byrne - father
John Byrne - grandfather
Mary (Browne) Byrne - grandmother
Villa (Schwarzhoff) Byrne - mother
Joseph Theodore Schwarzhoff
- grandfather
Katherine (Eck) Schwarzhoff - grandmother
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Picture
of the Schwartzoff, family taken circa 1902, courtesy of Joe
Byrne.
Link to Byrne Family is fromVila.
Joe Byrne wrote: "Vila is the mother of Maude, Armenia, Eddie, Vincint,
Veronica, Rosela, Joe, and Elizaeth. [see picture above] Joseph
Tehodore Schwartzoff and Katherine (Eck) Schwarzhoff were Vila's
parents. Josephine (Schwarzhoff) Schaller was Joseph's sister;
she married Herman Schaller. Phene (Schwartzhoff) Criag married Henry
Craig."
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Image courtesy Joe Byrne who wrote, "John
& Mary Byrne, married 19 Oct 1865. This portrait taken circa
1880 in Galesville, WI. John Patrick is Armenia's father."
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From: JOE BYRNE
Sent: Friday, December 28, 2007 2:51 PM
To: Byrne Alberta, Byrne Jeff, Davis Paula, Byrne Steve, Gagnon Becky,
Feeney Mary Kay, Skroch Don
Subject: Margaret Byrne Photo
Happy almost new year:
Our second cousin, Peggy (Poss) Beirne, sent me this photo of our
grand aunt Maggie Byrne. She was an older sister of our
grandfather,
John Patrick Byrne, and of Peggy's grandfather, William Hugh
Byrne.
Barbara thought she was rather elegantly dressed. She
never
married and died in 1928.
I figure the picture was taken around 1905. (She was born in
1868
and I think she looks around age 37. Does the hat look vintage
1905?)
Does anyone have any ideas about when the photo was taken?
Her
apparent age? Does anyone know where she is buried?
Love, JOE
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Wedding portait taken in 1908 of Vila (Schwartzoff) Byrne and
John Patrick Byrne, parents of Armenia (Byrne) Skroch.
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Here is a
revised version of a bioigraphical sketch. Thanks particularly go
to my dad and to Marian Byrne. Corrections and additions would be
greatly appreciated. Joe Jr , 8 Feb 2004
Kathrine (Eck) Schwarzhoff was born in
Waterloo Township, Allamakee County, Iowa in 1863. The 1870 U.S.
census shows her living with her parents, Benedict (Barney) and
Mary. In the 1880 census for Waterloo, Katherine was not
listed with her parents and younger siblings. She was already
eighteen and living with a neighboring family, the Teodor Roerkou
family. She was listed with this family as a laborer. Since
this family had three small children, her main job was probably helping
Mrs Roerkou keep house and raise the children. By 1883, she was
married to Joseph Schwarzhoff (Jr), and living with him in Codington
County, South Dakota. By 1894, six of her nine children were born
and they were living in the Amsterdam area of northern LaCrosse County,
Wisconsin. (see Joseph Theodor Schwarzhoff Jr.)
Sometime after 1900 Kathrine and Joseph
Theodore Schwarzhoff Jr. settled on a farm in Crystal Valley north of
Galesville and probably lived in the valley until 1942 when Joseph
died. After WWII, Kathrine lived with her daughter, Vila, in
Holmen, where Vila owned and ran a small hotel/restaurant/bar.
When Kathrine died in 1947, she was buried in a famliy plot that Vila
had previously purchased in Pine Cliff Cemetery in Galesville.
Marion Byrne (a granddaughter) described her
grandmother as a large woman who made good, large, white cookies.
She was a hard worker and had a big garden from which she got the fruit
and vegetables for her annual, massive canning projects. In
addition, she made terriffic bread which was always in good supply at
her house. No matter how busy she was with baking and canning,
she was alway ready to grab her coat and go with you wherever you were
going on a visit. She also frequently visited family and friends
in South Dakota. Kathrine loved to play double pinnocle.
Marion reports she was taught at a young age to play the game in order
to assure that there was always a fourth person around to play.
Marion also says she still has Kathrine’s old sewing machine in her
basement.
Uncle Hermie was grandma’s son. He was a
large man and visited her often.
Uncle Alex was another of grandma’s sons. He
lived with grandma and grandpa. He drank a lot and was a very
good carpenter. If anyone wanted a barn built he was one of the
best. He had a car but drank too much to drive safely.
Marian’s dad used to say, “There goes Alex, he’s been drinking
again.” Alex always held his head high like looking at the
sky. He had a son, Harold, who lived with grandma. Alex
tried real hard to play the banjo, but was never any good.
Joe Byrne (Sr) says the same thing about Alex -- he
was an excellent carpenter and could plan a structure in his head and
build it perfectly. The people who hired him, however, learned
that they should never pay him in advance, otherwise he would be off
drinking and the construction would be significantly delayed.
Alex and Harold lived with “grandma” because Alex’ wife died shortly
after Harold was born. Kathrine did most of young Harold’s
parenting.
According to Marian, most of grandma’s children (my
mother, Vila, George, Anna, Marie, Alex and Josephine) all lived in or
near Galesville. On Sunday we visited a lot. When we went to
Dick’s (Marie’s), we always made ice cream which was quite a
treat. They lived in Silver Creek, which was just before
Galesville on the way in from Crystal Valley. Anna later lived
near Ettrick. Roseanne, Anna’s daughter, and I spent a lot of
time at each other’s house.
Marian remembers a lot of house parties - everyone came.
Lots of food. “We could always jump on beds then, nobody heard
us.” (Too much talking.) Families were close - always
helping one another. They let everyone borrow things, clothes,
dishes, machinery, horses. Everyone was always busy, but had time
for entertaining friends and relatives. Crystal Valley School was
full of Schwarzhoffs. We had community club on Friday once a
month. Different people on the committee were in charge of food,
program and entertainment. We would pile up the desks and have a
small band and everyone danced. Bill Dick played violin, Agnes’
daughter played piano. The Scorset Boys from Decorah Prarie would
come with banjo and accordion and play. We had good times.
(interview with Joe Byrne, Sr.)
Grandson Joseph Byrne remembers his Grandma
Schwarzhoff being a very determined lady. She was a good German
Catholic, but had decided that the rigid meatless Friday law was just
not practical for a farm family like hers. She therefore “ruled”
that liver did not qualify as meat and served it on Fridays along with
eggs, fish, etc. Joe was too young to remember how the Irish
Catholic Byrnes (Vila’s in-laws) reacted to this idea. Nor is it
known how the St. Mary’s pastor in Galesville reacted.
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Here is an
updated biographical sketch of Joseph. The "socks" story comes
from Marian Byrne. Any corrections and additions will be
appreciated. Joe Jr , 8
Feb 2004
Joseph Theodore Schwarzhoff Jr. was born 2 Sept
1863 in Dorchester, Iowa. He died 13 Dec 1942, in either
Galesville or Whitehall, WI. Anna Schwarzhoff’s record book says
Joseph was born in Highlandville, Minnesota. There actually is
little disagreement about his birthplce since Dorchester,
Highlandville, and Bergen Bee, another place his father lived, are all
near each other, straddling the Iowa-Minnesota border just west of the
Mississippi River.
Joseph was the son of Joseph Schwarzhoff (Sr) and
Elizabeth Pieper, who had only one other child, a younger duaghter
named Josephine. The 1870 U.S. census shows the family living in
Hightown Township in Winnishiek County, Iowa. Joseph was six and
Josephine was one. By 1880, when Joseph was sixteen, the
family had moved to a farm in Codington County, S.D., Township 117.
Joseph’s paternal uncles,Theodor and
Christopher, still farmed in Allamakee County Iowa and close family
contacts must have been maintained because he married the daughter of
Benedict and Mary Eck, longtime neighbors of the Schwarzhoffs in
Waterloo Township. Holy Rosary Church records in Kranzburg, S.D.
show that he and Katherine Eck were married on 1 May 1883. Anna’s
record book says that they were married on 15 August 1882. Either
way, they were both about nineteen or twenty when married. Maude
Byrne said he was in a seminary for a short time studying for the
priesthood. If so, it would have been a “minor seminary” (e.g. a
high school).
Anna’s record book shows that the four oldest
children of Joseph and Kathrine were born in Codington County.
Presumably, they lived with his parents and his sister. The next
two children, Vila and George, were born in 1890 and 1892,
respectively, and were born in Webster, Day County, South Dakota.
The last three children (Maria, Herman, and Anna) were born in
Wisconsin.
It seems that Joseph, Kathrine and children (and perhaps his parents
and sister also) tried for a living in Webster County for a few of
years, from around 1889 to around 1893, and then decided to move to
Wisconsin.
Census records for 1900 show that Joseph’s father,
Joseph Sr., was living back in Allamakee County. Family accounts
indicate that Josephine, Joseph’s sister, also moved to Wisconsin with
Joseph and his family. It seems safe to conclude that the whole
family, Joseph, his father, and his sister, all decided to leave South
Dakota sometime around 1893.
The family’s first few years in Wisconsin (c1893 -
1896) were spent in Amsterdam, Jackson County accourding to the birth
locations for Marie and Herman given in Anna’s record book. Anna,
herself, was born in 1898 in Burr Oak, also in northern LaCrosse
County. At present there is no census record for the family in
1900. They are found on the 1910 census records for Crystal
Valley. According to Joe Byrne (Sr) their first home in Crystal
Valley was at the far East end of the valley, but later they
bought and lived on another farm across the road (south) from one that
son George was to later buy Sometime after 1920, they traded
farms/houses with daughter Vila Byrne. Vila had married John
Byrne whose family owned the farm immediately to the west of the
Schwarzhoff farm. Vila needed the larger house for her family.
Since the last of Joseph’s and Kathrine’s children, Anna, left home
when she married in 1922, the swap made a lot of sense. This smaller
house/farm was later owned by Pat Schwarzhoff Knepper and her husband.
Kathrine and Joseph probably lived in Crystal
Valley until 1942 when Joseph died. However, grandson Joe Byrne
says that towards the end of his life (early/middle 1942), Joseph had
to be sent to a sanitarium in Whitehall because the family could not
take care of him. Joseph was buried in Pine Cliff Cemetery.
According to Maude, “grandpa” tended to drink too
much in his later years if allowed to. Kathrine therefore gave
him a daily ration of about two shots in a little ceramic jug with a
small cork stopper. Presumably, he carried this little jug around
with him in a pocket and carefully nursed it throughout the day.
Grandpa’s problem was apparently hereditary. His son, Alex, was
also known for his alcohol consumption capacity.
Marian Byrne writes that Grandpa was of German
stock. “He used to talk to Mrs. Alseth up the valley who only
spoke Norweigan.” Evidentally the two languages are
similar. He did a lot of walking and never drove a car. He
used to sit by an old stove and never talked much, and never did
much. “They had a barn below their house, but it burned in 1936
when I was in grade school." He used to wear his socks so the
heel was on top. That way the heels wouldn’t wear out so
fast. He slept upstairs in his own small room.
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