Person:Carl Janzow (2)

Letter from Sam Janzow to cousin Dorothy Richter Zabel, Oct 6 1986. Birth: Island Usedom, Baltic Sea, Germany. Uesedamm (mean dyke) was part of the east dyke system of Holland, now known as the Netherlands, west of Denmark, north of Stellin - in the Baltic Sea between Pomerania, Denmark & Sweden

Birth certificate and baptism certificate: family name of JANTZEN. Also found to be recorded as JANSEN as reported by Sam's cousin, Otto, who examined records on a trip to Europe. Otto concluded that our original forefathers were Danes or Swedes. Church secretary of the Usedom church who entered baptisms was guided by the rule that family names on the Island of Usedom ended either in EN or OW, exact spelling not regarded as important in those days. Birth record listed JANZOW, baptism record listed JANTSEN; used JANZOW when he came to America.

Death: 1892, Age 79 after an illness contracted through wood or tree chopping excursions in the 'valley' (near Silo, Lewiston, Winona, Minnesota) to provide firewood for the household.

Carl was a gentlemen farmer, in the merchant shipping business selling herring fish for his father. He was very well educated. He was disinherited when he married beneath him.

Emigration: Because the King of Prussia attempted to force all Lutherans to abandon their confessional stand in a 'Union" with the Reformed and it's effects, Carl Janzow, a fisherman, emigrated to the 'land of the free'. In 1848, on the ocean voyage of many weeks by sailboat, the family lost one little girl and a boy William.

In US: to Ft Wayne, IN; then in Jophlin, MO; moved to MN in the last 60's and early 70's because Carl was a Southern Sympathizer. In fact, he bought his son, Carl-Friedrich* Christian Janzow, out of the Union Army because MO had both Northern and Southern sympathizers. Carl acquired land in MN.

Children: 1st son - John, died in 1887; no more information about him. 2nd Frederick Christian Janzow, Feb 7 1843 Island Usedom, died at 48 on April 6 1891 (married Edmunde Wilhelmine Mueller). Next child - Rev. Carl Ludwig Janzow.

Carl had written several theological articles considered to be well written by son, Rev CL Janzow. The articles were lost when the ship carrying Wm Janzow's (nephew/cousin) possessions to Australia sank in 1907 at the Cape of Good Hope.

Rev Carl Ludwig Janzow, served Bethlemen Lutheran Church, one of the largest congregations in St Louis, MO, at the time seating 1500.

From Sam Janzow - notes his father, Freidrich-Christian Janzow, had written about his own father:

"Physical characteristics and temperament: Blond with light hair ("copperhead") and sharp, cold, grey eyes. He retained his blond hair until he died. Slight, wiry build. In his old age, he wore a cheek and lower chin beard -'Synodalkranz'- such as C.F.W. Walther wore. That was the style of the day. He considered is a sign of a proud heart to wear a mustache. He was also convinced that man should not try to improve on God's handiwork, so he let his hair on his head hang as it grew and refused to use a comb.

"Caroline was of a quiet nature, not like her husband of an expressive nature. Carl always freely said his inward convictions straight out... When she died, it must have hurt old grandfather deeply, for afterwards he often spoke about his Caroline ('Mien Karlien'). Carl survived her only a few years (she 1889, he 1892)." [Author Friedrich-Christian Janzow was 12 at the time.]

"Grandfather also believed that man should eat his bread in the sweat of his brow. And any attempt on his part to make things easy for himself, he believed to be plain laziness. "Son Friedrick-Christian Janzow, son, built a barn on the farm, Sec 7, Warren, Winona, MN. The barn included a hay shoot from the hayloft directly into the feedway before the horses and cattle. Father argued long and persistently that is was just plain laziness....

"His opposition to making things easy for oneself was also the deciding factor for choosing the quarter section which became one of the hardest farms to work because of its many steep slopes that cut into by a deep valley. Much, very much hard labor was necessary for clearing the wooded farm."