Halloween seems like a good time to share a story that began long, long before I was born. I've often thought that if I ever wrote a book, I'd write about this. However, I don't think I have enough background information to make it non-fiction. Then again, I am currently reading a book written by a woman who found a newspaper article from way back about a woman found frozen in the snow in northern Minnesota way back when. She researched and wasn't able to find any more information. Yet she was inspired to right a fiction story based on the woman found frozen to death. Who knows, maybe some day I'll find the inspiration to do something similar with this story.
When I was little, I remember hearing a story about a relative named Susanna who drowned herself and her infant in a pond on their farm after hanging her shawl on a tree branch next to the pond. As a kid, I didn't think much about it. After all, it had happened back in the "olden days" and I had no interest in family history at that point. I remembered the story over the years, but didn't give it much thought.
Several years back, as my sister Jo and my parents were putting flowers on the graves of relatives on
Memorial Day, Jo had the idea to put flowers on Susanna's grave. But, the grave couldn't be located. The records of the church Susanna had attended had been destroyed in a fire and although her husband and his second wife's graves were at the cemetery next to this church, Susanna's couldn't be found.
After my dad died, I suddenly became more interested in our family history. It was then that I actually listened to the story about Susanna closely enough to realize who she was. Susanna was my great-great grandma and my dad's great grandma. The story we heard as kids was that Susanna had a newborn baby and was sick with milk fever (though I'm not sure what that was). Her husband, Nicholas, had told her that there were men coming to help out at the farm the next day and she needed to get up and cook for them. In the night, Susanna supposedly got up and drown herself and the newborn in the pond, after hanging her shawl on the nearby tree branch. This happened in May of 1876.
My sisters and I looked for an obituary or a newspaper article to give us further information on what had happened or where she might be buried. Our search turned up nothing. Then Mother told us that she thought she knew the location of the farm where Susanna died. All we had previously known was that it was in Union Township in Houston County, MN. Mother recalled that when she and Daddy were newly married, Minnie Zibrowski (My great grandma, who was Susanna's oldest child) had taken them to a farm to pick apples. As they drove in, Minnie commented that going there always made her sad, because it was where mother had drown herself and her baby. Mother said she hadn't asked Minnie any questions about it. People really didn't talk about things like that back then. With the new found information that Mother might know where the farm was, we all loaded into our van and headed for Union Township. Mother always has such a great memory that it shouldn't have surprised me that she led us right to the farm. The narrow gravel road that led to the farm made it easy to imagine the horses and wagons that Susanna and her family must have used to travel the same road in the 1870's. As we approached the farm, Mother quickly pointed our where the driveway used to be back when she picked apples there. It had since been moved. However, we didn't see a pond. We drove beyond the house and turned around. As we drove back past the farm again, we saw what obviously used to be a pond, now dry. There was also an small ramshackle old building across the road from the farm. We assumed it must be the original house where Susanna and Nicholas lived.
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| The old house where Susanna and Nicholas lived |
It was very exciting to finally know where Susanna had lived and ultimately died. However, we still didn't know where she was buried. We suspected that since the death was ruled a suicide, she likely wasn't allowed to be buried in a church cemetery. Doing some research online, I learned that in those days, suicide victims were occasionally buried within church cemeteries, but they were placed in the far northeast corner in unmarked graves, and often buried face down. I found that heart wrenching.
An interesting aside to the story (and probably the direction I would go if I ever wrote a fictional story based on Susanna's death) is that a good friend and neighbor of my mom's told her that there was some speculation about Susanna's death. This woman's Mother had told her that there was a rumor that Nicholas had actually murdered Susanna and the baby. He had served in the Civil War and apparently came back from it as a very harsh and unfriendly man. Adding to the speculation of his involvement in the deaths, he remarried less than 2 months later. If you are thinking it was simply to have a mother for his remaining children, I should point out that those same children were then sent to live with Nicholas' brother and his wife.
We drove past that farm many times, wondering if possibly Susanna and her baby had been buried on the farm or in the nearby woods. We knocked on the door of the new house to see if the owners had any information. They were never home. Or maybe they thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses.
Mother was very interested in finding where Susanna was buried and finding more information on her death. When Mother was in hospice I commented that soon she would know the whole story on Susanna and jokingly asked her to send us a sign where Susanna was buried if God would let her. She said she would, which made me chuckle.
The beginning of last November, my brother-in-law, Keith, saw a neighbor of the current owners of the farm where Susanna died. He told her the story of Susanna. Later that same evening, the owners of the farm visited the neighbor and Susanna's name was brought up. The current owners of the farm had been informed of Susanna's death when they bought the place. They had also been told that she was buried in Union Cemetery, but since it was a suicide, no gravestone was allowed. Supposedly a wooden cross once marked the grave, but it had since been removed. She was reportedly buried in the northeast corner of the cemetery near a group of pine trees. I had actually searched that area for a marker after the research I did indicated where suicide victims were often buried. There was a sunken spot near the trees and I wondered if it could be the spot.
Keith also went to the Houston County Historical Society and asked for help in possibly finding a newspaper report of Susanna's death. My sister, Char and I had each previously tried to find copies of the Caledonia Argus from May 1876, to see if there was an article on Susanna's death. Interestingly, several months of the 1876 Argus, including May, were missing. Keith found the same thing. But, the woman working in the Historical Society suggested checking for an article in the newspaper from nearby, Hokah. Bingo! There was an article. It talked of how Susanna had supposedly suffered from "partial derangement of the mind" and that in the middle of the night, she rose from bed and took the baby outside. It went on to say that she first tried to drown herself and the baby in "a small mud hole that contained not over a foot of water". The article continued that since "her efforts were unsuccessful" she went on to drown herself and her baby in another hole that contained 3 feet of water.
How incredible that we had a newspaper article documenting the death. Of course, being the detective that I am (ha ha) I have to admit that I question a few things in the report. If she rose in the middle of the night and the bodies were found in the morning, how could it be determined that she tried to first drown herself and the baby in a 1 foot deep mud hole. Was someone watching and observed this, or what evidence was found to support this idea? I also wonder how much investigating was done back in 1876. Surely there were no CSI agents. My guess is that they asked Nicholas what happened and this is the story he gave. While it could have happened the way he explained, one has to wonder.
While Keith was at the Historical Society, he also mentioned that we thought we knew where Susanna was buried, but weren't sure. He was told that he should consider "witching" to find the grave. He (like the rest of the family) had no idea what "witching" was. I still don't know exactly how it's done, but I know you take two wires and hold them a certain way over a grave. If there is a female buried there, the wires supposedly move a certain way and if a male is buried there, the wires move a different way. I find it very difficult to believe that Keith actually went and tried this, but he did. He says the wires moved to indicate a female was buried at the sunken spot. He said he also tried it over marked graves and the wires moved to correctly identify those people as male or female as well. I find it all kind of spooky and am not sure that I want to believe that method could actually be accurate. But I sure wish I would have been there when Keith did this. It would have been fun to videotape! Regardless if the "witching" worked, we now assume this is where Susanna and her baby girl are buried.
Last Thanksgiving weekend, Jo and I put Christmas decorations on Mother and Daddy's grave. Jo had also found some solar decorations for some the graves of relatives. I decided to buy a solar angel to put on Susanna's grave. I found out weeks later that the angel scared some nearby neighbors. They also apparently knew the story of Susanna and as they looked out their window on a dark winter's night, they saw a glowing light in the old cemetery, right about where Susanna was rumored to be buried. Word got back to Keith pretty quickly, asking if family had put something on the grave as they were concerned about the glowing light!
Whether Susanna actually took her own life and the life of her newborn, or if Nicholas was some how involved, we will likely never know. At one point, I commented that it would have been better if Susanna had never married Nicholas. Then it occurred to me that were the case, I wouldn't be here. So I guess I'm glad she did marry him. I just wish her life hadn't ended so tragically.
An interesting tidbit is that my great grandma, Minnie (Susana's daughter) did have a happy marriage. She and husband, William Zibrowski were married for 65 years. While Susanna's husband either had a hand in her death or at the very least wasn't very kind to her and remarried quickly upon her death, Minnie married a man who couldn't live without her. On their 50th wedding anniversary, William and Minnie renewed their wedding vows. I have heard they liked to "rib" each other in a good natured way. Sometime between the night of Thursday, May 6, 1954 and the morning of Friday, May 7, 1954, Minnie, age 87, passed away in her sleep. William, age 94 but not previously ill, passed away on the afternoon of Sunday, May 9, 1954. Everyone said he died of a broken heart. A double funeral was held for them.
Mother told me she had hoped that she and Daddy would make it to 65 years of marriage just like William and Minnie. If that had happened, she would have been 87 and Daddy would have been 94, the same ages as William and Minnie. When Daddy died, he and Mother had been married for 63 years. My parents would occasionally "rib" each other too. I'm betting that when Mother got to Heaven she teased Daddy that she held up to her end of the bargain. She died about four months after what would have been their 65th Anniversary.
We have continued to look for information on Susanna. We know her maiden name was Thieme or Tieman. She was born in 1846, although we are not sure where. We have no information on her parents or any siblings. We don't have any pictures that have been identified as Susanna. She married Nicholas Hains (Haines, Heinz, Heins, Hines Heintz) on August 5, 1866 in Dubuque, IA. William had served in the Civil War prior to their marriage. We do not know where they met each other. By 1867 they were living in Union Township.
I still occasionally search the internet hoping to find further information on Susanna. Hopefully some day we learn about her life before she married Nicholas. While Susanna's life ended tragically, I see God's goodness in how he provided for Minnie. Minnie was only 9 when her mother died. That had to be devastating. She was then sent to live with her uncle and his wife. Yet she found a wonderful man to marry and they had 65 wonderful years together and only a couple days apart before being reunited in Heaven. Even if I never learn any more about Susanna while I am alive, I am confident that one day I will know the whole story. All the puzzle pieces will fall into place and it will all make sense. And on that day, I will get to meet this woman, Susanna, whose life and death we have wondered about. I will also get to meet William and Minnie, whose lives I consider to be a love story.
