Flatau Families, Emigration, and Land

The original story.....

Author Unknown

The Flataus came to America from Germany about 1881 and most of them went first to Ann Arbor Michigan and then a few years later they came to the area Northwest of Perham.

The families were Theodore, Charles, and Louisa (Mrs. Albert Wiese) who were children of Daniel Flatau and his brother's children Fred, Charlie, Christ, Julius, Mrs. Herman Miller, and Mrs. Albert Thom. They were all farmers and they settled in the Southeast corner of Hobart township or adjoining land in Gorman township. They all married and raised large families. The schoolhouse of District 233 which for years stood on one of the hills in the area was always known as the Flatau school and the cemetery which was beside the school is still known as the Flatau cemetery. At first, the school was also used for church services, but later they traveled by horse and buggy to attend Zion Evangelical and Reformed Church now known as Zion's United Church of Christ in Perham. It was 10 miles to Perham so sometimes they would go as far as Luce with the horses and then take the train. The fare from Luce to Perham was six cents.

The Flataus were a close-knit group and for years the relatives would all get together every Sunday at one home for a big dinner and party. Each home had a big table and this table would be set three times. The men were served first, then the children, and then the women. The next Sunday they would all be at another home unless Sunday was a church festival, then the gathering would be on Monday. But Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost were reserved for a church celebration. There are still Flataus living in this area and some of them still own land that had belonged to their grandfathers.

Emigration

by Kristin Peterson

There were three Flatau brothers (Johan, Daniel, and Martin) born from 1818 to 1835 and who lived in Germany. Their parents were Jacob and Christine Flatau. (Some relatives have West Prussia as their place of birth. West Prussia became Germany in 1878). Only one of the brothers, Daniel, immigrated to America in 1893 after most of his children and nieces and nephews had already migrated. We have very little information on Martin and his family.

Johan

Of Johan and Teresa's nine children, two died young in Germany (Michael at age 27 & Bertha at age 23), and one sibling is not listed in the above story about moving to the Perham area (Henrietta who married Fredrick Wiese and emigrated in 1893). Henrietta passed away in 1896. The other six children emigrated from 1881 to 1893 and they are listed in the above article. After Johan passed away in Germany, Teresa remarried and came to America in 1893. We are assuming she and her husband, John Doepke, came with her daughter Minnie (Mrs. Albert Thom). The census shows them living in the same home in 1900. Teresa was 60 when she married a second time and 63 when she came to America.

Fred appears to be the first of their children to immigrate in 1881 with his wife, Paulena, and their six-year-old son. Fred was 26 years old and Paulena was 21. Their next child was born in Ann Arbor, MI, and the following seven children were born in Hobart township.

Charlie (aka Carl or Thick Charlie) was 35 years old and his wife, Minnie, was 43 years old in 1882 when they came to America with their only child who was six at the time

Christ came to America in 1882 when he was 19. He met and married his German-born wife, Amelia, in Gorman township. They had fourteen children!

Julius also met and married a German-born wife, Elise, when they were 25 and 18 years of age respectively. They had nine children! Julius came to America in 1882 when he was sixteen.

Ida (aka Mrs. Herman Miller) emigrated in 1884. Ida was 15 years old and Herman was 14 when they came to America. Ida was 23 and Herman 22 when they married in Perham. They had seven children!

Minnie (aka Mrs. Albert Thom) emigrated in 1893. Minnie and Albert had only been married three years when they came to America. They had only one child. A girl born in 1902 who only lived for six days.

Daniel

Daniel's first wife, Wilhemina, passed away in Germany. They had four children and all four emigrated to America. Daniel's second marriage was to Regina while in Germany. He came to America with Regina and two of their three children in 1894. Daniel was 65 and Regina was 45 years old at the time. The history of their first child, Emil, is unknown. Their daughter, Louise (Mrs. Albert Wiese) was 18 years old and their son Edward Flatau was 15 years old when they came to America. Louise and Albert were a part of the Flatau group in Hobart township that met every Sunday. They had ten children!

Daniel's four children by his first marriage were two boys and two girls. The two boys, Charles (aka Thin Charlie) and Theodore (my great-grandfather) emigrated in 1880 and 1881 respectively. The girls, Mathilda (Mrs. Christian Wendland) and Ida Flatau (not married) emigrated in 1903.

Charles (aka Thin Charlie) was one of the first of this group of Flataus to come to America in 1880 when he was 23 years old. He met and married Augusta while in Ann Arbor, MI. They had eleven children. Their first child was born in Ann Arbor. All others were born in Hobart township after 1885. Charles originally owned the property that was eventually purchased by Rodney and Marian Flatau.

Theodore came to America when he was 16 years old in 1881. He met and married his first wife, Minna, in Ann Arbor. She passed away at the young age of 29 from Typhoid Fever. They had seven children. Their first three children were born in Michigan. The fourth was born in 1893 in Hobart township. The youngest was Albert Flatau (my grandfather) who lost his mother when he was three months old. Theodore's second marriage was to Emma, and they had five children. Their first child only lived a few months. Sometime after Albert married Elsie he purchased his father's (Theodore) farm and raised his family on this farm. Later he sold the farm to his son, Vernon, and Vernon raised his family on this farm.

Mathilda (Mrs. Christian Wendland) was 49 years old when she and her husband Christian age 55 and their six children came to America in 1903. Most of the families of Mathilda and Christian lived in the Minneapolis, MN area.

Ida Flatau, the youngest of Daniel & Wilhemina's children, never married. She came to America with her sister, Mathilda, in 1903. She became blind at an early age and lived out her life with her brother Theodore's family.

Land

This is a portion of the plat maps of Hobart and Gorman townships from 1912. You can see the land that was owned by the Flatau families mentioned in the first article.

Families

By Kristin Peterson

Families that gather together, stay together! There is no date on the above article that was written by an unknown author. Looking at the plat maps in 1912 we can see the property owned by the Flataus that are mentioned. Looking also at the family dynamics in 1900 in relation to the Sunday gathering events we have come up with the following information to provide a fun and thought-provoking picture of what the Sunday events looked like. The year 1900 was chosen because of the ages of most of the family members that year.

In 1900 there were eighteen adults in the Flatau Family Gathering mentioned in the article above. Through the immigration and census data, we can add four more adults. Daniel and wife Regina and Teresa (Johan's wife) and new husband, Johan Doepke.

Of the brothers, Johan and Daniel, only Daniel was living in the area with his second wife, Regina, who came over to America with him in 1894. Johan Flatau had passed away in Germany at age 60. In 1900 Johan and Teresa would have 29 grandchildren and 19 of them would have attended the Sunday gatherings with their parents. I'm sure that Teresa was happy to spend her last years in America with her children and grandchildren. Teresa passed away in 1912.

Theodore, Daniel's son, lost his wife and oldest daughter in 1898 to Typhoid. He wed a year later. In 1900 he and his second wife, Emma, lost their first child Otto when he was three months old. When attending the Sunday dinners in 1900 Emma would be the step-mom to Theodore's children: Ida (10 years), Amanda (7 years), Ernest (5 years), Louis (4 years), and Albert 2 years.

The story about how the family had their big Sunday dinners in three shifts was probably done more for the sake of efficiency than anything else. There were 11 men and 3 teenage boys that could have shared their dinner together in the first shift. The women's table could have consisted of 11 women and 5 teenage girls. Eighteen children between the ages of 10 and 4 shared the next shift with the majority of them eating picnic-style during the summer months. There were eight children aged 2 and under with three having been born in 1900. The total number of children between 10 and under was 26.

In any event, it is a fun and informational snapshot looking at the ages of everyone at a 1900s family Sunday gathering. There may have been other Flatau family members attending the Sunday dinners.

Flatau Family (home) - Kinstories (home) - Johnson Family - Susag Family - Beckman Family
Granquist Family - Anderson Family - Stout Family - Walker Family - Peterson Family - Morris Family - Cauble Family