GÄNZL, Ganzl, Gansl or Gánsl: the other side

Some time ago, I glanced into the big pile of family papers which had descended to me and I found, to my surprise, a bit about my forbears of which I and brother John hadn't really known much. The Ganzl side. With its generational change of name or spelling ... and a whole heap of C19th photos. And diaries. Written in German shorthand. So I didn't really investigate further.

I never thought to look into the Other Side. The grandmotherly family. But, today, I promised John to try and find some nice photos to go with an article where the subject of our ancestry is to be evoked, so I opened the packages ...

The first thing I found was this. The Stojetz or Stogetz or Stogec Stammbaum. It remember seeing it as a child, but it wasn't of great interest because mother assured me that all the branches were dead. John and I were the sole budlets remaining on the sole living twig. And to prove it, she biro-ed us in. Ouch.

So, who were these people?  Well, nana was Rudolfine Josefine ('Rudi') Stojetz. Daughter of Eduard Stojetz (1860-1942), son of Josef Stojetz and Margarethe née Böhm, and Marie née Baumgartner (1862-1932), daughter of Josef Baumgartner  ... I know that, because her birth certificate (19 July 1887) is here in the package.

Well, I've got Eduard and Marie ...

Our great-grandparents.

Again, I have always known only a shadowy amount about them. They had a shop in Floridsdorf which apparently sold furniture (why did I think it was prams and bicycles, that must have been someone else). Here it is, at the turn of the century. I wish I could read what is over the door ...  but am I not right about the bikes, that definitely says 'kinderwagen' over ... oh, maybe its the next-door window. But all those carpets ... yes, it was carpets. Tablecloths, horse-rugs, bedcovers ...

Next to the photo.. what this? Father's handwriting ... 'Maria Baumgartner came from Switzerland (Engadin and Vierwaldstätter See), but she was brought up by a Mrs Tesar ... Eduard Stogetz came from a family of small tradesemen and farmers including blacksmiths, somewhere in Upper Austria. He was apprenticed to a typesetter/printer. When he had finished his apprenticeship he wandered through Austria, Italy and Switzerland taking work with printers in towns and labouring on farms when the money ran out. He settled in Floridsdorf and got himself a shop (carpets, horse-covers etc). I remember a garden, behind the house, full of fruit trees, and kite-flying on the nearby banks of the Danube. Early during the war, he sold the shop and joined the Savings Bank... He bought a beautiful house near Nussdorf, overlooking Vienna and the Danube .. (we grew potatoes on the section behind the house during the war) ... He walked daily across the Danube Bridge, with his lunch hamper, to work in the bank at Floridsdorf ...'

Nussdorf: 'overlooking the Danube'

Unfortunately, they sold Nussdorf, to move back to a rented flat on home ground, and their investments were lost in the post-war inflation. I have an envelope of bankbills, on which great-grandfather has written the history of this disaster. In 2016, it rings oh-so-truly, as the world's bwankers wreak havoc with ordinary people's lives...

But alongside his working life, and alongside his affiliation to the Social Democratic party ('as a child, he had witnessed the cavalry charge against 'the workers' in Vienna, which he never forgot'), Eduard had one abiding passion. The mountains and tramping. If you look for him on the internet, he is there. Vice-president of the Naturfreund association, which he helped to found and in which his family took a willing part. Here are Eduard and Marie, with daughters Rudi (right) and Minna in 1904 ..  Marie looks a bit puffed!

My package includes the scripts of a number of articles he wrote for the Naturfreund magazines. It also includes Nana's citation and medal as a fifty-year member of the association. 

She also followed her father into the Soc Dems where, she told me, she worked as a secretary. They gave her, many years later, an obituary notice. After she'd been years in New Zealand.

Eduard lived with his daughters, after Marie's death ... and he survived until 1942. Just four years before I was born..

By which time the world that his daughters had known, young, was a thing of the past (nana is extreme left) ..

So, can I extend our Stammbaum any further? ... Here is a little bunch of new year's cards ... from (oh, this old German script is impossible to read!) .. Franz Stogetz, 'Leder-galanterie-Arbeiter'. Eduard's brother, I guess. The tree says he died before the year was out. Then Eduard Stogetz 'k und k Unterjäger' on the occasion of the 'Namensfeste meine lieben Mizzi 2 February 1882'.  Surely not our Eduard. An army corporal? 1879: Happy New Year from Franz Szikossy. And here is the Tesar connection. Adalbert Tesar, and someone has written on the back 'meiner liebe Mutter Ziehfather ...'. One dated 1862, but I can't read it ...

And the little set of place-cards dated 1908... Mother, Father, Rudi, Minna ... Pepi is seemingly grandfather Josef Ganzl ... Fritz? His brother? but who is Beppo?

Well, once again I've found more than I bargained for. And I suppose that will set me off delving into the past all over again. I notice on the web a Genealogie of a family Leininger featuring a Josef Stojetz at its head, and featuring a Barbara, a Theresia, and Aloisa .. and a lady from Nussdorf ...  but no Beppo nor Mizzi or Eduard (b 1860) ...

Well, brother John, there you are. I thought this would tidy up the family ends rather better than the blighted Tree ... but maybe I've only opened a can of Stogetsez or Stojetses or Stogecses ...


Postscriptum: Who is the Adalbert Tesar, locksmith born 18 October 1859 Wels, Oberösterreich. Österreichicher Staats-angehöriger ...