The Schlepers and Weidners of Minnesota:Information about George A. Weidner

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George A. Weidner (b. March 31, 1856, d. January 09, 1924)

George A. Weidner

George A. Weidner (son of Pancraz-Georg Bonagratius Weidner and Ursula Hennemann) was born March 31, 1856 in IL, and died January 09, 1924 in St. Paul, Ramsey County, MN. He married Eva Nickol on October 02, 1883 in St Mary's Catholic Church, Buffalo Grove, Lake Country, IL, daughter of John George Sporlein Nickol and Rosina Hubner.

Notes for George A. Weidner:
Bonagratius Weidner and Margaret Popp’s second son was George A. Weidner, who was born on March 31, 1856 in Illinois, USA. George A. Weidner married Eva Nickol, daughter of John George Nickol and Rosina Hubner, on October 2, 1883 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Buffalo Grove, Lake County, Illinois, USA.

According to Walter Weidner, George A. Weidner's son, in 1977, "When my father moved up to Minnesota from Illinois, he came by railroad in a boxcar. Boxcar is the way everyone moved at this time as there were no trucks or good roads. They would load the cattle, horses, machines, etc. in the boxcar plus some barrels of water for the animals, and some hay. One person would always travel in the boxcar with the livestock to make sure they were watered and taken care of. My folks came to Minnesota in about 1886. At that time, there were few roads, no electric current, no radios or anything like that. In the wintertime, the only means of travel was by sled with horses, and that was very slow."

George A. Weidner's father, Bonagratius, had purchased farms for him and for his siblings when the family arrived in Lake Henry, Minnesota in 1885. According to Charles Moos, who grew up in nearby St. Cloud, Minnesota and wrote an undated letter probably from the 1930s or 1940s, described what life was life on the Weidner farms. Charles Moos's mother was a Henneman; Michael's brother George was his uncle. Every summer Charles and his brother would be taken to Lake Henry for a week or so to visit the family, including George A. Weidner. Charles said, "We always had a great time. Fed on the fat of the land; the table set for five meals a day. Andrew would take us along to watch the farm work. All the Weidners had large farms, the best equipment including their own threshing rig, blooded breeding stock--Big Tom a percheron stallion, etc."

George A. Weidner and Eva Nickol lived on May 26, 1911 at Lintonville, Kandiyohi County, Minnesota, USA; Lintonville was later renamed Regal. He and Eva Nickol lived on May 14, 1915 at Regal, Kandiyohi County, Minnesota, USA. He was a merchant and postmaster.

George A. Weidner and Eva Nickol had several children: Philip, Alexander, Clara, Robert, Herbert, Walter, and Rose Marie (who was born on June 11, 1885; baptized on June 16, 1885; and died on December 25, 1892 at age 7).

In 1977, Wally, George A. Weidner and Eva Nickol's son, at the age of 79, wrote an account of what it was like growing up in Regal, Minnesota in the early 1900s. Wally rode to church in Lake Henry, Minnesota every Sunday in a buggy or sled, using a stone heated in the oven and wrapped in a blanket to keep their feet warm. Their one-room schoolhouse had a single teacher for eight grades and a pot-bellied heater that on Mondays did not get the building warm until noon. Wally had to get up at 5:00 in the morning to bring the cows in from the pasture. The cows had to be milked and the cream separated before the kids went to school. The cream was then shipped to St. Paul daily via an express train. Wally describes grain harvesting and "shock threshing," and he recalls that the best part of this hard work was the "awfully good meals" they served the workers. "You just could not beat them," he said.

Wally harvested ice in the winter to stock the town's ice house, and every second day in the summer he had to replace the ice in the family's icebox. He explains how every town had livery barns. An out-of-town visitor who arrived by train would immediately make arrangement with the livery barn to take him to some other town and back again so he could take the train home. Wally's two brothers (Robert A. Weidner and Herbert Weidner) were drafted into World War I in 1917.

Finally, since George A. Weidner ran a general merchandise store in Regal, Minnesota, Wally gives a colorful description of grocery shopping long before the invention of pre-package foods:

"My father ran a general merchandise store which sold groceries, shoes, and dry goods by the yard. In the early (18)90’s, the stores had no canned goods at all. All groceries came in bulk, boxes or barrels. Apples came in wooden barrels about the size of a 50 gallon barrel. Anyone with a fair sized family would buy a whole barrel at a time. Fruit came in 25 pound boxes—like prunes, apricots, peaches, etc. They were then taken home and cooked. Also herring came in kegs, crackers and cookies were sold by the bulk, as there was no such thing as a package of cookies or crackers in those days. Peanut butter, prunes, raisins, etc. were sold by the bulk. We sold a lot of herring and smoked fish especially during the Lenten season.

"While in Regal we always opened the store at 7:00 in the morning and closed at 6:00 in the evening, so it meant eleven hours a day. Many customers would come after supper for some part or for some reason so it meant that sometimes I would not get home until 9:00 or 10:00 at night.

"For our store, we always bought salt in carload lots. We would get it in 100 pound bags or barrels. We usually split the boxcar with the Lake Henry store…but it was always shipped to Regal. A lot of salt was used at this time. There were no meat markets and all the farmers butchered their own cows and hogs. They would have to smoke or salt the meat. It seems every farmer had a smoke house…which they used in order to smoke their meat which prevented it from spoiling.

"When my folks came to Minnesota, there were no creameries around, so they had to make their own butter. They would skin the cream off of the milk and then churn the cream until they had butter. Butter was very cheap at that time. My father once told me he took a jar of butter to St. Cloud to trade or sell, but all the stores had more butter than they could use. He then took the butter to one of his relatives, the Hennemanns’ or Moos’ and gave it to them, but asked if he could have his jar back.

"The store and our home burned on March 27, 1914. It was a big loss as we ran a general merchandise country store and we stocked every thing like groceries , dry goods, yard goods (those days everybody had sewing machines and did a lot of sewing), shoes, overalls, clothing, rubbers, hardware, drugs, etc.

"Everything burned, scales, etc.—it was a total loss. We had a post office in the store—all the stamps, cash in the P.O. and everything in the store burned. Also all our personal clothing, beds, furniture in the house was a total loss. We had just bought four new suits for myself and my three brothers—we had not even worn them yet. The only clothes we had left were the clothes on our backs. My mother and brother, Philip, were in Lake Henry to church that morning which was on Friday during lent and were not home at the time. We had a lady sewing for us at the time and the only thing she got out of the house was a butter churn. We only had $2500 insurance value on the whole thing—building and stocks.

"What started the fire was my father had a bloodhound dog which he got from the St. Cloud Reformatory. In those days, all prisons used bloodhounds to find some prisoners who escaped. A man walked into the post office proper. He had no business in the office. When he did that, the dog jumped up between my father and a small oil heater. By doing this, the dog dipped over the stove and in a few minutes, all the papers etc in the post office were all in flames. Immediately, the fire busted out the windows and the wind was from the east that morning. In a few minutes, the whole thing was in flames.

"In our house, we had a big glass jar in which we kept pennies. They were all burned into a cluster and after the fire; we took them to a bank and got reimbursed for most of them. We found some silver dollars, half-dollars, quarters, etc. later on in the remains.

"Two days after the fire was Sunday and we all went to church in our overalls. This fire was something we will never forget.

"The neighbors and some farmers came in and worked hard to keep the buildings close by from burning. The house north of the store was the home in which Billy & Rosina Nichol were born. The gable of this house was partly burned, but by a bucket brigade, they extinguished the flames and also I have a picture showing what part of this house burned. Some relatives and neighbors brought some bed clothes and couple of stoves so we all slept on the floor in a building across the street that one time was our store. It was a two story building and we lived in the upstairs and used the first floor for a store until we had built a new store and house that summer.

"That summer after the fire, we lived upstairs in the warehouse across the street. It seemed that nearly every night, our folks would make us get up and get out of the building cuz of storms—which was pretty hard after working hard all day. My mother would always burn some palms. We had a next door neighbor, Joe Horcher who was a bachelor. He was a good weather forecaster…or expert. I can remember when our folks had us get up and out of the building, seeing Joe Horcher standing in the middle of the street looking at the sky. We wouldn’t go back to bed until Joe said everything was OK again and safe now.

"When we built the new store in Regal, we hired the Zirbes brothers from Lake Henry. This was the father and 3 sons—they were carpenters…and they worked all summer. They liked fish so much. The brought a fishnet along and we put the net down in the Crow River every night about 10 o’clock and take it up about 4:30 a.m. every morning.

"That summer we had fish about all summer. Those boys could eat fish every day—5 times (a) day for all summer. They ate 2 meals at our house every day—dinner and supper. I surely got fed up on fish. We were lucky that we never got caught by the game warden. The father of those Zirbes boys was very slow. In fact, he looked too slow to stop quickly. He built the chimney for our store. He started in the basement and went up to the roof. This took him exactly a week. We boys carried the bricks and mortar for him.

"Every spring we would go fishing in the Crow River in a boat. We had an open torch on the boat and went spear fishing. We traveled maybe 8 to 10 miles in one night—this was good sport. We never got caught by the game warden though. I knew 3 other men who went fishing in the Sauk River near Spring Hill. They took a net along and went early in the morning. They were from Belgrade. They had just taken the net out of the car and were looking around wondering where to set it—and there was the game warden. He ordered them to appear in court in Belgrade the next day. The judge ordered them to pay $115.00 a piece. This was a very heavy fine—as at this time, hogs were selling from 3-5 cents/lbs. It would have been much cheaper to buy the meat than try to get the fish. Two of these men were cheaper to buy the meat than try to get the fish. Two of these men were farmers and one was the hired man. The hired man at this time was making only $15-20/month. So you can understand that this was a very heavy fine.

"I remember another young man who lived just 8 miles north of Regal, who went down to the river around noon with his gun. While down there, he didn’t see any ducks, but he did take a shot at a shy poke (sp), but he didn’t get the bird. So he went home. When driving into his home, he was followed by the game warden—who asked him if he got anything. The man said, “No, but I took a shot at a sky poke.” The game warden said. “Well, you appear in Sauk Centre Court tomorrow.” The young man was only 15 years old and went to court with his father. The judge fined him $115.00. This was in 1934 and this farmer didn’t have a crop for 2 years, and he was only a renter. So, the fine hit him pretty hard. The banker at Belgrade, the next day, called the judge and asked him if he wouldn’t reduce the fine as this farmer was very poor. However, the judge told Mr. Borgerding, the banker, that if the farmer, Mr. Weiner, wasn’t satisfied, he would fine him more yet. So you see, this was a hard-boiled judge. I talked to a lawyer in Paynesville a few days later and told him about this Weiner case and he asked why to Weiner boy didn’t plead not guilty as you can’t convict a person without evidence…and they didn’t have the evidence there.

"The Gelding store in Lake Henry was very progressive. Their customers were very good farmers and they were our biggest competitors, but they were very good competitors. After our store burned down, one afternoon they sent over 4 carpenters to help us rebuild, and they paid for these 4 carpenters for the day. This was very nice of them."

According to Ron Drevlow, in the Brief History of Out West Central Towns, Friday, March 19, 1976, "Among the early settlers in the area, George and Eva Weidner had a significant impact on the new community. The Weidners came to Minnesota from Illinois in 1887. They farmed until 1898 when they moved to Lintonville to operate a general store. In the following years they also opened a lumber yard, coal sheds, implement shop and cream station. Their sons later took over the operation of the businesses."

The area of Lintonville later became Regal. According to Ron Drevlow, "When the Soo Line railroad was built through Roseville Township in 1886, a station was established and the name Linton was chosen in honor of a contractor who helped build the line.

"It was some time before area residents learned that another community in Minnesota bore the same name. To avoid a complete change, residents added a suffix to the name to get Lintonville. But later the post office objected. There were too many towns ending with 'ville.'

"The local postmaster, George Weidner, suggested several names to the post office but these were all rejected. Then a local farmer who had just purchased a Model T came up with the suggestion that the town be named Ford.

"Weidner decided that if the town was going to be named after a car, his own model should be included in the selection, so he proposed the name Regal. To be fair he included a third car of the day, Harvard, and then sent the three names off to the post office.

"Someone in the post department must have liked the Regal, and in 1915 the town got its new name."

George A. Weidner died on January 9, 1924 at Ancker Hospital, St. Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota at age 67 of a fracture to left frontal temporal sheroid bones, with subdaral and sub arachnoid hemorrhage due to auto accident.

According to Walter Weidner, George A. Weidner's son, "He (George A. Weidner) was killed on University Avenue in St. Paul, on January 9, 1924, while stepping off a streetcar. It was snowing very hard and a laundry truck came along and hit him. He died shortly after in a hospital in St. Paul. He was 60 years old. The truck that hit him was owned by a Laundry Co who had no insurance.

"At the time of his death, my father ran the lumberyard, general merchandise store, and post office. After he passed away, I took on the lumber yard, and farm implements. Robert operated the general merchandise store; Harry took over the coal yards, operated a restaurant and bar, and did a little farming on the side.

"I can truthfully say that my father was an outstanding father. We thought the world of him and did everything he asked us to do and he never laid a hand on us or scolded us. Also, he never lost his temper. In business, some customers were very unreasonable, but he was very cool, and as I mentioned before, he never lost his head or temper. He never had to tell us boy to do something twice as we always obeyed him. He was always very reasonable.

"In regard to my father, I have often said that we had the best father in the world. We were lucky to have a father like that."

According to the Paynesville press, "George A. Weidner was born at Buffalo Grove, Ill on March 31, 1856, and died on January 9, 1924. He came to Minnesota about 35 years ago and took a homestead in Lake Henry Township. Previously to his coming to this state, he married Eva Nickol.

"Mr. Weidner moved to Regal about 20 years ago and was engaged in business there up to the time of his death. During this time, he was also postmaster of Regal.

"Last week he went to St. Paul to attend a meeting of the Twin City Wholesale Grocery Co of which organization he was a stockholder. He was struck by a truck as he stepped from a street car on University Avenue and LaSalle St at 8:15 Wednesday morning and received injuries which caused his death about 2 hrs later.

"The funeral was held at St. Margaret’s church at Lake Henry last Saturday and burial took place in the church cemetery.

"Mr. Weidner was one of the leading men of his community and he always took an active part in all affairs for the betterment of his locality. He was one of the organizers of the Regal creamery and was a member of the building committee for the new Lake Henry Church.

"He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Eva Weidner, four sons, Philip, Robert, Harry, and Wallie, and adopted daughter, Mrs. Frank Breitbach, three brothers, Jake, Andrew, and John, and two sisters: Barbara and Mary Weidner.

"Mr. Weidner was a man who was well liked by all who knew him and his spirit of helpfulness made him an outstanding citizen of his community."

More About George A. Weidner:
Date born 2: Illinois.⁹⁰
Date born 3: Illinois.⁹⁰
Date born 4: 1855, Illinois.⁹¹
Date born 5: 1856, Illinois.⁹²
Date born 6: March 31, 1856⁹³
Burial: January 10, 1924, Regal, Kandiyohi County, MN.
Died 2: RAMSEY.⁹⁴
Died 3: 1924⁹⁵
Residence 1: 1880, Wheeling, Cook, Illinois.^{96, 96}
Residence 2: 1870, Vernon, Lake, Illinois.⁹⁷
Residence 3: 1910, Roseville Twp, Kandiyohi, Minnesota.⁹⁸

More About George A. Weidner and Eva Nickol:
Marriage: October 02, 1883, St Mary's Catholic Church, Buffalo Grove, Lake Country, IL.

Children of George A. Weidner and Eva Nickol are:

Rose Marie Weidner, b. June 11, 1885, Illinois, USA, d. December 25, 1892.
Alexander Weidner, b., Illinois, USA, d. date unknown.
Clara Weidner, b., Illinois, USA, d. date unknown.
Philip John Weidner, d. date unknown, Stearns, MN, USA⁹⁹.
+Robert Andrew Weidner, b. June 09, 1894, Lake Henry, MN^{100, 100}, d. September 09, 1967, St. Cloud, Stearns, MN, USA^{100, 100}.
Herbert Weidner, b. March 15, 1896¹⁰¹, d. May 1975, Cold Spring, Stearns, Minnesota, United States of America¹⁰¹.
Walter Weidner, b. 1899, Minnesota¹⁰², d. January 27, 1993, Saint Cloud, Stearns, Minnesota, United States of America¹⁰³.
Nellie Underwood Weidner, b., New York, USA, d. June 20, 1986, Sauk Center, MN.