Family of Leisz Brother Leopold

It was Saturday, September 8, 1951 and a storm was threatening. Marlyn Meyer wanted to go to the movie theater in Turtle Lake to see a film. And the way he would get there would be to pedal the distance on his bicycle. 

Marlyn was to have visited his older sister Roberta Meyer in St. Paul, where she worked at Montgomery Ward and was starting her junior year at St. Catherine's College. She was going to take her kid brother Marlyn to the circus in St. Paul. Both were the children of AnnaMarie Leisz Meyer, the eldest daughter of Leisz Brother Leopold and wife Anna Szupparits Leisz.

"He had done something which annoyed my mother and she said he couldn't go to the circus," recalled Bobbi in a May 11, 2012 document, supplied by her daughter AnnaMarie Lombardino Melchreit. "I imagine my mother felt a little guilty for not letting him go to the circus, so she said he could go to the movies."

Marlyn stopped at the nearby farm of Frank and Frances Merth to see if their son Tom would come with him. The weather was threatening, and Frances wouldn't let Tom go, so Marlyn went alone. 

After the movie was over, it was raining and so Marlyn phoned home to ask if someone could come into town and drive him home. Marlyn was told to get himself home the same way he got to town - on his bicycle. 

Marlyn set out for home on his bicycle, and was riding on County Road K. At the same time, driving toward his rural home was a man named Raymond Pabst, who encountered a car coming in the opposite direction. "Raymond probably couldn't see Marlyn because of the oncoming car's lights and I suppose Marlyn didn't realize there was a car coming behind him," said Bobbi.

"Raymond hit Marlyn, threw him onto the oncoming car, and, I suppose, injured him badly enough so that he died...My dad was called on the telephone and went to wherever they had taken Marlyn's body. I heard him say that he knew Marlyn was dead as soon as he saw him."

Marlyn was the third-born and youngest child of  AnnaMarie Leisz Meyer and husband Edward. He was born on November 3, 1940, and had two older sisters: Delores "Lori" Maxzine Meyer Sneva (1929-2001) and Roberta "Bobbi" Ann Meyer Lombardino (1932-2018). 

The Edward and Anna Meyer family lived on the Leopold Leisz farm outside of Turtle Lake, right next door to the farm formerly occupied by Leisz Brother Joseph until he and his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio in November 1919. In the mid-1940s the Joseph Leisz farm was bought by Frank and Frances Merth, and it remains in their family today, in 2019. 

"Since Marlyn didn't come to St. Paul to go to the circus, I agreed to accept a babysitting job that evening. At about 11:30 pm or so I received a call from my Aunt Louise (my mother's sister whom I lived with in St. Paul while going to school). She asked me if I would be coming home soon. She told me something bad has happened in my family in Turtle Lake. I told her I'd call the family I was sitting for, which I did. 

They came home immediately and the husband drove me home. I remember when he handed me my money for my babysitting services, he said, "Your fingers are ice cold." I said, "I guess I'm nervous." 

When I got into the house, my Aunt Louise said, "Marlyn is dead." I was shocked beyond belief. Aunt Louise didn't have a lot of details to tell me, but we packed a few articles of clothing and drove out to Turtle Lake immediately. I don't have much memory of the next few days after all these years." 

Marlyn was waked at home and there were many relatives, friends and neighbors who visited. "I remember my mother cooking a lot of food to serve the guests, and I marveled how she could work so hard with the grief she must have felt in her heart. Though I know my parents were both heartbroken, I don't remember either of them openly crying. Both my parents were pretty stoic human beings and did not express their feelings easily."

Bobbi adds, "I am a religious person, and I believe in a life after this one. I'm sure Marlyn is with the Lord, and I pray for him every day. His death was one of the saddest events I have ever had to endure. I was so careful with my own children (and grandchildren) because I never wanted to repeat this experience."

Larry Leisz (shown at left during the 2018 Leisz Family Reunion in Turtle Lake) is the great-grandson of Leisz Brother Leopold (1863-1925). 

Larry's father was Alfred Joseph Leisz (1920-2000), the eldest of four sons of Leopold Leisz Jr. (1897-1976). And Leopold Jr. was the eldest child of Leisz Brother Leopold, who, with wife Anna Szupparits (1872-1934), had four children who died in infancy or early childhood before their fifth child Leopold Jr. lived to adulthood. 

Larry's dad Alfred was just 12 years old when his mother, Cecelia Bauer Leisz, died at age 34 in 1932. Her cause of death was from a cerebral embolism and acute endocarditis, as is listed in Cecelia's death certificate at the Barron County, Wis. courthouse and located by Leopold descendant Roberta Meyer Lombardino. According to Larry, Cecelia had been sickly and was on bed rest for a time preceding her death. 

After Cecelia passed away, her eldest son Alfred went to live in Chicago with Leisz relatives. Alfred ended up remaining in Chicago, married and raised four children (Donna, Alfreda, Larry and Dennis) there with wife Eleanor Wronski Leisz (1924-2013). Alfred worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, then went on to work for the railroad, and drove a bus for a time. He was in the U.S. Navy for 8 years, serving during World War II on land ship transport ships, and made numerous crossings of the English Channel. 

Alfred joined the Chicago Police force in 1955, where he remained for the rest of his career. This is how Donna Leisz Draeger (b. 1947), Alfreda Leisz Baran (b. 1951), Larry Leisz (b. 1958) and Dennis Leisz (b. 1962) ended up in Chicago instead of Turtle Lake!

Leopold Leisz Jr. was born in 1897 in what is today Romania. He accompanied his parents and younger siblings Andrew and AnnaMarie Leisz Meyer (who was just two months old) to the U.S. in 1902. When Leopold Jr. was widowed in 1932, the Great Depression was taking its toll, and Leopold lost the family farm. It was then that he moved to Billings, MT, where his first cousins (his Uncle John Leisz's daughters) had taken up residence. There he worked on area farms in good weather, and during winter Leopold returned to Wisconsin where he stayed with sons Floyd and Alfred until spring returned, and he then went back to Billings.

Larry remembers his grandpa Leopold Jr. living with his family in the 1970s during the last few years of Leopold's life. "He was quiet," recalls Larry. "He had worked a lot of his life on farms. I still have a quarter that has his birthdate (April 12, 1897) on it, this belonged to my grandpa."

Larry Leisz resides in San Clemente with his wife Jennifer and son Joe; he's lived in California for 35 years, moving there when his wife got a job transfer. He and Joe are successful and award-winning San Clemente realtors for Century 21.

Larry remembers visiting his Leisz relatives in Turtle Lake during the 1960s. "We'd go visit John (John Franklin Leisz (1895-1977), son of Leisz Brother John), and his wife Stella. John was my dad's godfather. One time, I saw all these kids digging a big hole, they were grandkids of John and Stella Leisz. I asked them what they were doing, and they said they were digging a new outhouse!" These were among the nine children of John and Stella's son Vernon Leisz (1926-1982) and his wife Dorothy "Dotz" Blechinger Leisz; Dotz just passed away on April 19, 2019—on Good Friday, about noon. See her obituary HERE. Larry adds that in the 1960s, the Vernon and Dotz Leisz family also had a kitchen sink with a water well pump handle—real country living for someone like Larry and his siblings from the big city of Chicago!

Larry Leisz was happy when he and his sisters Donna and Alfreda found the gravestone of his uncle, Joseph Leisz, who died in 1924 when he was only one day old. Baby Joseph's headstone is at St. Ann's Cemetery in Turtle Lake, but it is obscured by pine trees that have grown up around it over the past 100 years. When Larry was in Turtle Lake for the Leisz Family Reunion in September 2018, he spoke with the cemetery caretaker about having Baby Joseph's headstone moved so it would be closer to other Leisz relatives. 

Their four firstborn children died in infancy or early childhood before their fifth child lived to adulthood. 

Leisz Brother Leopold and wife Anna Szupparits were married Nov. 16, 1890 in Peregu Mare, Arad, Romania. Leopold was 27 and Anna was 18. 

>> In 1892 Anna gave birth to the couple's first child, János; on March 14, 1893 János died from diphtheria. (Meanwhile, that same year, sisters-in-law Mary had given birth to daughter Katie on Jan 13, 1893. And Agnes, John's wife, had given birth to son Joseph on May 5, 1893.)

>> In 1893 Anna gave birth to a second son József; on April 3, 1894 he too had died. (Mary gave birth on August 13, 1894 to daughter Mary.)

>> Lajos, born abt. 1894, died Dec. 18, 1897. (Agnes gave birth to Anna on March 17, 1897, and Mary had given birth to Tracy on April 12, 1897.)

>> Then, just six months later, firstborn daughter Julianna, born abt. 1893, died on June 13, 1898. 

All the above children were born and died in Peregu Mare, Arad, Romania, before the Leopold Leisz family immigrated to the United States in 1902. 

>> Son Edward was born April 22, 1910 and was dead 7 days later from colic and diarrhea. (Michael's wife Rosalia gave birth to firstborn child Edward on January 5, 1910. Anton's wife Sophia gave birth to son Hank on June 19, 1910. And Joseph's wife Louisa had son Joseph Francis on Nov. 30, 1910. It must have been awfully hard for Leopold and Anna to see family members having and raising healthy babies, while theirs were dying in infancy.)

>> The very next year August was born and died that same year on June 30, 1911 from convulsions. (Michael's wife Rosalia gave birth to firstborn daughter Elizabeth Rosalia on Sep. 20, 1911.)

>> Then in 1918 son Lewie, the apple of his father's eye, died at age 18. 

The above doesn't consider miscarriages that Anna and her sisters-in-law might have experienced over their childbearing years as well.

"In the period of 1870-1900 approximately, the village of Peregu Mare was stricken by different lethal illnesses...malaria, dysentery, scarlet fever—and many people died from these, especially children," says Gigi Sitaru, a Romanian tour guide who helped Roberta Meyer Lombardino, granddaughter of Leopold and Anna, and her husband Joseph tour the area where our ancestors were from in 2001. Read Gigi's 2002 email  to Roberta here.

Want to learn more about infant mortality at the turn of the 20th Century? Check out this information from the Public Broadcasting System.

PHOTO ABOVE: Leopold Leisz Family, 1909, Turtle Lake. Back: Louise (b. 1905), Leo (b. 1897), patriarch Leopold (1863-1925), Tony (b. 1904), matriarch Anna Szupparits (1872-1934), Andy (b. 1898). Front Lewie (b. 1900), Mary Ethel (b. 1907), AnnaMarie (b. 1902), and Katie Marie (b. 1908) Son Fred will be born in 1913.

A few weeks ago Lavon Leisz Westfall shared some fun stories with us. 

Lavon, along with her first cousin Don Fritch, are the only living grandchildren of Leisz Brother Leopold (1863-1925). Don's mom Mary Ethel Leisz Fritch (1907-1998), and Lavon's father, Frederick Sylvester Leisz (1913-1985), are siblings. 

Her stories centered on her dear Aunt Louise Leisz, married twice but never having any children.  

WATCH FOR CONTENT COMING SOON OF WHAT LAVON GENEROUSLY SHARED WITH THIS FAMILY HISTORY WEBSITE.