SEE TURTLE LAKE TIMES STORY BELOW

Marilyn Westfall Aerni  (1932-2008), eldest child of  Leisz Brother Joseph's daughter Lucy Leisz Westfall (1907-19730, wrote about what Joseph's wife, her Grandma Louisa Haspray Leisz, told her before her death in 1956 about losing two children in one night on Feb. 2, 1918: 

"At 75 years of age, my grandmother relived her seventh pregnancy...Her second boy (Franky) was born healthy and happy. This child was an immediate joy to the whole family. He was a real performer, marching and dancing on request of the family as they gathered around in the evenings. He was the TV entertainer. 

Tears filled her eyes recalling these happy scenes of family togetherness. 'When I loved him the most, God took him from me!' ...

My grandmother and her family lived in Wisconsin on a dairy farm. They were not near doctors or a hospital. This winter, as she recalled, was very cold and the children got diphtheria. All seemed to be recovering except Franky, her five-year old son, who was very weak. Grandma nursed him as best she could, but when the doctor was finally brought to the house, the little boy was too far gone to recover. 

Everyone was praying around his bed when he died. There was great sorrow, for he was the beloved performer of everyone. 

The picture of Our Lord that was hanging in the bedroom suddenly fell off the wall, and with that happening, the family looked around the room and realized that the second youngest child, Tracie, a little girl of nine, was missing. 

They found her laying on her bed, dead. The illness and death of her little brother proved too much for her heart, weakened from the diphtheria.

My grandmother and grandfather lost two children on one night."

- From the 2014 book God's Sensuous Woman by Marilyn J. Westfall Aerni, granddaughter of Joseph and Louisa Leisz 

After Franky and Tracie died, Louisa persuaded her husband Joseph to sell his farm, leave his brothers and their families in Wisconsin, and move to a larger city. Her sisters were in Cleveland, Ohio and there would be doctors and a hospital in the city. 

Joseph and Louisa's youngest child Jackie was born in Cleveland.

Until Joseph Leisz died in 1942, his family traveled from Cleveland to Turtle Lake to visit their many uncles, aunts and dozens of cousins.