Leisz immigration in 1893

With the close of the American Civil War and the Industrial Revolution of the 1880s and 1890s, the "Land of Opportunity" attracted a vast number of immigrants. Most of our Leisz ancestors came to America as part of this influx of people. 

THE POLITICAL SITUATION in Europe in the mid-19th Century included the unification and rise of Germany, and destabilization of the Austro-Hungarian empire. This dictated that the major powers maintain a standing army, leading to mandatory service for all young men over the age of 17. As a result, four of the Leisz Brothers served their four years in the military service of Emperor Franz Josef. 

Their mother Anna Maria "Mary" Schmidt Leisz (1840-1918) and her husband Leopold Leisz (1835-1893) didn't want to see their youngest sons Anton (b. 1880) and Michael (b. 1882) serve in the emperor's army. They also saw "the writing on the wall" for their grandsons. Recalls Tony Minnichsoffer, great-grandson of Mary Leisz Minnichsoffer:

"My grandpa (Joseph Frank Minnichsoffer (1889-1968) was born in Peregu Mare (in what is today Arad, Romania, where the Leisz family lived before they immigrated). He told me he remembered being a young boy of about 7 years old, and the village magistrates were encouraging male children to play with toy wooden guns. His own grandma (Mary Schmidt Leisz) saw this and realized that not only her sons would be drafted, but her grandsons as well."

ALSO ETHNIC ISSUES  might have influenced the family's decision to immigrate to America.  The imperial power of German-speakers who controlled the Austrian half of Austro-Hungarian Empire was resented by other ethnicities—including Hungarians, Czechs, Croatians, Serbians, Poles and Italians. Magyarization, after "Magyar"—the autonym of Hungarians—was an assimilation or acculturation process by which non-Hungarian nationals came to adopt the Hungarian culture and language, either voluntarily or due to social pressure, often in the form of a coercive policy.

ANOTHER FACTOR that might have impacted their decision to immigrate was the Panic of 1873, a financial crisis that triggered a depression in Europe and North America lasting from 1873-1897, and longer in some countries. The first symptoms were financial failures in the Austro-Hungarian capital, Vienna, near where the Leisz family lived at the time. 

The Leisz family departed from the port of Bremen in Germany on the Darmstadt Built by Fairfield & Co., Glasgow in 1890, for Norddeutscher Lloyd (North German Lloyd). She was a 5012 gross ton vessel, length 415 ft x beam 48 feet, one funnel, two masts, steel construction, single screw and a speed of 13 knots. 

There was accommodation for 49 first class passengers, 38 second class and 1,904 third class. Launched on September 27, 1890, she sailed from Bremen on her maiden voyage to Montevideo and Buenos Aires on October 3, 1891 and commenced her first voyage from Bremen to New York on August 3, 1892. 

Widowed mother Mary was 52 years old. Eldest son John was 32, and his wife Agnes was 27. She was very pregnant with son Joseph, and gave birth at sea. They also brought with them two daughters—Julia, 5, and Mary, nearly 3 years old. 

Leisz Brothers Joseph was 25 and single, Frank was 18 and single, Anton was 13 and Michael 11. Siblings Leopold and Mary, plus their spouses and children, stayed behind in Europe; the reason for this is uncertain. Mary and her family immigrated to the United States through Quebec in 1900, and Leopold and his family immigrated in 1902. It was then that the entire Leisz family from Peregu Mare was reunited in America.

Brother Leopold's in-laws were living in the Chicago area. Deciding to use these contacts, the Leisz men found work on the boats, unloading grain using nothing more than a shovel and wheel barrow. The pay was $1 per day for 10 hours of work. The immigrants, in this sense, had to contend with their own "slave labor."

During this time, the lumber companies had cleared much of the forests covering the northern part of Wisconsin, and in turn were selling off the land. They advertised these land sales in the Chicago papers—$10 an acre! Using money they had saved, the Leisz Brothers and their mother Anna Maria each bought 80 acres. Clearing the land of stumps was tedious, but yielded relatively good farmland. Each year a little more land was cleared, and a few more crops planted. 

READ KAREN LEISZ CRANDALL'S FULL HISTORY WHICH SHE WROTE IN 1983. KAREN IS GRANDDAUGHTER OF LEISZ BROTHER JOSEPH, ONE OF 9 CHILDREN OF HIS SON JOSEPH FRANCIS LEISZ AND WIFE JEAN BUCHHOLZ LEISZ. KAREN WAS BORN IN 1950 AND LIVES IN CLEVELAND.