8-20-2023 Introduction to Door County, WI

Whether or not this trip were t-log-worthy was hotly debated between Lindy and myself.  Stories and pictures involve time, concentration and the hauling of a lot of equipment on the airplane.  In the end, the t-logs won and here we are.

 

A few decades back, my cousin Kevin became interested in documenting the family history on the Kraus side.  He was able to trace our beginnings back to the country of Luxembourg and my Great Great Great Grandparents, Franois Goniva (more on this later) (b. 1776) and Margaret Giersch (b. 1777).  Not much is known of them and of course we don’t have photographs.  However, their son Philip Gonwa, my Great Great Grampa (b. 1802) and his wife Margaret (Bettendorff) Gonwa (b. 1805) and the children immigrated to the USA in 1847.  Their daughter Margaret married the neighbor, George Kraus, who was also from Luxembourg and I guess you could say that’s where the trouble started.  George is my Great Grampa.  The immigrants landed in the Port Washington area of Wisconsin, just north of Milwaukee.  The Gonwa and Kraus families put down roots here and helped to build St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Dacada, WI.  Dacada is so tiny it cannot be found on the WI map however, the 3^rd version of the church still stands on the original grounds and this year, celebrates its 175^th anniversary.

 

Kevin took the opportunity of this grand celebration at the church and on the church grounds to organize a Gonwa-Kraus Reunion at the same place where a picnic is planned, complete with a beer truck, food and an oompah band.  Yup, I can do this.  These are my people.

 

At first blush, Rob was a big, “Nope,” when I asked if he wanted to go with me to celebrate the 175^th anniversary of a Catholic Church and meet some of my shirt-tail relatives that I don’t know.  But when he heard words like, “Beer truck” and “Door County,” it was all about tickets, hotels and packing up. 

 

Above I said, “Goniva (more on that later).”  It seems that the immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island (back in the day when immigrants came here legally) encountered immigration agents who took liberties with the spelling of names based upon pronunciation and heavy accents.  My Grampa Philip had to write his name, as all the immigrants did.  Many did not know how to read or write.  In cursive, an “i” and a “v” written together can look like a “w,” especially if Grampa forgot to dot the “i.”  So, the name had variations:  Goniva, Goneva, Gonvay and Goniwa, to cite a few.  Gonwa is the name that has stuck over the years, decades and indeed, centuries.  And so today, Rob and I together with my brother Bill and his wife Karen, will immerse ourselves in the family history.