By Tom Zimmer

My grandmother, Antonia (Tonie) Claas was not a remarkable person, at least in my very limited recollection of her. But she left her family with remarkable and treasured records in which the everyday, ordinary and routine observations of the lives of her farm family and community were documented and maintained.

Tonie started writing before her marriage to Harry Claas in 1907, until shortly before her death in 1954. She was disciplined. She captured basic information about the lives, the activities, the work and toil, the weather and the events that took place in and around her home, her family and her community. Her personal daily notes provided a window into the lives of the family from which we are descended.

Several years ago, my cousin and co-author, Mary Jane Peschmann collaborated in producing a collection of stories drawn from our grandmother’s journals. That first book, “Tonie’s Journals – Memories of a Fussville Farm Wife,” was drawn from almost a half century of handwritten journals.

I realized that there were more stories to tell, drawing from more details recorded in the journals. With Mary Jane’s help, I followed that by writing a companion edition entitled “Tonie’s Journals, Armchair Reading – The Early years.”

There were still more stories to tell. I have kept on researching and writing. But rather than going through the expense and logistical headache of another printed edition, I decided that a free blog would be a perfect vehicle to add more stories captured in Tonie’s journals. It takes the place of a published hardcopy. It’s simpler to do it this way, it’s less costly and is an easier way for me to dispense this fascinating content.

In this blog, I open with a chapter entitled “Prologue.” It wasn’t taken from the journals. It is an introductory work that I could have titled an “immigration story.” It’s the story of one branch of our family’s ancestry. We all have several of our own immigration stories, most of which are lost in faded pages and memories. Tonie never captured any of our immigration stories, but I thought it would be a good place to start. But from there, I will concentrate on pulling stories from the journals. I’ll post the first batch and then, once I have this blog thing figured out, I will add to them periodically. I hope you will enjoy these stories.

A couple footnotes–

First, I want to express my gratitude to the staff of the Menomonee Falls Library for their assistance in creating a digitized copy of the journals. They are now available to the general public through their historical resource section.

And second, printed copies of the “Tonie’s Journals” books are still available for purchase. The cost for each is $25, which includes mailing. For information, email me at trzimmer@yahoo.com (847-322-6013) or email Mary Jane Peschmann at mjpeschmann@gmail.com (262-237-0572).

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