IF THE NAME'S THE SAME, WE MUST BE RELATED

I have used some genealogical findings of Jeffrey Keller and Martha Anderson in what follows. They are not responsible, however, for how I use them

There was a time when I thought I had a pretty good fix on the genealogy of Frank Joseph and Eugenia Antoinette Remillard Robischon, and their Kalispell 711 Seven. (711 was the Kalispell, Mont. home at: 711 3rd. Ave. E.) And then I heard from Sara Robischon in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

She'd come across my name while searching the Net. Might we be related? Turned out we are; and so, too, are all the rest of you 711 Seven offspring. She could count up to 18 R's living in the Minnesota area Frank and Genie were from--and that was ten years ago.

Her heritage goes back to the same man as the 711 Seven's: Mathias Robischon, my Dad's father. Her wing of the family is a descendant of Mathias's first marriage--to Marie Castenholtz in 1875--while we 711 Seven are descendants of his second marriage--to Gertrude Hriber in 1884.

So Dad had a ("full") brother and sister, Michael and Mary, and two half-brothers, Peter and John. But, as apparently often
happens with half-siblings, there was little contact between the two groups of children and their offspring.

"It's so weird to know now that I have other relatives out there that I have never even really heard of or even met," Sara commented following her discovery that we were related. "Funny how life is sometimes."

Someone out there reading this right now may experience a similar feeling as I tell you about relatives you never knew you had.
Like Mary Robischon Ventura and the New York State Robischons.

I'd become hooked on Robischon genealogy, like a user searching for a fix, and was poking around the Net to see if there might be other R's when I came across Mary Ventura, who at the time lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She happened to be looking for information on a Peter Robischon, and I wondered, 'Çould she perhaps have any Robischons in her genealogical tree?'

She sure did! She proceeded to provide me with 13 pages of Robi's, most from the Eifel area of the Prussian Rheinland of Germany, bordering Luxembourg and Belgium. With her help I was able to trace the Eifel Robischons back to 1743. But the name appears as early as the 13th century in France, where it was spelled, "Robichonet," or "little Robert." So contrary to what my father thought, and took pride in--i.e., that we all originated in Prussian Germany--we may well have gotten started in France. Sacre bleu!

The Eifel region, with its rich ore deposits, attracted many people from France looking for work. But by the mid-1800s it had become known as the Poorhouse of Prussia. And many Germans had begun migrating in search of work.

"I think all the Robischons are related somehow," Mary Ventura wrote. And with her help, I concluded that our common ancestor was a Peter Robischon, born about 1768. But until I contacted her, she knew nothing about the Minnesota Robischons.

Though I discovered a man in the Utica area named Robischon back in the late 50s--who in a photo he sent me looked so much like Dad--I knew nothing more about Mary Ventura's relatives. They first appeared in the U.S. in the 1880's, when almost one and a half million Germans emigrated to the U.S. Among them were nine Robischon children and their parents, and they were from the same Eifel region that Mathias Robischons was from.

I am not sure why they chose to settle in upstate New York. By the 1800s, the north-central states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan were the principal settlement area for Germans.

So that makes three branches of the Robischon tree: One grown from New York, and two from Minnesota. But there's one more branch you should know about. They live today in Germany; two of them I am in touch with: Fritz and Rolf Robischon, the latter a teacher in a Progressive public primary school, and a cartoonist.

There are others; some with the name that Rolf and his brother are unable to connect with genealogically. Rolf told me about a Christian Robischon, son of a Joseph Robischon, living in Strasbourg, who Rolf says is not related. But how can anyone have the name and not be?

If you are in need of a genealogical fix, Google the Robischon name and your plate will runneth over. But beware: keepers of records can be capricious. You're apt to encounter Rubischons, Rubitschones, Rohenschons, Rubatschems, Robenschons, Robinschons, Robichons, and a quixotic Roberchon de la Guerinier (in France). (Reminds me of how often the name is mis-pronounced.)

For an even more quixotic version there's Robidouche, the name given me by my buddies on the U.S.S. William P. Biddle, the ship I bled and died for my country on during World War II.

A recent book by Alexander Roth--Unterwegs in der eisernen Welt (which I feebly translate as having something to do with iron workers)--has 13 spellings. They range from Roichon and Robischon, to Rubitschung and Rudischum.

Grossvater Mathias Robischon, 24, arrived in the U.S. on September 10, 1868, accompanied by his cousin Johann and wife, and his mother Wilhelmia (his father had died). It was during the time when Minnesota's foreign-born population nearly tripled, as a result of aggressive recruiting by, inter alia, railroad companies and civic boosters. They were publishing books and pamphlets extolling Minnesota's virtues.

Like many other German Catholic immigrants the Mathias entourage settled in Minnesota, first in Minneapolis. In 1877 Mathias and Marie moved to St. Cloud (I've not been able to find a record of what became of his cousin and mother). Mathias went into the soda pop business--Robischon And Thelen Bottlers--which eventually was taken over by Peter.

One thing my father revealed about himself--you will see how seldom he did that--was the pride he took in his Prussian roots. He would praise its values and ideals, and its highly vaunted military discipline. He not only approved of “German discipline” and “German efficiency,” he walked his talk, embodying it in his own life.

But I am not at all sure he included his father in those positive feelings, and a big reason might have been the way Mathias treated his children. Dad told how his father would get his kids out of bed at five in the morning, whether it was needed or not, and wouldn’t allow them to put sugar on their breakfast food. What I know about him, he doesn't strike me as a father his children could easily relate to.

My father reflected some of that sort of thing with his own children. He didn’t prevent his children from putting sugar on their breakfast food, as Grossvater Mathias had; nor did he roust them out of bed when nothing required it. But while he allowed us to sleep longer than his own father had, there was no shilly-shallying about getting out of bed and into your clothes in the morning. (How amazed--and envious--was I when I found my chum Bobby Evans still in his pajamas when I went to see his Christmas presents one morning.) To this day, I do not feel comfortable if I stay in my bedclothes.

I also find it worth pointing out that while there was a Franz and a Gertrude among my sibs, there was no one named Mathias.

My father was never as sure about his mother Gertrude Hreber's origins as he was about his father’s. She was born in 1849 in Gorga (Gorje) in northwestern Slovenia, at that time part of Austria and now part of Serbia. She came to this country in 1874 on the U.S.S. America with her parents, Appolonia and Simon, and her brother Franz. They settled on a farm 20 miles east of Sauk Centre.

When Uncle Mike told Dad their mother was from Slovenia, he adamantly refused to believe it. Slav blood in his Prussian gene pool? Mein gott in Himmel! Dad went into near-terminal denial. Eventually, after a good deal of convincing by Uncle Mike, my father accepted the Croation in his family background. But I don't think he fully shook the stigma in his own mind. He died without knowing about the French origin of the family name.

I do not find it difficult to imagine that Mathias might have harbored some Volkisch repulsion for Gertrude’s Slovenian background. Her father was a poor Bohunk farmer who couldn’t speak English, in contrast to Mathias’s status as a successful businessman.

But, though they lived only 15 miles away, little is known about the Hreber family. And I never could find out how it was that Mathias Robischon hooked up with Gertrude. Neither of my parents, for that matter, could come up with much information about the families of their parents and grandparents. Such knowledge may not have been considered important enough to bother about.

Or was it part of the efforts by immigrants to separate themselves from their past, and avoid the xenophobia that still bubbles in the great American Melting Pot?

NEXT: Eugenia Antoinette Remillard adds a new mixture to the blood of the 711 Seven.