By Julie Huebel, Pierce County Historical Association
ELMWOOD, WI – Sometimes you get so incredibly lucky when researching a family. Ever since I started this series, I had my mind set on a particular ‘P’ family and then in the last moment I just swerved to another family. I’m so glad I did, because how often do you encounter a professional genealogist that’s literally written the book on the family you are researching? Again, I have WAY too much information and have to condense it down for this article. So, a big THANK YOU to Brian Podoll for all his help. Yes, that means…P is for Podoll.
I know I’ve commented before on families that have used the same names over and over, but I’m pretty sure the Podolls have them all beat! The whole male part of the tree is pretty much just a bunch of Gustaf/Gustavs, Friedrichs, and John/Johann/Jons!! The first Podoll to settle in the Elmwood area was Gustaf Julius Podoll, Sr. (1847-1934). He was born in 1847 to Johann (1821-1899) and Anna “Karoline” (1824-1908) in Radwonke (now Radwanki) and baptized in county of Kolmar in “Posen, Germany” in an area that was given to Poland in 1920 after WWI as part of the Treaty of Versailles. The Polish name for the town is now Chodzież. Multiple families from this area settled in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
History lesson over, now back to the Podolls…Gustaf, Sr. as a teen, came to the U.S. with his parents and siblings. They sailed on the ship “Stella” in 1865 from the port at Bremen, Germany to New York, where they would have been processed as immigrants at Castle Garden when they arrived on November 10 of that year. With “Wisconsin” listed as their intended destination on their arriving passenger list, they settled in Marquette County, Wisconsin.
He married Justine Krause in 1872, they had four daughters (Hulda, Emma, Ida, and a daughter that died in 1895) and three sons (Carl/Charles, Gustaf Julius Jr., and Richard). Justine died the same year as her young daughter in 1895. Not long after losing his wife, Gustaf Sr. purchased a farm near Hatchville in Spring Lake Township in 1899, he retired from farming in the 1900’s. He died from heart issues at age 86 in 1934 and per his wishes was buried next to his brother, Julius Ferdinand Podoll, in the Hatchville Cemetery.
We will follow the line of Gustaf, Jr. (1883-1956), he was born in Marquette County and moved to this area as a teen. In 1908 Gustaf, Jr. and Emily Wiesenseel (1879-1966) were married in Dodge County, her home county. They had three children: Ervin, Verna, and Levern “Pete” and raised their family in the Elmwood area. Gustaf, Jr. passed away at age 73 in 1956 and Emily ten years later at around age 86-87.
From here, we’ll follow their son, Levern “Pete” Podoll. Pete married Betty Britton in 1950 and they had three children: Kathryn, Beverly, and Bruce. Pete had begun working as an electrician in Elmwood in 1946, his son Bruce still keeps the tradition going, with his own son Jon joining the business for a time.
That was all the generations I was able to find on my own, but luckily, I found that Podoll genealogist I mentioned earlier. He graciously sent me a TON of information going back further with a digital copy of his book on the way in the mail. He had confirmed for me that Johann and Karoline were indeed Gustaf, Sr.’s parents. Johann is buried in Mecan Township, Marquette County, Wisconsin and Karoline is buried in Deerfield, Wisconsin. They had 12 children, of which seven reached adulthood, and six have descendants in Wisconsin.
Johann’s parents were Christian Friedrich (1788-1860) and Hannah “Loisa” Milling (1791-1860), they had married in 1815 in her home village of Neuteich. This Podoll family was residing in the area of Kaza by 1793 per land records that still exist. Prior to that, the ancestral home of the Podolls going back at least 300 years is Alt-Beelitz in Kreis Friedeberg. Brian Podoll shared that Christian’s parents appeared to have been Johann “Friedrich” (b. possibly 1758) and Anna Elizabeth Pickrohr (1755-1842). The family moved from Kaza to Radwonke about 1825. This is where they both died in the same year (Radwonke, the same place his grandson, Gustaf, Sr. was born).
The many branches of this tree that settled in various parts of Wisconsin, all tend to use these same family names that have been handed down from the “old country.” There is a distant relative, Friedrich “Gustav” Podoll, that was a very successful photographer and businessman in Cedarburg, WI (his obituary refers to his “mansion”). Keeping family tradition alive is fantastic, but severely complicating ancestry research is unfortunately a byproduct.
