Notes
(Excerpt from the "Hague Area Book II" By Katie (Glatt) Wald 1989)
Ignatz was the son of Mathias and Francisca (Eberle) Grosz, born in 1859 in the settlement of Georgenthal, Russia, which lies in a beautiful valley emerging from the Baraboi River. This land was bought by about 40 familes in 1857 from a Russian nobleman named Alexander Mitkow at 35 rubles for 2.7 acres. They bought 162 acres. Georgenthal was a daughter village of Mannheim, which was only about three miles away. The nearest city was Odessa, about 20 or 30 miles away.
Ignatz married Clara Buechler, sister to John Buechler. Clara was born in 1870 and died March 24, 1947. Ignatz died September 22, 1943. He was crushed to death by a truck while unloading coal at his home.
Ignatz served six years as a recruiting sergeant in the Russian cavalry. (Start - Added May 2002 by Robert Gross) Ignatz and Clara migrated from Georgenthal, Russia. They departed Bremen, Germany on the ship, Havel and arrived at Ellis Island, New York on May 4, 1893. They migrated with three of their children, Casper, age 4, Barbara, age 3, and Mathias, age 2. - see the Scrapbook for the Manifest Log from the ship, Havel. (End - Added May 2002 by Robert Gross) From New York, they went on to New Orleans and from there to Eureka, SD, which was the end of the railroad line. Ignatz bought a wagon and team of oxen, then headed 50 miles northwest to present day Hague, which was originally called Selz, after a dorf near Strasburg on the Rhine River in Alsace.
They homesteaded about 5 miles west of Hague and 1 mile south of the John Buechler homestead. Clara was the sister to John Buechler. Ignatz sold it to Ludwig Welk (Correction: Joe Welk) in 1929. Later it was the Gabriel Welk farm. He bought the house in Hague about a year or two earlier. This is the present Albert Baumgartner residence, which used to be a stagecoach stop. Delores Gross's father, Joe Marthaler, stayed there when he was 19 years old. He explained how the rooms were laid out in those days and how much it has changed since.
(Submitted by Matt Gross, grandson of Ignatz) Ignatz moved to the house in town when he was 50 years old, but spent most of his time out on the farm, which he rented to his son, Carl. He bought the first new Dodge car in Hague, but when he came home he kept on circling around the well because he didn't know how to stop it. John jumped on the running board and turned off the ignition.
The roads in those days were not graveled and when it rained, they could not get up the hill on Hwy. 11 just west of town. They had to turn around and back the vehicle up in reverse.
Ignatz was almost six feet tall (at least to me) and husky. He always walked erect and was an excellent shot with a double barreled 12 gauge shotgun he brought from Russia.
Comment by Robert Gross, May 2002 - the family of Carl (age 35) and Leopoldina Hoffarth (age 30), children Josep (age 8), Ignatz (age 4), and Franzisk (age 9 mos) migrated to America on the ship, Havel with Ignatz and Clara. Ship records indicate that this was the only other family migrating from Georgienthal, Russia. I have no information on this family - if anyone wants to research this, please do.