The View From Wisconsin

I'm slowly learning that, when it comes to researching your family history, sometimes the stuff you're not looking for comes to you at the strangest times.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon trying to track down an obituary for one of my grandfather's brothers, Peter Houk. I wasn't having too much success, though; I did find the obituary of my grandfather's oldest brother's wife, but that was about it.

So, I decided to head out to St. Bruno's Catholic Church in Dousman to do some gravesite searching. I felt a little sheepish that I had to ask where the church was at a local gas station (I'm not as familiar with the area as I'd like to be), but I found the "new" church site. When I asked if Peter was buried there, they said they'd have to contact the caretaker of the cemetary about whether or not he was there. They did say I was free to go over to the cemetary - located on the site of the "old" church - to look around.

The old church was out on the other end of town, and I wasn't entirely sure about what I might find out there... until I saw my great grandfather and grandmother's gravestones. Right at their feet was another Houk... but it was their youngest daughter, my great Aunt Alice Pitt. I did some more poking around, looking around in the cemetary. I saw a lot of familiar names from my genealogy research, like Mundschau.

After a brief stop at another cemetary in Oconomowoc - St. Jerome's, where my grandfather and grandmother are buried - I headed home. A few hours later, I got a phone call from the caretaker of the cemetary. I'd already talked to my aunt and my dad about their Uncle Peter, and I was convinced that Peter wasn't buried in Dousman. The caretaker mentioned something to that fact, saying, "well, we have a George and a Barbarra Houk..." The dates he listed for those two - January of 1819 to October 14 of 1900 for George, and 1823-1905 for Barbarra - made me stop dead in my tracks.

Those were my grandfather's grandparents. And I didn't have any dates or information about them... until now. He also gave me the dates for Charles Houk, my great grandfather's brother (1855-1878).

I had more information than I needed, but it was fantastic.