Wisconsin police baffled by 1888 gravestone

Here's hoping that Mr. Fenske's stone can be returned to its rightful place soon. Rest in peace, Henry.

Um if a highschool prank baffle's um god forbid anything worse happens.

Maybe someone could use a genealogy website and look up his death records. They have his name and date of death. It isn't hard to do.

Wilgeno wrote:

Maybe someone could use a genealogy website and look up his death records. They have his name and date of death. It isn't hard to do.

I already started, and hit upon what I thought was a good lead but alas was a Henry Fenske who outlived the owner of the stone. I have to believe that someone at the PD would have thought to check the internet, don't you? Let's hope!

A case for Sherlock Stones.

It took me ten minutes to find his burial spot, based on his location in the 1880 census, but I noticed that he has already been found.

He was buried in Bristol-Paris cemetery in Kenosha.

I guess the internets hasn't made it to Racine yet.

Woo Hoo wrote:

It took me ten minutes to find his burial spot, based on his location in the 1880 census, but I noticed that he has already been found.
He was buried in Bristol-Paris cemetery in Kenosha.

I used to have one of those slow computers too. Would take 7, 8 10 minutes...now with my super improved model using " IXQUICK " takes only seconds or milo seconds.

So a stiffy is missing his stone(s). Article just described every married guy.

Woo Hoo wrote:

It took me ten minutes to find his burial spot, based on his location in the 1880 census, but I noticed that he has already been found.
He was buried in Bristol-Paris cemetery in Kenosha.

Now I know why he wasn't listed in the Civil War records although that surname was shown in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Not sure why the discrepancy on the date of death but biographies of this era were usually based on recall. Fun research... don't know why they waited a year to ask for "public's help". Might have saved a few billable hours. Simple google book search.

Published Bio:
Commemorative biographical record of prominent and representative men of ...
By J.H. Beers & Co

Henry and Minnie (Pofahl) Fenske, the parents of Mrs. Louisa F. Curtis, were natives of Germany, where Mrs. Curtis also was born, in 1864. The family came to America two years later, and locating in Wisconsin, the father for a time worked out by the month, but later bought fifty-two acres in Paris township. Improving it, he spent the rest of his life there, dying in 1887. aged forty-eight, and his wife followed him a little more than a year after, at the same age. They had eight children, one of whom died in Germany in infancy, and one in America, aged fourteen. The others are; Louisa, Mrs. Curtis; Louis of Somers Station, Wis.; Mary, Mrs. Fred Sax, residing near Delavan, Wis.; William, of Kenosha; Anna, Mrs. John Batcher, of Kenosha, and Rosa, Mrs. Glen Heisert. Mr. Fenske served in the German army for some time. His father died in Germany in 1848. but his mother, Mrs. Caroline (Hegeman) Fenske. came to America in 1883, and lived in Kenosha from that time until her death, in 1902, at the age of eighty-seven. She was the mother of four sons and four daughters.

ZenBirdist wrote:

<quoted text>
I already started, and hit upon what I thought was a good lead but alas was a Henry Fenske who outlived the owner of the stone. I have to believe that someone at the PD would have thought to check the internet, don't you? Let's hope!

I don't think folks realize that names are spelled wrong on the census. It was under Fensky in the 1880 census - so depending on who was looking they many not have bothered with variations.

I know Gene Fenske from Redwood Falls MN.

Tony Rozycki wrote:

I know Gene Fenske from Redwood Falls MN.

Is he dead?

Woo Hoo wrote:

<quoted text>
I don't think folks realize that names are spelled wrong on the census. It was under Fensky in the 1880 census - so depending on who was looking they many not have bothered with variations.

In those days, a lot could happen from census year to census year so couldn't rely soley on 1880 but good clue. A lot of Fenske's in Wisconsin and Minnesota. A Google book search didn't take long; had the name spelled correctly in a biography. Glad its solved and being put to right. Now to try to tell every newspaper that picked up the story! Racine's going to still be getting calls for a week!

The police don't how to use google?

Daily dose of Wisco weirdness!

What wrote:

The police don't how to use google?

It's quite possible they don't, and nor even how to find facts that any nine year old child who was not severely mentally retarded would know how to quickly and easily find. For instance back in the 1990's the FBI approved for a national security clearance, and so that the guy could become the US Ambassador to Switzaerland, a guy who virtually everybody in his hometown San Diego area, and also a lot of ordinary laymen all over Southern California, was well aware was as organized crime connected as could be, and in fact that he had been for decades.

(That guy and his lawyers provided so much in election campaign contributions and under the table bribes, that therefore the big boys, and including various members of the US Senate, pretended he was a legitimate businessman, and even though it had been very well known for decades that actually he was as organized crime connected as could be. And then about a year after he died a few of the details of his lies, sleaze, and phoniness became so nationally famous, that as a result they were forced to dig up and remove his body from Arlington National Cemetery, since it became so undisputable that he not only had not been the great war hero during World War 2 that he had bamboozled the FBI and the White Houose into believing he had been, but in fact he had never even served in the military.)

That guy and his associates also had close links to the two largest fires San Francisco has had in decades. However the "geniuses" in the FBI, SF DA's office, SF Police Dept, and SF Fire Dept never even realized that if they had asked just a few preliminary questions, in both cases the name of the same real estate company, a company that had extremely close links to that organized crime connected ambassador, would have come up.

However we should not be too hard on the FBI and the DA's office, since both have the culture of lawyers and law firms, and lawyers are the stupidest, blindest, and most narrow creatures on earth.

NOTE: I neglected to emphasize in the immed above post that in both cases the SF Fire Dept declared the fires to have been caused by bad luck rather than arson. However, and as would have been obvious to anyone with an IQ higher than his shoe size, both fires were obviously caused by arson.

More specifically, San Francisco is so totally corrupt that therefore any building owner who hires a politically connected lawyer to pay under the table bribes to the big boys can easily have the cause of an arson fire declared to have resulted from bad luck rather than arson, and so that way the building owner stays out of prison and he also gets to collect money from the insurance company.

wow wisconsin folks doesnt suprise me.

Some Wisconsin nut has probably just been using it to weight down the bed of his truck for winter.

Now that spring's here, he just tossed it out. Better gas mileage that way.