Caroline Filipensky was 19 years when she went to live in Milwaukee with the 41 year-old widowed tailor, Jan Witak, and take care of his house and his three orphaned sons.
She had grown up on her father’s farm in Fox Point, now an exclusive section of Milwaukee, but then it would have been rural land, about an hour out of town by horse and buggy or cart. Her father Carl was a prosperous farmer. He owned 35 acres of land worth about $1,300 in 1870; by the time he died in 1896, the value had increased to $4,500.
A shoemaker by trade, Carl Filipensky left Bohemia with his wife and four young daughters in 1854. On the journey over, his wife died. According to family stories, he left his two youngest daughters in an orphanage in New York City and when we went back later to retrieve them, they were gone.
By 1856 Carl was in Milwaukee and on May 3 1858 Carl married a young woman of Bohemian ancestry, Maria Horockawale, who was 24 at the time they married (he was twice her age at 48). Maria brought with her to the marriage, a daughter, Katharina, who was two years old. Together Carl and Maria had four children: three girls and one boy.
Caroline was the oldest child of this new family. She was born in 1859 and claimed July 4th as her birthday because she said she didn’t know the actual date. She was six before her next sibling, sister Emily, was born, followed in three years by a brother, Frank and two years later, another sister, Mary. But she also had three older half-sisters, Agnes, 14 years older and Maria, 11 years older, and Katharina, the closest in age, only three years older than Caroline.
Caroline’s father, Carl, seemed to thrive in the rapidly developing city of Milwaukee. Though he was listed as a shoemaker on the ship manifest, when he got married in 1858 he listed his occupation as layer, and by 1867 he was buying and selling real estate. On the 1870 census, he was enumerated as a farmer. He grew spring wheat, rye, oats, peas and beans and Irish potatoes. He also had one
cow and six swine and 2 working oxen for a total value of all farm production of $564.
Family stories tell how the girls walk to fetch water from the nearby creek, carrying the heavy buckets of water back to the farm. Since the one cow produced 150 pounds of butter, I assume they were also churning a lot of milk. It was probably a hard life. The oil painting at the left depicts the farm.
By 1870, all of Caroline’s older step-sisters had moved out. Agnes married at 16 to Valentin Kehres, and Marie at 18 to Wenzel Frana. Both men owned property near the Filipensky farm. Her closest sibling, her step-sister C
atherina, was also gone from the farm. She was not enumerated with the family in the 1870 census.
We don’t know how Caroline learned about Jan Wittak’s need for a housekeeper, perhaps through some Bohemian association or the Bohemian church. His wife had died in October 1878 leaving him with three young boys, ages 8, 6 and 2. Caroline moved into his home at the rear of 698 Twelfth Street. Jan worked as a tailor out of the house.
Nine months later, on 6 July 1879, two days after her 20th birthday, Caroline married Jan Wittak, who was 41 at the time. They had seven children in the next sixteen years: Frank (who died when he was 4), George, Anna, Mary, Frank, Henry, and Helen. Her last child was born when she was 36 and her husband was 57. All of the children were born at home.
Shortly after Helen was born, Jan made a trip back to Bohemia and was gone for two months, leaving his wife alone with their six children, ages 13, 11, 9, 7, 4 and 4 months, and her three step-sons, ages 25, 23 and 19. The older boys were all working at the time, according to the 1894 City Directory which lists Anton as a bookkeeper, John as a printer and Joe as a laborer.
Although it seems like a difficult life for a 20 year old woman, she was following in the footsteps of her mother who also married at a young age to a much older man. Plus she may have profited from watching her mother deal with stepchildren. I notice that Carl’s children by his first marriage left home pretty quickly after he married Maria but Caroline’s stepchildren stayed at home much longer.
Her oldest stepchild, Anthony, lived at 12th Street until he was 35 when he moved to Chicago where he had a successful career as an accountant. Caroline’s second stepson, John Jr. left at the age of 24 when he married one of Caroline’s nieces (Albena, the daughter of her oldest halfsister, Maria and her husband Wenzel Frana). But Caroline’s third stepson, Joe, who was only three when she married his father, never left home. He was still living with his stepmother when she died in 1933.
In 1896, the year after Jan came back from Bohemia, Caroline’s father, Carl, died. He made Jan and Caroline the executors of his estate. In his will he lists as heirs his wife and all of his children (Maria, the oldest daughter had died before him). He also listed as legates his grandchildren, including all eight of Katharina’s children, but none of Jan and Caroline’s children.
There was a strain of mental illness (probably bipolar disorder which has affected members of the family a generation later) in the Filipensky line. In his will, Carl notes that his son Frank (age 28 at the time) is an insane person. Caroline’s youngest sister, Mary, also had mental problems, although apparently they had not surfaced at the time her father wrote his will (she was 26 at the time). I found some of her writing while going through family documents at my Uncle Jack’s house, sheets filled with nonsensical words, and my cousins remember going to visit her in an insane asylum.
Caroline's husband, Jan Wittak, died in 1907 at the age of 69. He left his entire estate to his wife with the understanding that she would divide it evenly among the children when she died. At the time Jan died, Caroline was living in the house with her stepson Joe who was 31, and her children George, 25, Anna, 23, Mary 21, Frank 19, Henry 16 and Helen 12. George married the following year and moved to the upstairs flat with his wife where they began raising their own family.
My mother, Marie Wittak, the daughter of George Wittak, was born in the house on 12th street as were her two older brothers and sister. Both she and her sister, Josephine, remember being shushed a lot as children. My mother writes; “Living downstairs with my grandmother were my dad’s three brothers and two sisters, who I surmise were not too tolerant of the noise of young ones. Once my brother got in trouble because when the uncles were playing cards one evening he tied one of their legs to the leg of the chair.” When Caroline wanted her grandchildren to go home, she would begin speaking in Bohemian; Josephine understood enough Bohemian to know it was time to leave.
The portrait below, probably taken around 1905, shows the three sons of Jan's first marriage in the back row: Joe on the left, John second from the right and Anthony to the far right. My grandfather, George Wittak, the oldest child of the second family is also in the back row. His sister Mary is on the left and his sister Anna on the right. In the front row, Henry is on the left, and Frank on the right, with Helen, the baby, in between her parents.
She had grown up on her father’s farm in Fox Point, now an exclusive section of Milwaukee, but then it would have been rural land, about an hour out of town by horse and buggy or cart. Her father Carl was a prosperous farmer. He owned 35 acres of land worth about $1,300 in 1870; by the time he died in 1896, the value had increased to $4,500.
A shoemaker by trade, Carl Filipensky left Bohemia with his wife and four young daughters in 1854. On the journey over, his wife died. According to family stories, he left his two youngest daughters in an orphanage in New York City and when we went back later to retrieve them, they were gone.
By 1856 Carl was in Milwaukee and on May 3 1858 Carl married a young woman of Bohemian ancestry, Maria Horockawale, who was 24 at the time they married (he was twice her age at 48). Maria brought with her to the marriage, a daughter, Katharina, who was two years old. Together Carl and Maria had four children: three girls and one boy.
Caroline was the oldest child of this new family. She was born in 1859 and claimed July 4th as her birthday because she said she didn’t know the actual date. She was six before her next sibling, sister Emily, was born, followed in three years by a brother, Frank and two years later, another sister, Mary. But she also had three older half-sisters, Agnes, 14 years older and Maria, 11 years older, and Katharina, the closest in age, only three years older than Caroline.
Caroline’s father, Carl, seemed to thrive in the rapidly developing city of Milwaukee. Though he was listed as a shoemaker on the ship manifest, when he got married in 1858 he listed his occupation as layer, and by 1867 he was buying and selling real estate. On the 1870 census, he was enumerated as a farmer. He grew spring wheat, rye, oats, peas and beans and Irish potatoes. He also had one
cow and six swine and 2 working oxen for a total value of all farm production of $564.Family stories tell how the girls walk to fetch water from the nearby creek, carrying the heavy buckets of water back to the farm. Since the one cow produced 150 pounds of butter, I assume they were also churning a lot of milk. It was probably a hard life. The oil painting at the left depicts the farm.
By 1870, all of Caroline’s older step-sisters had moved out. Agnes married at 16 to Valentin Kehres, and Marie at 18 to Wenzel Frana. Both men owned property near the Filipensky farm. Her closest sibling, her step-sister C
atherina, was also gone from the farm. She was not enumerated with the family in the 1870 census.We don’t know how Caroline learned about Jan Wittak’s need for a housekeeper, perhaps through some Bohemian association or the Bohemian church. His wife had died in October 1878 leaving him with three young boys, ages 8, 6 and 2. Caroline moved into his home at the rear of 698 Twelfth Street. Jan worked as a tailor out of the house.
Nine months later, on 6 July 1879, two days after her 20th birthday, Caroline married Jan Wittak, who was 41 at the time. They had seven children in the next sixteen years: Frank (who died when he was 4), George, Anna, Mary, Frank, Henry, and Helen. Her last child was born when she was 36 and her husband was 57. All of the children were born at home.
Shortly after Helen was born, Jan made a trip back to Bohemia and was gone for two months, leaving his wife alone with their six children, ages 13, 11, 9, 7, 4 and 4 months, and her three step-sons, ages 25, 23 and 19. The older boys were all working at the time, according to the 1894 City Directory which lists Anton as a bookkeeper, John as a printer and Joe as a laborer.
Although it seems like a difficult life for a 20 year old woman, she was following in the footsteps of her mother who also married at a young age to a much older man. Plus she may have profited from watching her mother deal with stepchildren. I notice that Carl’s children by his first marriage left home pretty quickly after he married Maria but Caroline’s stepchildren stayed at home much longer.
Her oldest stepchild, Anthony, lived at 12th Street until he was 35 when he moved to Chicago where he had a successful career as an accountant. Caroline’s second stepson, John Jr. left at the age of 24 when he married one of Caroline’s nieces (Albena, the daughter of her oldest halfsister, Maria and her husband Wenzel Frana). But Caroline’s third stepson, Joe, who was only three when she married his father, never left home. He was still living with his stepmother when she died in 1933.
In 1896, the year after Jan came back from Bohemia, Caroline’s father, Carl, died. He made Jan and Caroline the executors of his estate. In his will he lists as heirs his wife and all of his children (Maria, the oldest daughter had died before him). He also listed as legates his grandchildren, including all eight of Katharina’s children, but none of Jan and Caroline’s children.
There was a strain of mental illness (probably bipolar disorder which has affected members of the family a generation later) in the Filipensky line. In his will, Carl notes that his son Frank (age 28 at the time) is an insane person. Caroline’s youngest sister, Mary, also had mental problems, although apparently they had not surfaced at the time her father wrote his will (she was 26 at the time). I found some of her writing while going through family documents at my Uncle Jack’s house, sheets filled with nonsensical words, and my cousins remember going to visit her in an insane asylum.
Caroline's husband, Jan Wittak, died in 1907 at the age of 69. He left his entire estate to his wife with the understanding that she would divide it evenly among the children when she died. At the time Jan died, Caroline was living in the house with her stepson Joe who was 31, and her children George, 25, Anna, 23, Mary 21, Frank 19, Henry 16 and Helen 12. George married the following year and moved to the upstairs flat with his wife where they began raising their own family.
My mother, Marie Wittak, the daughter of George Wittak, was born in the house on 12th street as were her two older brothers and sister. Both she and her sister, Josephine, remember being shushed a lot as children. My mother writes; “Living downstairs with my grandmother were my dad’s three brothers and two sisters, who I surmise were not too tolerant of the noise of young ones. Once my brother got in trouble because when the uncles were playing cards one evening he tied one of their legs to the leg of the chair.” When Caroline wanted her grandchildren to go home, she would begin speaking in Bohemian; Josephine understood enough Bohemian to know it was time to leave.
The portrait below, probably taken around 1905, shows the three sons of Jan's first marriage in the back row: Joe on the left, John second from the right and Anthony to the far right. My grandfather, George Wittak, the oldest child of the second family is also in the back row. His sister Mary is on the left and his sister Anna on the right. In the front row, Henry is on the left, and Frank on the right, with Helen, the baby, in between her parents.
Caroline’s children moved out gradually as they married and began their own families, but it was a slow proces
s. Mary married at age 22 in 1908 a young man who her parents did not want her to marry because he was deaf. Tragically she died the following year giving birth to their first child who also died. Henry was the next to leave at age 25 when he married Jessie Cerny in 1916. Frank was serving in the Army in Europe at this time. Also in 1916, Caroline’s mother Mary came to stay with her and died in the house at Twelfth.
Anna stayed at home until 1920 when she married at the age of 36 to Matt Kalina. Helen, the baby of the family, married in 1922 at age 27 to Joe Fridl and they moved into the upstairs flat which her brother George and his family had occupied previously. Frank was the last to leave. He married at the age of 40 in 1927. When he moved out, Caroline was 68 and living with her stepson, Joe, who was 55. She died six years later in 1933.
According to her grand-daughter, Josephine Wittak Gugisberg, “Caroline was a good baker and did Bohemian cooking. She liked soup and served it a lot. In later life she was cold and stayed near the stove or, in summer, out in the sun.”
s. Mary married at age 22 in 1908 a young man who her parents did not want her to marry because he was deaf. Tragically she died the following year giving birth to their first child who also died. Henry was the next to leave at age 25 when he married Jessie Cerny in 1916. Frank was serving in the Army in Europe at this time. Also in 1916, Caroline’s mother Mary came to stay with her and died in the house at Twelfth.Anna stayed at home until 1920 when she married at the age of 36 to Matt Kalina. Helen, the baby of the family, married in 1922 at age 27 to Joe Fridl and they moved into the upstairs flat which her brother George and his family had occupied previously. Frank was the last to leave. He married at the age of 40 in 1927. When he moved out, Caroline was 68 and living with her stepson, Joe, who was 55. She died six years later in 1933.
According to her grand-daughter, Josephine Wittak Gugisberg, “Caroline was a good baker and did Bohemian cooking. She liked soup and served it a lot. In later life she was cold and stayed near the stove or, in summer, out in the sun.”
