Pioneer forebears: The middle-aged cousins' great-grandfather and his second wife

This no-nonsense pair is Frederick Sprick, father of Claus, with his second wife, Margaret, who helped raise Claus after his biological mother died. Fred and his first wife, Adelheid Ehlers, emigrated to the United States from Hanover, Germany, with several small children, among them Claus, arriving in New York harbor on July 4, 1876. Adelheid died two years later and Fred married Margaret, with whom he had 13 more children. (Not all of the children lived to adulthood, or even very far into childhood. Adelheid's children were Fred, Minnie, Metta, Lydia and Claus. Margaret gave birth to Christopher, Sophia, Margaret, John, Henry, Anna, Lillian, Raymond, Amanda, Emma, Alfred, Harry and Elda.) Frederick Sprick died in 1920.

Blue-plate portrait

What better place than a blue plate (at least it appears blue in the photographer's light) for the 1907 wedding portrait of Grandpa and Grandma Sprick? Maria probably let Claus be the one to sit down because he was 13 years older than her, and probably a little tireder, at least at the time. They went on to have 12 children. The scrapblog editor, mother of one, is trying to imagine having 12 children, picturing 12 little Noahs in her house, for example, and is unable to do so without fainting. Our forebears were made of stern stock, for sure.

Mystery in the woods

Senior esteemed investigative scrapblog correspondent Uncle Joe submitted this alarming photo he took in the woods on a recent winter. He says it's a mystery, but we say, if anyone could ski like that, Uncle Joe could.

Another fabulous Sprick vacation

We get a kick out of old Sprick postcards. Some of the vacations the aunts and uncles took sounded a bit grueling. For example, check out this postcard from Uncle Joe to Uncle Ed in 1981.

Aunt Tex's very busy week

Look what Aunt Emma did in just one week, as described to Grandma Sprick in this 1985 postcard! She was a very active auntie, to put it mildly.

Grandma Sprick's mom and dad

These work-weary, corn-fed visages belong to your great-grandpa and great-grandpa, cousins. Hinrich (or Henrich) and Anna Augustin were the parents of our own Grandma Maria Augustin Sprick, as well as four other children (Emma, Anna, Henry and John). Hinrich emigrated from Germany in 1881 and married Anna Allers in 1886. They farmed 40 acres near Oak Center, Minn. they were 53 and 43 when these photos were taken. Says senior scrapblog historian Aunt Anna Smith: "Grandma Augustine (Anna) was a milkmaid for an early settler, J.S. Thompson. Grandpa Sprick (Henrich) was the hired man. They went by horse and buggy to Red Wing, where they were married in St. John's Lutheran Church." These photos are courtesy of senior investigative scrapblog correspondent Elmer Sprick, who recently got himself a brand new scanner. We hope he'll be scanning lots of good stuff for us.

Brave in his own way

Aunt Florence recently visited her first cousin Grover Augustin, right, a retired rug doctor who lives in Williston, N.D. Grover is the son of Grandma Sprick's little brother, Henry Augustin. Henry raised his four children on a 40-acre farm near Zumbro Falls, Minn. During the Great Depression, Henry's family became Jehovah Witnesses, and because of their religious beliefs, Grover and his brother, Gaylord, were conscientious objectors during World War II. They spent the war locked up in the garrison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. While their actions apparently caused a bit of a rift in the family and may not have sat well with our shrapnel-pocked, combat-savvy military Spricks and Millers, we think they reflect a kind of bravery, too.

Distant kin up in Waskish, Minn.

Aunt Florence posed with the Leonhardts, distant kin of the Spricks, recently at their home in Waskish, Minn., in Red Lake County. Here's how the Leonhardts are related to the Spricks. Grandma Sprick's sister, Anna Augustin, married Otto Leonhardt. They eventually settled in Waskish. One of their sons, Hilmer, did very well in raising cattle and wild rice there. Hilmer's son, David, took over the farm. Florence is pictured with David Leonhardt and members of his family.

Every day above ground is a gift, cousins

The scrapblog editor was perusing the Rev. Dr. Esq. Sister Cousin Chats' church website this morning and found this pastoral note posted there. It's sweet and wise, so of course we're posting it: Dear Friends, My mom died a year ago last spring, and, of course, I still miss her. One of the things I miss the most is her almost daily email message, which she entitled "My Day, By Eleanor." She patterned it after Eleanor Roosevelt's messages years ago, and in it, she'd fill my sister and brother and I in on what was going on each day in her life, and even in her 70s and 80s, she remained very active. After she died, my sister sent me a number of her books. One of them was a journal of sayings she liked. An entry to which I was especially drawn, interestingly enough, was a list of quotations from Eleanor Roosevelt. Some of them were: Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart. To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart. Anger is only one letter short of danger. If someone betrays you once, it is his fault; if he betrays you twice, it is your fault. Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. He who loses money, loses much; he who loses a friend, loses much more. He who loses faith loses all. Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art. Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift. I like all of these quotations, but it is the last one on which I want to focus. Today is a gift, my friends, as each day is. As we enjoy the summer days, let us remember this, and appreciate each moment. Grace and peace, Cathy

Through the lens of a member of the Greatest Generation

Alverna took these photos in Germany during the U.S. occupation after World War II. The one of the beer steins reminds us to tell you that you should go to our archive blog to read the amusing history of the old German drinking song "Ach, Du Lieber Augustin."

Cousin Chats

She was a cute one, little cousin Chats. (Still is.) Here she snacks on her foot and reads about birds, upside-down.

Leah and Vi visit the Millers in Monterey

Leah and Vi enjoyed the California sun during a visit to the Millers in the early 1960s. Before the Millers moved to West Germany in the mid-1960s, they lived at Fort Ord in Monterey, a lovely spot, while Uncle Bill was learning to speak Czech like a native at the Army language school there. For a gallery of photos of the Millers in Monterey, see our archives at www.thesprickfamilypapers.blogspot.com.

A young cousin down South does well

Chris Sands, son of Leah-Jean and Rick Purfee, has just graduated from Kennesaw (Ga.) State University near Atlanta with a degree in business administration. Handsome Chris and the lovely Haley Campbell will be married Dec. 1 in Atlanta. Congrats, Chris and Haley! (Chris is the grandson of cousin Leah, who is justifiably very proud of him.)

"One! Two! Three! Four!": Mrs. Mock dies at 100

Aunt Anna relays the news that the Miller kids' old piano teacher, Vivian Mock, has died at age 100. We're relieved to hear that she survived so many years beyond the Miller kids' nonstellar playing (cousin Chris was gifted, but not in a way Mrs. Mock appreciated). Aunt Alverna used to haul us weekly to Mrs. Mock's home in Red Wing, where two of us read her old Redbook magazines while the other one mangled Scarlatti and John Thompson to the relentless beat of a metronome and Mrs. Mock's clapping. The Miller kids still wake up sweating in the night with memories of the Irl Allison auditions. (You had to be there.) Mrs. Mock's impressive life story can be found here. (Click on Obituaries, Archives, then go to the July obits and scroll down to "Vivian Mock.")

Rosy Red-Cheeks: The science of rosacea

When the scrapbook editor was a lass, the Lamars called her "Rosy Red Cheeks." (She called them some things, too.) As you might imagine, the psychological scars were deep, and made her what she is today. The Lamars' lack of compassion was especially shocking given that the scrapblog editor's glowing face is the result of a genetic medical condition that you cousins may well pass on to future generations, except for you lucky-duck adopted cousins. Rosacea gets worse as a person gets older, so no need to worry that the scrapblog editor has taken up heavy drinking. Rosacea is exacerbated by cold, heat, wind, stress, excitement, exercise, hormones, wine, chocolate, spicy food and being called Rosy Red Cheeks. Basically, the scrapblog editor can't say boo without turning red. Topical treatments haven't done much good. The scrapbook editor, who also has been treated for the dreaded ocular rosacea, has learned to live with the trauma. If she ever turns pale, call 911. Many famous people have had rosacea, including Rembrandt, W.C. Fields and Bill Clinton. Aunt Alverna and Uncle Ed also had modest rosacea. If you have nothing to do and feel like shocking yourself, type "rosacea" into Google images and see what you get. This week, the scrapblog editor's coworkers forwarded her several stories by science writers that explain all. Here's one: Mystery solved: Abnormal proteins cause rosacea By Alison Williams (c) 2007, Los Angeles Times Researchers have solved a medical mystery that has eluded them for hundreds of years, demonstrating that an abundance of abnormal skin proteins causes the blotchy skin condition called rosacea. In a study published Sunday in the online edition of the journal Nature Medicine, scientists showed that people with rosacea have too much of a protein called cathelicidin that is processed incorrectly. The results could aid researchers in designing an effective treatment for the disease, which affects 14 million people in the United States. "We haven't had this kind of important finding in the study of rosacea for a long time," said dermatologist Jenny Kim of David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Rosacea is a skin disease that causes redness, visible blood vessels, bumps and pimples on the face. It tends to strike more women, usually between ages 30 and 60, but men often have more severe symptoms. "It's an appearance-related disease, so many people suffer from low self-esteem, and that can affect their everyday life," Kim said. Options for treatment include light therapy to decrease redness, avoiding known triggers such as spicy foods and heat, and prescribing antibiotics that don't work for every patient. "Treatment could now be much more rationally designed," said Dr. Robert Gallo, chairman of dermatology at the University of California, San Diego, and senior author of the study. About a dozen years ago, researchers in Gallo's lab discovered cathelicidin proteins, which help defend against infections in the skin. Gallo and his colleagues went on to find an association between the protein and skin conditions such as eczema. The team later found that cathelicidin could cause the redness that is the hallmark of rosacea, so they started searching for a link. The researchers took skin biopsies from 11 people with rosacea and 10 healthy people who served as controls. What they found was "a double hit of things going abnormally," Gallo said. All the rosacea patients had too much cathelicidin, most of which was abnormal. There also was an abundance of a molecule that processes cathelicidin from an inactive to an active form. The way cathelicidin is processed is crucial to determining whether the protein will act as a defense against infection or promote inflammation, according to the study. Experiments on mice confirmed the theory. One of the most common treatments for rosacea is the antibiotic tetracycline. The study suggests that the drug is successful in rosacea patients because it inhibits cathelicidin processing, not because of its bacterial-killing properties. Future treatments might target the excessive production of cathelicidin's precursor, Gallo said. On the Internet: Nature Medicine: www.nature.com/naturemedicine National Rosacea Society: www.rosacea.org

When a steel bridge falls, human bridges emerge

The scrapblog editor, now a night editor at the Strib, made a temporary return to her former role as religion reporter tonight, covering the big interfaith service at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Minneapolis, where people gathered to grieve over the bridge catastrophe. (You can read it on Page A7 in Monday's newspaper or online right here.) It was moving to see Buddhist monks, Muslim imams, Pentecostal Christians, Catholics, Hindus, respectful doubters and Native American traditional practitioners all under the same neo-Gothic arches. The scrapblog editor thinks such gatherings are as much about sharing emotions and rubbing shoulders with sympathetic fellow humans, a universal need, as they are about connecting with the divine. Those two impulses are related, for sure. Meanwhile, the scrapblog editor's famous close personal famous dear longtime famous friend, "Roadguy" Jim Foti, wrote a really lovely essay about the Stone Arch bridge, where something similarly solemn and holy was going on today. If you haven't visited the Stone Arch bridge, cousins, we recommend that you do. It's the true heart of Minneapolis, especially now.

Sprick chicks step out

If C. and K., the daughters of cousins Davy and Sarah, get any prettier, they'll have to hire bodyguards. Here they cleaned up for cousin Cindy's recent wedding. Mind you, we aren't talking the Sprick versions of Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie, here. For one thing, they're better behaved, and prettier. For another, C. is a stellar student at Stanford University and K. is an outstanding one at a major high school in a major city in a major state (Wisconsin, of course). Watch for them someday in the New York Times or Vogue or Scientific American, at which time, we trust, they will point out that their first glam shots were in the scrapblog.

Crop report

A mysterious clean, clear liquid substance fell from the sky today. It looked faintly familiar, but we couldn't quite place it. It was white wine to our drought-ridden lawn and garden. Nothing is thriving in our drought-ridden lawn and garden except the pretty plant pictured above. That plant is known as the "Cherrybomb Tomato." What you do with it is, you wait till your cousin is in range, then you fire it hard as you can right at your cousin, especially if your cousin is wearing a white outfit. This works best if the pitch you employ is the fastball. Cherrybomb tomatoes ripen fastest at 98 miles per hour. There are alternative usages for the cherrybomb tomato, of course. For instance, we recall seeing Dad/Uncle Bill lob them at nasty grackles, mumbling, "Ka-pow! Right in the kisser!" hoping to drive them away from his precious Old Frontenac birdbath. This was a typical Uncle Bill thing to do. Every August he had to be taught anew that grackles adore cherrybomb tomatoes.

A catastrophe rocks our community

The scrapblog editor has been enjoying lots of free time lately as she settles into her nice quiet new little job as night breaking news editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune -- oh wait -- that's not right. What actually happened was, a very large bridge over the Mississippi River fell down Wednesday night, a catastrophe just blocks from the Strib office the likes of which this town has rarely seen. That's meant lots of overtime and 12 days of work in a row coming up for the scrapblog editor and many of her fellow journalists, but we don't mind -- it's real and serious and sorrowful news, and no blog can match what a newspaper can do, no matter what the nasty, nattering, negative nabobs of the 'net say. And such strange, sad news it is. Interesting, and bittersweet, to see how the catastrophe has brought the community together. Most people we've run into in the Twin Cities this week seem sadder and kinder. Hope the sadder passes, and the kinder stays. Tonight (Saturday evening) at work, a big, mysterious box arrived in the newsroom. It fell to the scrapblog editor to open it, and inside she found tons of treats, including moon pies and pork rinds. What the heck?? This note with it explained all: To Star Tribune journalists: A few days after the Virginia Tech shootings, a large box arrived in our newsroom. Inside was a note and lots of stress-relieving junk food like you'll find in this box. The note was from Joe Hight, managing editor of The Oklahoman of Oklahoma City. Joe wrote that similar boxes arrived in his newsroom after the Timothy McVeigh bombings. He recalled what that gesture meant to his staff, which had been worn down to a nub covering the catastrophic community event. We were so moved that we vowed to pass it on when we next sensed a newsroom could use a little pick-me-up. So please consider this a journalistic chain letter of sorts, one that you'll pass on when the next bulletin breaks in a newsroom somewhere in America. Enjoy the snacks. Sorry we couldn't send beer (company policy, ya know). And most of all, take care of yourselves. The Roanoke (Va.) Times newsroom We thought that was real nice, and will keep up the tradition. By the way, Cousin Chris, and probably other of you cousins, drove across the Interstate Hwy. 35 bridge every day. Glad none of you was on it Wednesday night.

Harriet Broberg passes away

Our condolences to the Broberg cousins on the passing of their Aunt Harriet. Our thoughts are especially with their Aunt Lavone, the last surviving sibling of that Broberg generation and caretaker to her beloved sisters Harriet and Dolores. Dolores died earlier this year. The funeral notice: Harriet Eileen Broberg, of Edina. Born Feb. 8, 1921 and passed away July 27, 2007 at the age of 86. Preceded in death by her parents, Martin and Minnie Anderson Broberg; sisters, Dolores Broberg and Janet Halverson, and brother, Wallace Broberg. She is survived by her sister, Lavone Broberg; niece, Sarah Broberg; three nephews, Daniel and Samuel (Bridget) Broberg and Harris (Sharon) Halverson; six grandnephews, Marty, Nick, Tyler, Alex and Zack Broberg, Blake Halverson; Becky Brodin, who is like a niece to Harriet; a dear friend, Janet Dunn; and cousins. Memorials may be given to Mount Olivet Lutheran Church or donor's choice. Funeral service 11 AM Friday, Aug. 3 at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church, W. 50th St. & Knox Ave. S., Minneapolis, with visitation one hour prior to service and reception to follow. Interment in Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis. Arrangements by Washburn-McReavy's Edina Chapel, 952-920-3996.

Our Manhattan vacation, Day 7: Times Square

Friday, July 27, 2007: On this, our last full day in Manhattan, we shopped, which the girls were very, very excited about. The boys, not so much -- they did their thing, including "The Simpsons" movie. Auntie Pam, M. and H. went to stores all over Times Square and on Fifth Avenue and bought a few things from street vendors, too. They visited the Trump Tower, the Rockefeller Center, Abercrombie & Fitch (Auntie Pam's ears are still numb from the backbeat there), Tiffany's, F.A.O Schwarz, the Toys R Us with the Ferris wheel inside and many other Broadway/Times Square/nearby hot spots. Some of the best moments, once again, were on the street -- more wild urban dancers -- and in the subway, where we made friends with a mime all in white and a very good saxophonist who played M.'s theme song, "The Pink Panther."

Our Manhattan vacation, Day 6: Lady Liberty

Thursday, July 26, 2007: Today we took the 1 down to South Ferry and sailed past the Statue of Liberty on the Staten Island Ferry. In the afternoon, we walked around, took naps and ate cheesecake. This evening, Pam left the kids (safe in the hotel) and went out to dinner on Fulton Street with old friend Sofia (who is much more beauteous than Pam's goofy subway photo shows!). A delightful day.

Our Manhattan vacation, Day 5: M. turns 16!

Wednesday, July 25, 2007: M.'s 16th birthday was one New York minute after another. In the morning, the boys took off to play catch in Central Park and go to a Mets game. (The Mets beat the Pirates 6-3.) The girls spent most of the day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, seeing great works such as those above by Klimt and Mogdiliani, then walked 3 miles around Central Park, pausing to watch some terrific street dancers with "sweet moves," as M. put it. We had dinner at an elegant ristorante where the waiters sang to M. Then the girls went out and got groceries and hauled them back and put them away. The boys then arrived, and ate all the groceries.