Jindra/Meineke Family History Tour
January 15th, 2008
Jindra/Meineke Family History Tour
Jindra Christmas, Dec. 29th 2007
written by Michael Jindra
Twenty-four relatives packed into four vehicles for a special prelude to the annual “Jindra Christmas” gathering, this year held at Carol Jindra’s residence in Mishicot. The relatives, descendants of Alvin and Leona Meineke Jindra, visited former farmsteads and homes in the Mishicot and Two Rivers areas where Alvin and Leona and their ancestors lived and worked. Alvin’s grandparents, George and Mary Jindra, Sr. immigrated from Bohemia in 1868 and farmed near Mishicot, while Leona Meineke’s German grandparents settled on farms north of Two Rivers near Hwy 42 in the 1840’s and 50’s. Communicating by two-ways radios, the tour included stops at farms and buildings near Kingsbridge, southwest of Mishicot, where the first generations of Jindras farmed and operated businesses, and also the former cheese factory on Hwy Q just south of Kingsbridge which Alvin and Leona operated after their marriage in 1914, and where children Ethel (Breitwisch) and Al were born. It progressed to the house in Two Rivers where they lived until 1936 and where three more children were born, including Roy, Dan and Grace (Schleis), and the nearby grocery store on 13th St. (still operating) where Alvin worked during the depression. We then viewed the former Hamilton home site in Two Rivers where Leona worked for a while, and the home where Minnie Meineke moved from the farm and where her children lived after her through the 1990’s. We then proceeded to the former Meineke and Schmidt farms north of Two Rivers. Minnie Meineke was a Schmidt and grew up on the farm on Hillcrest Rd., where extended family picnics were often held. Alvin’s sister Alice (later to become Alice Zell, the wife of the longtime pastor at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Mishicot) taught at a one-room schoolhouse next to the Meineke farm where Leona grew up, and where Alice boarded at the time. Alvin would occasionally come to the Meineke farm to pick up his sister, which is how Alvin and Leona met. A little further north we viewed the farm where Charles Meineke’s father Johan settled in the 19th century. We ended the tour on the farm across the street from Fox Hills, where Alvin and Leona lived and raised their five children from 1936 to 1958 (when they moved to their new home behind the Lutheran Church in Mishicot, where Leona died in 1959 and Alvin in 1970). Here, the group left the warmth of their vehicles to view the farm buildings and let Al and Grace describe farm life in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Had a heavy snow not fallen the day before, the group could have visited the Mishicot and Two Rivers cemeteries where several generations of ancestors are buried. Instead we retired to the home Roy and Carol Jindra built in 1961, next to the river and very near the northeast corner of what used to be the Jindra farm, and where now more relatives and much food awaited.
Those on the tour included the surviving children of Alvin and Leona, Al Jindra, age 86, of Madison, and his sister Grace Schleis of Mishicot, who both provided commentary on their lives on the farm near Mishicot and in Two Rivers. The youngest participants were Nolan Winter, 6, of Manitowoc, and Nathan Jindra, 8, of Michigan, who would be the great great great grandsons of the first Jindras and Meinekes that settled in the area.
Others participating were:
Bill and Jane Ann (Jindra) Breylinger of Florida
Paul Schleis family of Green Bay
Gordon and Nancy (Schleis) Haak of Elkhorn WI and Andrea Gall
Tom and Ann (Jindra) Winter family of Manitowoc
Scott and Jordon Jindra of Oshkosh
Pat Jindra of Kiel
Vern and Janet (Jindra) Griffin of Madison.
Michael Jindra of Michigan and his son Nathan.
On the tour were two children of Alvin and Leona, six grandchildren, and ten great grandchildren, plus six spouses.