Notizen zu dieser Person
BIOGRAPHIE: Michael was an Artillery Lt. in Austrian Army, 1890's, was also Mayor of local town [Hirschau ?] for two years. [ Probably circa 1900 ].
Michael and Marie's home - from Barbara PRITZL LEONARD - 6/2/89 It was one of those tall houses with two screened porches on either end. It was gray, trimmed in white and was built back in the days when they still used square nails. It had four bedrooms upstairs and one down-stairs, a large kitchen with a table, and wood stove. The stove stayed there and was used until it was torn down in the late 50's. There was a large living/dining room with an old pendulum clock on the wall. Outside, in the early days, was a large apple cellar with a dirt roof. There was also a barn with a top story. It had two very deep silos which my father built as a young man. They were made of cement and were mostly underground.
From Barbara PRITZL LEONARD - 6/20/89 [ ] - Ed. notes It seems Michael bought the fruit ranch in Fruitland sight unseen and paid quite a hefty price for it. They packed up bag and baggage and traveled by train from Wisconsin to Fruitland only to find their fruit ranch had only twigs of trees and they were not able to bear fruit for a number of years. Michael Pritzl and my father [Carl] had to work for wages until the trees got big enough. This was quite demeaning for Michael, who appears in his pictures to be quite a dignified person. I am not sure what he did in the old country, but my mother (I think) told me he was the Mayor of the town. [On a chart of Robert Arthur Pritzl, probably done by Carl, notes state that he was Mayor of the town for two years, and also that he served in the Austrian Army as an Artillery Lieutenant]. They used to hitch up a horse and wagon and travel five miles each Sunday to Mass at New Plymouth since there was no Catholic church in Fruitland (and still isn't). My father remembered his dad making them shine their shoes to perfection and pass inspection before departing for church. Christmas was always a big deal for them and even though they were not wealthy, the children always got a nice gift. One thing they used to always get on Christmas was an orange. At Easter they got hard boiled eggs which was quite a treat as the hens did not lay during the winter. Grandma would save the eggs up for Easter. They butchered pigs often. Michael would seize it by the ear, slit it's throat and let it run around squealing and bleeding, as it bled out better that way. Grandma would can the pork, or cook it and put it in a crock, put lard over it and store it in the cool cellar. She also smoked hams, bacon and sausages in the smoke house. The sausages, of course, were made by stuffing cooked, seasoned pork into the small intestine casing. They also made what they called liverwurst, which did not taste a bit like the kind that you get in the store. You cooked the liver, heart and head, took the meat and ground it through a sausage grinder, along with onions, garlic and bread, salt and pepper. It was then sliced and fried. We used to have it every Christmas after Midnight Mass. Rye bread with caraway seed was a staple along with sauerkraut. Often, caraway seeds were put in the sauerkraut. It was very mild tasting. You cooked the sauerkraut with a pork roast and then thickened the juice with flour. They also made Knodel (dumplings) from home made bread, mixed with salt and milk to form a firm ball. You polished off this ball of stuff with water on your hands and then dropped it in boiling salted water and cooked it until it was firm. You had to cut it with a knife or fork. They were placed in the pork roast sauerkraut dish. [Ed. note: I must add that our family, would purposely not serve all the Knodel's, as they would taste excellent, with another meal, cut into slices, fried and served with the saved gravy from the pork roast !!] I think they had sauerkraut almost every day for dinner along with canned vegetables, fruits, potatoes and meat. My father said his mother made a lot of chocolate cakes too. Grandma also raised chickens. I can remember watching her take a pole with a hook on the end and snagging a chicken, grabbing it by the feet, marching over to the chopping block and lopping off its head with an axe. It would flop around headless for awhile and bleed out. Then she would plunge it into a milk bucket filled with boiling water so that the feathers would strip right off. The smell was memorable. She would then take this hapless chicken over to the wood stove, light a piece of paper and singe off the pin feathers after which she cleaned it. I never knew my grandfather, Michael Pritzl. He died when my father was 27 years old, and my father was made legal guardian of the family. His mother did not speak much English. When World War II came along, it inspired her to learn and speak more English. She did try to teach my brother and I some German or Bayrisch words, specifically the Lord's Prayer.
Manfred
Kolbeck
