Our Kranawetter ancestors journey to America

Theresia Kranawetter, my great great grandmother and her son Joseph, my great grandfather lived with Theresia’s family in Austria. She was the 6th of 10 children of Mattias and Katharina Kranawetter of Neukematen Austria. She married Paul Zwickelhubber and they had 4 children, Martin, Therese, and Paul. One child died and was buried in Austria.

Times were hard and Theresia and Paul and their children left Bremen, Germany for America. They traveled to New Orleans and arrived June 13, 1853 and then on to Wittenburg, Missouri. After landing in Wittenburg, they went on to Altenburg where they settled with their family. In less than a year of arriving in Altenburg, Theresia’s husband Paul and 2 young sons died, leaving her alone with the rest of her children in this new place.

In 1855 she married Johann Gottfried Oehlert and they had 3 children, 1 died as a child. Theresia’s husband Johann died 1864, she then married Gottlieb Dietrich.

Theresia’s oldest son, Joseph Kranawetter, our grandfather, settled in Pocahontas, Missouri and raised his 9 children here, the youngest being my grandfather Ben Kranawetter.

We later found out that a lot of the people that settled and lived around New Wells and Pocahontas, Missouri had come over from Austria, so we wonder if that is why Theresia Kranawetter Zwickelhuber brought her family and settled in this part of Missouri. When the Austrians were here they recognized a lot of the family names on tombstones being familiar names in Austria.

Our search for our Kranawetter ancestors
The search for our Kranawetter ancestors began a long time ago. Around 1945 my grandfather Ben Kranawetter gave to one of his sons, Leo, a metal box that had come from Ben’s father Joseph Kranawetter. In this box were papers and letters that Joseph had kept thru the years. For years Leo had plans of someday finding where his ancestors came from.

In the late 1990’s, knowing his grandfather came from Austria, he began his search. Leo and his wife sent letters to every person they could find in Austria with the name Kranawetter. Out of all these letters he got one answer and that was from a pastor of a church, in a small town, Neukematen, Austria.

The pastor of this church, Pfarrer Lages, looked thru his church book and found records of a Kranawetter family, their christenings, confirmations, and weddings. He also realized some of his present church members were descendants of the Kranawetter family he found in the church book. Letters were going back and forth between Leo in the USA and Pfarrer Lages in Neukematen Austria with all this news. To make sure he was right, he went to visit one of his church members, a family, that lived on a farm near the church, with the news of what he had found. After checking family ancestors, he was then shown a huge wine press that sat in one of the rooms of this home with the name Mathias Kranawetter engraved in the wood.

This was the home where Leo’s grandfather Joseph Kranawetter had lived as a small child with his mother and her family so long ago. What an happy day that was, our ancestral home, just like it was so many years ago and the home still belonging to Kranawetter descendants. This family in Austria was never told that one of their ancestors had gone to America, this was all new to them too.

Leo and Gladys traveled to Neukematen, Austria, staying with Pastor Lages, while getting to know our new found cousins and friends and visiting the home of his grandfather Joseph and great grandmother Theresia. In 1997 Hans Ruf, our cousin, and his son Roland came to America to visit all of us and get to know us and attend our Kranawetter reunion. In 1999 Pfarrer Lages came to America and attended our Kranawetter reunion and helped us make plans for a trip to our ancestral home and church in Austria. In 2001 a group of us, 25 family members of my dad, Roland Kranawetter and his brother Leo traveled to Austria for a 12 day visit. Roland and Mildred went with us, he was 80 years old and mom was 77, my 2 sisters and brother along with sisters, brothers and cousins of Roland’s were in this group. We stayed with different families around Neukematen, Roland and Mildred and myself stayed in the home where his grandfather Joseph and great grandmother had lived so long ago. We attended Church at Neukematen with our new family and friends. We went on a 5 day trip to Germany and our new Austrian family and friends went with us. Our Kranawetter reunion was held at our ancestral home in Austria, everyone got a tour of the home and got to see the wine press and have their pictures taken in front of it. It was a huge party with singing and dancing and lots of beer and wonderful food. The church at Neukematen held a church service outside, the last Sunday we were there. There was a huge meal served after the service and people came from all over. Some Kranawetters came to meet us that day but we don’t believe we are related to them.

2003 brought our Austrian family and friends to America with Pfarrer Lages and his wife as their leader. They spent a week with us in Illinois and Missouri and attended our Kranawetter reunion here with us and then traveled to other places in the US before going back home. While with us, we had a big gathering at Roland’s farm in Illinois and later that day, a dance and dinner at Bottom’s up in Neunert. In Missouri we toured the small towns and areas where Theresia and Joseph had lived. There was a hayride and gatherings with our Kranawetter reunion held in Frohna, Mo.

Because of that small metal box that was passed on so long ago and the hard work that was put into finding where our ancestors came from, the Kranawetter family has now come full circle. We keep in touch with each other a lot by e-mail and phone calls.

Ruth Ann Kranawetter Thies