Tragedy in Big Flats

The Town of Big Flats, WI is not well known.  The claim to fame for this rural Adams county town, according to its web site, is being near the geographic center of Wisconsin.  Not at, but near. (Pittsville in Wood County claims to be the geographic center, although the state cartographer's office simply says it is 9 miles southeast of Marshfield,)  It was in this lightly populated town, with a 2010 census of less than 1100 persons, that tragedy struck the family of Jacob Hofmeister.  Jacob, if one can believe the relationship calculator on my genealogy software, was my first cousin twice removed.  A rather odd way to list a relationship in my mind, and one that seemingly makes him seem closer to me than I would otherwise think.  Jacob’s mother was a sister to my great grandfather Martin Hovel.  Siblings Marie and Martin emigrated with their parents and six siblings from Bohemia, part of the Czech Republic.  The patriarch of the family, Josef, died in 1882.   Marie Hovel, would marry Anton Hofmeister, a butcher, on 7 May 1878 in Jefferson, WI.  In 1880 the couple would appear in the 1880 US census with their first child, John who was one year of age.    The 1885 Iowa census, Union Township, Worth County, shows us the family had grown to three children, the youngest at the time being Jacob who, listed at age one, was born on 31 January 1884.  (WWI draft card has his birth year as 1887, but if he was born in that year he would not have been in the 1885 census; his grave stone provides a birth year of 1884.)  Living with the Hofmeister family was Marie’s mother Anna (nee Jodl) Hawel (Hovel or Havel), and Marie and Martin’s youngest brother, Wenzel.  Marie, also known as Mary, would die in Iowa on 7 August 1896 at age 41.  Jacob was the third of seven children born to Anton and Marie. 

 Jacob Hofmeister's WWI Draft Registration Card
Source: Familysearch.org

In 1900 the Hofmeister’s, absent Mary who had passed away in 1896, were still living in Union Township, next to another group of relatives, Anna and Jacob Fitzl.  Anna was a sister to Marie Hovel Hofmeister.  The Hofemister family would later move to near Necedah, WI.  The 1910 census has Anton, and three of his children, including Jacob, living in Colburn, Adams County, WI.  According to a news article on the passing of Jacob’s 104 year old sister Elizabeth in 1996, after Marie Hovel Hofmeister died they moved to Wisconsin, where they tried to farm, “but the land was too poor for a livelihood.”  While it is peculiar that the family would leave the rich farm land of north central Iowa for the central sands of Wisconsin, for some reason they did so.  This migration requires further study.    

Mary Hawel Hofmeister grave stone
Source: Iowa grave stone project

Jacob Hofmeister was a farmer in the town with his wife, two children ages 11 and 9, and his brother-in-law, Peter Jensen, a farm hand.  His WWI draft card describes him as tall, but with a stout build.  Light brown hair would cover his head, and provide a contrast for his blue eyes.  Jacob and Martha would have three children.  The family would be struck by not an uncommon occurrence, the youngest child, Alma would die at just over three months of age in December 1918.  While I lack evidence, one can think that they home in which they lived was a more than likely a typical wooden Wisconsin farm house.

Reportedly Martha and Jacob Hofmeister
See note below

It was on this date, in 1926 that the farmhouse would catch fire in the early morning hours of that late summer Sunday, September 12, 1926.  News reports have some differences in the account of the fire.  However, the fire apparently started in the kitchen, and as one news reports says, by a lightning strike.  A common thread of the reports is that the Martha jumped out of a second floor window, as reported by the Appleton Post Crescent she “received injuries from which she may die.”  Her brother, Peter also jumped from a second floor window with serious burns.  Jacob and his son and daughter were not as fortunate.  One report has Jacob getting outside, but seeing that his two children were not with him, he did the one thing a father would do, but we are told today to never do, and that is go back into a burning building.  The results of why we are told not to reenter a burning building is because of its usualy terrible result.  This is shown by the now understood fact that a fire in a dwelling, according to experts, will double in size every 30 to 60 seconds.  An Underwriter Laboratories study shows that a living room will be in a flash fire, essentially totally consumed, in less than five minutes.  Does knowing that want to have you make sure your smoke detectors are working?  They do say that fires reach flash point earlier than originally estimated, showing that modern construction techniques may be less fire resistant than older construction methods.

Reportedly Ina and Harold Hofmeister
See note below

The Hofmeister family in 1926 did not have the luxury of a fire detector.  The fire in the Hofmeister home must have reached the second floor by the time the family awoke as Peter Jensen jumped out of the second floor with burns already on his body.  The Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, in its report of the tragedy would first say “The father was cremated in an attempt to save the lives of his children from the fire.”  It would later go on to add further detail: “the father started down the stairway with the two children, but the timbers gave way and the three precipitated into the cauldron of flames.  Unable to find the two children, Hoffmaster (sic) made for safety, but it was too late.  His clothing burned off, and severely burned from head to foot, he passed away 12 hours later at the Friendship hospital.”  

Jacob Hofmeister Grave stone
See note below

Jacob and his two children were buried in Niebull Cemetery on Bighorn Avenue, in the Town of Big Flats, Adams County, WI, next to the daughter Alma who lived but from Oct 3, 1918 to Dec 13, 1913.  Martha, Jacob’s wife, would survive her injuries, and would pass away on May 1, 1962 (some evidence has it as 1966) while living in California.  She, and her brother Peter, would be hospitalized and unable to attend the 15 September funeral of her husband and two children.

Hofmeister family grave site
See note below

This was a terrible tragedy for a family that had already seen its share of heartache from the death of a three month old daughter several years earlier.  There is a saying that a mother should not outlive a child, but Martha Jensen Hofmeister would outlive the three offspring she bore with Jacob. One can only imagine the heartache of a women to lose her last two children and her husband in one terrible event.  While the story was tragic, it also shows us the resolve of the human spirit and love of a father—one who so loved his children that he gave his life in an attempt to rescue them from the burning flames on that late summer morning.  Jacob Hofmeister was not a well-known captain of industry, or a wealthy landowner, but a common Wisconsin farmer who found himself in a difficult situation where he did his best, even though the event would have a tragic outcome.    

Note:  Photos and grave stone images, unless otherwise noted, were found at: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=90468783, or related links.  Photos of people uploaded by man named Adam Turner, gravestones by a man named Keith.