Sometimes good fortune comes in waves. For the second time in as many months, we’ve been blessed to find a photographic image of a long-ago ancestor. First it was a great-great grandfather, Philipp Treutel, whose faded image on a carte de visite came from the 1860s. Now we’ve been given a studio photograph of another great-great grandfather, Joseph Ladick (1846-1905). Along with a group photo taken at a wedding, for the first time we have two images of the senior Ladick.

Both of these family patriarchs come from the tree of my grandmother, Ruby (Treutel) Hanneman (1904-1977). The wedding photo above was taken on September 22, 1890 at the marriage of Joseph Chezik and Mary Moravets. Joseph Ladick is at left rear, and we believe his son, Joseph, is at right rear. The portrait below of Joseph Ladick Sr. is undated.

Joseph Ladick brought his family to America from Bohemia in June 1881. We believe the Ladick family is native to Bilina, a city northwest of Prague in the modern day Czech Republic. They sailed aboard the SS Silesia on May 22, 1881 from Hamburg, Germany. The ship register lists their residence as Ronkovic, Austria. There does not appear to be such a place, so I examined the written document and the writing is very hard to decipher. There are a number of villages near Prague in Bohemia that could fit what is written on the register, including Radonitz, Raudnitz, Rakonitz and Radnitz. The exact location might remain a mystery, but it seems clear the family was living in northwest Bohemia at the time of their emigration.

Sailing aboard the Silesia in May and June 1881 were Joseph Ladick, his wife Mary (Mika) Ladick, and sons Joseph, 6, and Frank, who was an infant. They reached New York on June 5, 1881. We don’t know their path to Wisconsin, but it probably included sailing the Great Lakes and possibly some rail travel to Milwaukee. They settled on a farm in the Town of Sigel in Wood County. Shortly after the Ladicks settled in Wisconsin, their daughter Mary Helen was born (December 28, 1883). Later children were Anna (1886) and Celia (1891). Frank married Mary Mras (1898). Anna married Harry Victor Cole (1903), and Celia married Oscar Goldammer (1908). Son Joseph died of pneumonia in November 1894 at age 19. He was buried at the St. Joseph Cemetery near Vesper.

The day after her birthday in 1902, Mary Helen Ladick married Walter Treutel of Vesper. The Treutels were transplants from the Town of Genesee in Waukesha County. They settled in Vesper, where Walter became a rural route postal carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. Walter and Mary’s first child, Ruby, was born at 1 p.m. on June 22, 1904, delivered by Dr. F.A. Goedecke. The couple would later have four other children: Gordon, Nina, Marvin and Elaine.

In early 1905, Joe Ladick became ill with intestinal and bladder cancer. In March of that year, he went to Marshfield for an operation. By early October, his condition became critical. He died on October 12, 1905 at age 59. The newspaper pronounced it this way:

“Death’s angel visited our city last Thursday, appearing at the Lydick (sic) home and taking with it their father, who had been confined to his bed for about six months previous to his death, he leaves a wife and four children. The funeral was held at the house and the remains were interred in the Rudolph cemetery.”

Joe Ladick was actually buried at Holy Rosary Catholic Cemetery in the Town of Sigel. His is one of the earlier monuments in the cemetery. On a recent trip to the area, we cleaned his marker using Treasured Lives RestoraStone™ process, which removed biological growths, dirt and air pollution from the stone. Now, thanks to a generous cousin, this beautiful stone is no longer the only visual history we have of him.