This is some information I found in an old archive on the net that was about to go off-line

I believe Diane has the spelling wrong for jaroshefske. ( and maybe my info is wrong )

By Diane Apostolakos,

Here is an excerpt from our family history: Ziegler is a German name. In the early days names described the people who bore them. The name Carpenter designated one who worked with wood, the name Taylor one who made clothes et cetera. The name Ziegler is a German word for brick or tile. Therefore a Ziegler was one who worked at masonry. Our grandmother, Julia Wilhemina Jeroschefske (Shaske) was born in East Prairie, Minnesota on May 9, 1860. She was the youngest of the five children and the only one born in the United States. Her father was Johann Daniel Jeroschefske. He was born in 1807 in Germany. At a very early age he was adopted by the Jeroschefske family, whose name he took. It is believed that his real name was Braun. His parents were black death victims or war casualties depending on whom you ask. Johann Daniel died on his farm (Holden Township, Goodhue County) in 1875 at the age of 68. Her mother, Eva Rosina Miller, was born in Germany in 1817 and married Daniel Jeroschefske. With their four children Johann, August, Augusta and Henrietta they immigrated to Wisconsin near Princeton in 1859, and then to East Prairie, Minnesota where Julia was born in 1860. During the 1862 Sioux Indian uprising they took refuge at Fort Snelling. Again an Indian scare drove them to a farm in Holden (Goodhue County). Here they settled down to stay. Daniel Jeroschefske was a cattle buyer also. He hired young Albert Ziegler to help August take the cattle to market, and this was to be Julia's husband. After the death of Daniel Jeroschefske, August ran the farm. John (Johann) the oldest son lived on an adjoining farm. Their mother, Eva Rosina Jeroschefske, died twelve years later in 1887 at the age of 70, after a long illness of dropsy. Many years later as Julia traveled by car along the Ford plant road she remarked to her grandchildren, "This is the same trail I traveled in a covered wagon." Our grandfather, Albert Bernhard Ziegler, was born in 1850 near Leipzig, Germany, in a town with a population of about one thousand. The address given is Schkoelen, Kreis Weissenfels, Regierungs Bezirk, Merseburg Province Saxony, Koenigreich, Prussia. When I look on the map I can find only Weissenfels and Merseburg, but a German address is very lengthy since it also tells what large city it is near and all the political divisions. His father, Karl Heinrich Edward (Eduard) Ziegler, was born in 1821. He was a stone mason. Karl had two brothers, Friedrich, a shoemaker and August, a tailor. August had a son, Gustaf, who lived in Leipzig and was a staff trumpeter to a general in the Prussian army. There is a story told of Gustaf being rewarded for his bravery by being given the head position in a Conservatory of Music in Leipzig. He was challenged by a group of musicians to play a difficult number on the piano, which he also played, involving a chord using two extreme keys on the piano and middle C. He accomplished this by using his nose for middle C. Grandfather's mother was a Miss Johanna Christine Buechner who was born in Sacksen (Saxen), Altenburg. She was a very fine seamstress and often sewed for Royalty. She died when Albert was born, at the age of thirty. His birth date was August 20, 1850. He had an older sister, Amelia, born two years before in 1848. Albert went to school in Schkoelen. There was a big stone wall through the center of the town and a creek ran through the middle of the village. After his mother's death his father remarried. There were five children from this union -- Lena, Charlie, Gustaf, August and Ben. At the time of Albert's birth in 1850, Austria and Prussia were rivals. This eventually lead to the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, which was followed by the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). Prussia was then a strong military power. Things were very unsettled and times were hard. Albert would have been drafted into the army at 16, so his father managed passage for both Albert 14 and Amelia 16 to the United States. The journey took 14 weeks. During this time Albert had a birthday and was 15 years old when they arrived in this country. Here he was to find work and send money back to Germany for passage for the rest of the family. The province of Saxony and all of Prussia were abolished by the Potsdam agreement after World War II in 1945 and put in the Russian zone, now East Germany. Albert Bernhard and his sister Amelia came to Houtzdale, Pennsylvania. He worked in the coal mines there. He had a friend, John Vogel, whom Amelia married. In 1869, the rest of the family was able to come from Germany. This time the crossing took only 8 days. Lena was 11 years old, Charlie (Charles Henry) was 8 and Gustaf was 5. I am not sure whether the two younger half-brothers were born here or in the U.S. (August and Ben). Mention is made of two sisters who came at the same time, Mina and Rica. I do not know what relationship they were -- perhaps step-sisters. Mina was blind and was deported back to Germany. Rica is said to have married a counterfeiter who was caught but escaped back to Detroit. Lena became Mrs. Morgan (918 Melrose Avenue, New York City, NY). The family moved to Howard Lake, Minnesota in Wright County where they had a homestead. Here they built a house of hewn logs with a fireplace, an upstairs and three rooms downstairs. They cut wood to earn a living. Once Karl Ziegler cut 15 cords of wood to pay for a heifer that dropped dead as he was bringing it home. One winter Albert was in bed for three months with boils. Then they were burned out and lost all of their possessions and family records. In 1876 the family moved to Dassel, Minnesota, located in Meeker County, where John and Amelia Vogel lived. Karl's wife's sister, Rosalie (Mrs. Fritz Vogel) also moved to Dassel from Pennsylvania. I do not know if this is the same Vogel family that Amelia married into. Here they lived until Karl Ziegler's death in 1888, from a rupture, as a result of an accident. His second wife, Eleanor Blunder Ziegler, also died here in 1909, at the age of 78. There was friction in the family shortly after the move to Dassel, presumably because the stepchildren could not see eye-to-eye. Albert in his early twenties worked for a time as a mason's helper in Duluth, and lived for a short time near Newport, Minnesota (my home). He worked in St. Paul as a pin setter in a bowling alley. He boarded with a family named Mudo. The daughter was a school teacher and helped him with his studies. He was a handsome young man and very particular about his clothes. It was believed that the first customer of a Jew on Monday morning could be bargained with. He found this to be true and got some nice clothes at very reasonable prices. Albert worked on a farm at Holden, Minnesota for a German-Polish family named Jeroschefske. There he met a young lass in this family named Julia who became his wife. The details of the marriage and the early events are obscure but they married near Nerstrand and set up housekeeping on a farm in Rice County (Richland Township) near Kenyon, Minnesota. Albert was perhaps 26 or 27 and Julia ten years younger, only 16 or 17. The first child, Ottillie (my mother), was born in 1877. A son, Edward, was born two years later in 1879. The third child, Clara, born March 5, 1881 lived only six months. She died of summer complaint (summer flu) on August 26, 1881 and lies buried in a cemetery near the farm, west of Kenyon. Then at approximately two year intervals, William, Elizabeth, Adolph and Albert appeared. The farm was successful and would have most likely remained in the family save for an unfortunate accident. In those days the fall threshing was done by a machine that went from farm to farm. Neighbors all worked together to help each other. At the close of each day's work the separator has to be cleaned. The machine continues to idle for awhile after the power is turned off, so one had to wait a bit until it stopped. Albert Bernhard was impatient and anxious to get to the chores, so he put his right hand under the belt that connected the engine to the separator intending to slow it down. The belt had a sticky substance on it and his hand was grabbed and pulled into the pulley that ran the separator. His hand was badly crushed, and although it healed in time he was unable to do the heavy farm work. Though the two older sons, Ed and Bill, tried to help it was too much, so the farm was sold and the family moved into Kenyon. Here Albert became a cattle buyer. Veal was in great demand at this time. He bought calves at nearby farms, butchered and dressed them and shipped them by milk train into St. Paul. He did very well with this work, but the family had increased by three more boys, Walter - 1891, Otto - 1893, and Elmer - 1895. The family now had nine children at home ranging in age from six months to nineteen years. Julia felt the need for more space and more work for mischievous children. During the year before Elmer was born, there had been a savage forest fire. It occurred on September 1, 1894 and was known as the Great Hinckley Fire. The fire swept over central Pine County and consumed the villages of Brook Park, Mission Creek, Hinckley, and Sandstone, killing 418 people. In Brook Park 23 residents died in this fire. There is a monument in the Brook Park cemetery marking the mass grave where these residents are buried. In 1895, Albert made a trip to Brook Park and decided this would be a good place for his family, with plenty of work for the boys. Land was selling here for $6.00 an acre. He sold his home in Kenyon for $600 and invested it in land at Brook Park, Minnesota. He bought 80 acres back of the school house from a real estate agency, Kelsey & Hazlett Realty. Kelsey urged him to build a much needed hotel for the new community, and to choose any site for it and cut lumber for it without charge. This they did. The old hotel is the home at present of Aunt Liz, and was the family home. Ed and Bill cut the logs for lumber for it. It was built very sturdy. Where a 2x6 would suffice a 2x8 was used. A big sign hung out in front, The Brook Park House. It was built on a two foot thick foundation. Just before completion a tornado struck and moved the house ajar, just off from the foundation, at an angle. A dray (a horse drawn delivery) from Pine County had to be hired to pull the house back onto the foundation again. The west basement wall caved in and had to be rebuilt. In the basement, at the time the tornado struck were 200 quart jars of fruit canned that summer. Only one jar was broken. Just to be sure the lids were not loosened and the seals broken by the tornado, Julia and her two daughters recanned the whole 199 quarts. The wild strawberries and raspberries had been plentiful that year in a patch just across from the railroad tracks near the house. This land belonged to grandmother's brother, John (Johann) Shaske. All the family had worked hard picking the berries. This patch was filled with berry pickers.