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All these people lived in Old Austria which is now Yugoslavia in the country of Stajersko near the town of Sostanjn on the farms.  Grandmother or Ma's mother's name was Gertie, her maiden name is unknown.  She married one Miklovzina, his first name was John, in the late 1870s, and she was a housewife.

They lived in a flour mill run by water.  Her husband was a miller, he would grind grain into flour.  He could also grind such as Walnuts, Hazel nuts, Pumpkin seeds, Sunflour seeds, Beachnut seeds, and make oil out of them, Pumpkin seed oil was the best, and he was a farmer.  His death is unknown.

To this union was born one girl named Anna on July 26, 1880 and when the mill was sold, then Gertie Miklovzina and Anna Miklovsina lived where ever they could get a place to rent.  At the age of about 13, Anna got a job babysitting, she did this for two years then she went to learn dress making for about 2 or 3 years, then she was on her own as a dress maker as long as she lived in Yugoslavia until 1920.

Grandmother, Gertrude Miklovzina, was born in 1840 and died in 1917.

Grandpa John Golob, or dad's father died in 1905 of cancer in the throat.

Grandmother on dad's side was Antonia Stopar.  She also lived on a farm, her date of birth is unknown.  On this farm was a hot spring, also a cold water spring.  When it rained a long time the water would raise and lots of trout would come out, so there must have been a lake inside of the mountain.

When this farm was sold for a small amount the new owner sold it for a very good profit, and they made a big resort out of the hot water spring.  The also built a hospital there for T. B. patients.

Antonia Stopar married one John Golob in the middle or late part of 1870.  To this union was born 13 children, 4 died in their early years, and 9 lived.  Of those that lived my dad was the oldest.  His name was Anton, then came Michael, Fred or Ferdined, Helen, John, Jerry, Leona, Anna, and Louis.

My dad, Anton Golob, lived on at home on the farm until he went into the Austrian army (around 1900 and he served the army for 3 years).  He was born in 1879.  In about 1905, he went to America.  He worked in Milwaukee for 2 years for Foster & Vogel leather factory.  In 1908 he went back to Austria and married Anna Miklovzina.  Anton worked at odd jobs in the woods for about 3 years.  Antonia (Stopar) Golob died in 1934 at the age of 74.

Michael Golob lived on the farm at home until he finished grade school.  He got a scholarship and went away to study in high schools to become a priest.  After being ordained he was a helper or chaplin (place unknown) for several years.  He went to America and founded a parish for Slav people in Bridgeport, Conn. where he stayed until his death in 1950 at the age of 70.

Ferdinand Golob also lived at home on the farm until his sister Helen took the farm over, then he worked in coal mines here and there in Old Austria, then he went to Rumania where he got married.  He later divorced his first wife and remarried.  He lived in Rumania until his death some time in the 1950s.

Helen Golob married a Joseph Shubel and she got the home farm.  To this union were born 3 girls, Helen, Mary, and Theresa, and the fourth was to be a boy, but he died at birth.  His mother died while giving birth.

Jerry and John went to be trained as blacksmiths where they could operate a drop hammer, they were learning this trade for 3 years until the war broke out between Austria and Serbia.

Leona Golob went to America to live with her brother Michael (the priest), but she stayed with him only a short time.  She went to work as a housemaid where she took sick and died.

Anna Golob also stayed at home with her mother, Antonia Golob, while her mother lived.  Later Anna moved to a different town, Paka, until her death.  She never married.

Louis Golob lived at home on the farm until he finished grade school, then he got a scholarship and also studied to be a priest.  He said something about his government so he was put in jail.  After being in jail for 1 year he was given a choice, to go to the army or to stay in jail.  He chose the army.  He was with the Mountain Sharp Shooters in World War I, he was a corp[o]ral and he was later killed on [the] Italian Front.  Before the war was over, while his brother John Golob went in the Austrian army, his other brother Jerry went into the army as a teamster to haul supplies for the army.

After Anton Golob married, he bought a saw mill run by water power, but he never ran it for there was something wrong with the dam.  He also bought a house where Joe, myself (Louie), and mother lived for 9 years.  Anton Golob did not have it all paid for and in 1911 he went back to America to earn enough money to pay for the house.  He went to Milwaukee Wisconsin and again worked at Foster & Wogel leather tannery.  He went to Verden, Ill. where he worked in a coal mine (Verden, Ill. is near St. Louis Mo.) for some time, from there he went to Hanna, Wyoming where he also worked in a coal mine.  When World War I broke out between Austria and Serbia he was called back to Austria because he was a trained soldier and was in reserve, but he refused to go back to war and he could not go back any more as long as Austria was in power.  He decided to stay in America and in 1916 he bought some land in Draper Wis.  He paid for the land and was broke so he went back to Hanna Wyoming for 2 more years and in 1918 he came back to Draper Wis. and built a house on his land.  He worked in the woods after that in the winter time as a sawyer and tie marker.  In 1919 - 1920 he worked in camp 3 (what is now Blaisdel Lake Resort), and he made good money, he used that money to pay passage for his wife Anna and 2 sons to come from Yugoslavia to America.

In Yugoslavia from 1911 - 1920

As dad Anton Golob went to America, his wife Anna, two sons, and her mother stayed in Austria.  Anna was a dress maker, that is how she made a living for the family and her mother Gertie.  Her mother did the cooking and other work around the house until she died in 1917 after that Anna had to do the cooking and all other chores.  She had 1 to 2 goats for milk, also she always raised a pig or two for butchering in the fall, so that gave her less time to do her sewing.

When us boys got a little bigger we helped with the chores - such as bringing in wood and water and watched or herded the goats.

I can yet remember while we were herding goats one day, we saw a big black snake bring a nice big fish (trout) out of the river, so we chased the snake away and took the fish home and grandma told us to put it in the oven to bake.  After a bit she asked if we cleaned it, no so we took it out of the oven and cleaned it, we took the insides and eyes out and put it back in the oven to finish baking it.  That was our first fish to eat and it was good, after that Joe would catch some, sometimes by hand where the fish would hide under rocks or under the bank.  It tried that too and did catch one once, but when I got the fish out he gave a wiggle and I let him go.  This was a small river that flowed right near the house.

Usually I would stand on guard or watch if some one would come on the road, for the road was right along the river and fishing was not allowed.  When we went to school we would walk about 3 miles.  Some days in the winter we would have to shell pumpkin seeds, beach nuts, and hazel nuts which mother would then take to the mill to make cooking oil, but we were not allowed to eat the pumpkin seeds, for if we would, we were told that we would get lousy.  Earlier in the fall and winter we had to pick beans off the stalks and later we had to shell the bean pods, so that kept us busy most of the time.

In the later years we would pick dry limbs in the woods and bring them home, also the chips where someone would chop wood, or hew timbers.  Mother was sewing to earn enough money to buy salt, coffee, sugar, and flour.  In the spring of 1920 Pa wrote that we were to come to America.

We had to prepare for the trip, there were legal papers to get at our county or state capitol Slovene Grader, also from the capitol of Yugoslavia which was Belgrade.  It took mother 4 or 5 days to go there and come back.  While she was gone, Grandma Golob (Antonia) stayed with Joe and I to cook and milk the goats.

We had an auction sale the day before we left.  We left Sostanjn on August 10th 1920.  We got to Lyublana that same day, where we stayed over night.  The next day we got on the train in the after noon for Trieste Italy.  We got there soon after it got dark and we stayed there for 4 or 5 days.  We walked to where the ship was loading and got on the ship late in the after noon on August 15th 1920.  We went to where the bunks were (two floors under the deck) to get our bunks.  The bunks were 3 deep.  When we got back on deck the ship was already out in the ocean.  The ships name was S. S. AMERICA, it was a large ship.  After some days we went by some dry land where there was a castle.  The castle raised all kinds of flags and so did the ship.  We were all standing on deck by the railing on the right side until the captain himself came to wave us away from the railing by that time the ship was already listing about 20 degrees.  We all went to the other side of the deck and the ship straightened out again.  One day we stopped at some port.  It was France where we stayed for 5 days.  They were unloading dead soldiers, 4 in one big box, 2,000 soldiers.  Then we went on and we stopped again at the Rock of Gibralter for 2 days to take on coal, from there we went out into open sea for America, about the 3rd day the water got rough.  We were all sea sick for a day or so.  On the 8th of Sept. 1920 we came to America where we could see the statue of liberty.

We stayed aboard ship that day and the next day they took us off into a building where we went through customs and doctors examinations.  They rolled our eyes around, since we had no money, they put us on an Island (Ellis Island) where we stayed almost a month.  Dad wrote to Frank Sakser (who was our agent) to get us out.  He came there and talked to some nuns and he gave mother $5.00.  That night they put us on a train, after 2 days on the train we came to Chicago.  They took us from one dept to another on a stage coach driven by horses where we stayed the night and all the next day.  At night they put us on a train and we came to Rice Lake Wisconsin.  In the morning of October 9th, 1920, dad was waiting for us.  Dad bought me a cap and shirt and bib overalls there.

We got on the local train again and we came to Stouts Spur (Stouts Spur was just south of Slanovich's) at about 11 o'clock in the morning we walked on a path towards Joe Fabians house where Joe Fabian came out to greet us.

We walked west on Hwy 70 and we stopped at Meglich's house where we had lunch.  When we got home from there, Pa changed clothes and went to Draper to get some groceries on his bicycle.  On October 9th 1920 we were at last in America.  The house was built but there was still brush all around it.

The weather was still nice and warm and there were still potatoes to dig yet.  Pa went to work some place and me and Ma and Joe dug the potatoes, took in cabbage and other crops.  We went to school, what a school it was, we could not speak American!  It was a good thing there were the Meglich and Slanovich boys who could speak Slovanian with us.  I wen to school until 1924.  We entertained ourselves by hunting, trapping, and fishing.

In the summer time dad would clear land and us boys would help.  In the winter time dad would go to work in some logging camp to work and we at home would take care of the horse and 2 cows and cut wood.  The first winter we had to carry water from the spring down in the swamp in 1922 dad dug a well near the house so then it was easier to get water. 

So that's how it went year after year, clearing land and picking stones every year we would pick all the stones (size of walnuts or bigger) off the field that was to be plowed.  (I say we that means dad, mother and us kids according to size and age).  We would always raise a big garden for our home use and lots of cabbage which we would make into sourkraut.  We would make it in a large 50 gal. barrel and someone would wash his feet nice and clean and tramp the sourkraut with bare feet.

Mother would always raise one or two pigs which we would butcher in the fall, the meat was all put in salt brine and later smoked, some was made into sausage too, and the fat was all cut in strips and ground in a meat grinder.  Mother would render it all into lard, cracklings and all, which she would then put the lard on the potatoes, sourkraut, and so on.  Home made lard was much better than store lard.

In 1925 Joe left to work in Chicago and in 1926 or 1927 Louie went to Madison to have an operation on his leg which he had had trouble with in Europe, and he still has a stiff knee.  In 1929 we started to build a new barn, we made the basement in 1929 and the upper part in 1930.  In the fall of 1935 I was pulling rutabaggies and one day was cold and misty and I didn't have any good winter clothes and only $1.00 in money so I decided then and there to look for a job in some logging camp.  I finished pulling baggies that week and on Monday after breakfast I took off.  I walked on Rail Road tracks going west, to Clover Road, then south on Clover Road.  I went towards a camp when I met a man coming out, he said there was nobody in the camp so I went further south until I came to George Sawwords camp.  It was all filled up and was not hiring any more men, by then it was too late to go on so I was walking back home when I met 2 men stuck with their car in a frost boil hole.  I helped them out and they asked me where Ed LeMays camp was, I told them that I knew where the old camp was which was on Kennedy Road on the north side near Log Creek so they gave me a ride and I showed them where the camp was.

When  we got there only the cook was there, and he said we should wait, for the men would soon be in.  I waited until the crew came in and I asked for a job and I was told that I could come on Friday to their new camp, which was about 3 miles south of Big Bear Inn near Flambeau River.

On Friday I got up early to catch the train at 6 o'clock in the morning at Loretta and I got off at camp 41 or where the bee man was living.

I walked 3 miles north on that road and got to LeMay's camp.  Now the cook was there in the office which was the only building finished, they were just laying the floor for the bunk house so Ed was not there.  I was told to wait and that Ed LeMay would be there before dinner.  I waited until he came, but there was no room for me in the office to sleep so they asked me if I wanted to sleep in the kitchen by myself.  The kitchen was up but there were no windows in yet or doors so I agreed to sleep there.  After dinner they put me to work digging a hole for the out house (about 4 feet wide 10 feet long and 4 feet deep)  I dug that hole that day and earned 50¢.  After that I was helping with buildings, one day I had to dig a well.  I got down until I could not throw dirt out anymore (all in the forenoon).  I told them if they want me to dig deeper I have to have a helper so I went back ton the buildings.  We made the bunk house, for the few nights that I slept in the kitchen, the coyoties were howling right near the camp, I just covered myself over the head so I could sleep.

After the bunk house was made they were hiring more men right along.  When all the buildings were built we started to cut roads.  To cut roads they gave each man an old axe and a grub hoe and we had to grub the trees and brush out by the roots.  One morning two guys were told to stay in camp and they were fired.  A few days later I was told to stay in that morning so I surely thought I was fired, but then the camp boss came in and told me to go with him.  He gave me a shovel and told me to dig a well by the barn I dug down about 5 feet and hit water sand and water.  I could not dig anymore so I got out of the well and there was some wood cut by the kitchen so I split about ½ cord of wood for the cook (all in the forenoon and all for 50¢).  We were getting $1.00 a day or $26.00 a month so in the after noon I went back to cutting roads again, that lasted about a month.

They started sawing and the boss asked me if I wanted to go sawing, which paid about 14¢ more a day or $30.00 a month but I asked for an axe and I was put swamping, which is to cut limbs off the trees after they were felled.  Sawing lasted about a month to cut 3 forties.  First they would cut all the Hemlock and then they would cut the hardwood, that was about the last part of January.  They started to haul logs to the Rail Road spur known as camp 41.  The haul was about 3 miles long.  They hauled the logs on a sled with 4 horses and I was given a job to keep the roads clear of horse apples (about one mile long) and it was very cold so I had to walk back and forth to keep warm.  In about 3 weeks my leg started to hurt so I quit and went home (some time in February).

Next winter I worked for Charlie Cicel at Loretta in the kitchen as a cookie until I got sick.  The winter after that I worked for John Weyers and Sons at camp 44 doing odd jobs around the camp.  Then they moved me to camp 45 to work in the kitchen as a cookie.  I also worked for Weyers one winter as a cookie in Jackson camp (about 1 mile north of Big Bear Lodge).  By that time I was getting about $45.00 a month.  I worked one winter at Bailey Blowers in Milwaukee for about 3 months and I came home to help make hay.

In the fall I went back to Milwaukee and got a job at Hiels, at the time they were making or welding hulls for army tanks which they called Honey the 16th.  At Hiels I worked the 3rd shift which was from 11 at night to 7 in the morning, that was a really hard shift to work.  I worked there for 7 months.  I asked for a raise, but did not get it so I quit.  In 1943 I got a job at Kearney and Traker where they were making milling machines.  I also worked the 3rd shift for about 2½ years.  I was working on external grinders, we were grinding all kinds of parts for the milling machines (they gave me all easy jobs to start with until I learned how to do the grinding), after that I was getting all kinds of jobs.

After World War II was over they laid off lots of help so in 1947 I got laid off too.  I went to work for Briggs and Straton, there I was grinding on crank shafts on external grinders.  I also worked there on centerless grinders off and on, and I got laid off there in April of 1949.  I came back home that year and we built the house I am living in now.

In the fall of 1949 I went back to Milwaukee and after some time of job hunting I got a job at Stalper Steel Co.

I worked at Stolper Steel Co for about 3 months and dad was sick.  I was called to help take care of him some time in the winter of 1949.  I and Mother took care of dad.  In the spring I took him to Madison Wis. to the University Hospital, he stayed there a short time and brother Tony brought him home.  I and Ma took care of him for over a year after that and he died in May 1951 at the age of 72.

After that I did not go to work in Milwaukee any more, for I had to stay at home to look after mother for she was 71 years old at that time.  I got a job to take care of the Draper cemetery there I earned my credits so I am now able to get Social Security payments.  In the winter of 1955-56 I borrowed my sister's spinning wheel.  I learned to spin wool into yarn and Mother would knit socks and mittens for me.  I liked that so well so I wanted to buy her spinning wheel but she would not sell it to me - so I made some drawings of it and make my own and when people saw that they wanted one too.  So I made some for other people and that's how it went and I am still at it for over 23 years at that hobby making spinning wheels in my spare time.  In the winter time I have made 46 wheels.  So for January 1981 it sure makes my time go fast.