TROGE, Minnie Rosina C. (Hartwig) 1891-1981

TROGE, DIETERICH, HARTWIG, TRUSTY

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 8/20/2011 at 01:11:50

OBITUARY:

Rites Today for Minnie Troge

Funeral services will be held today, Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church for a well-known Osage woman, Mrs. Minnie Troge, 90, who died September 13, 1981, at Mitchell County memorial Hospital. The Champion Funeral Home is making arrangements and burial will be in Calvary Cemetery.

[Mitchell County Press, Wednesday, September 16, 1981]

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#2:
(Biographical News story)

Minnie Troge Passes 90th Milestone

Although Minnie Troge of Osage retired as clerk at the Daylight Store in Osage in 1954, she still recalls her years there, waiting on customers in the yard good and linen department.

Mrs. Troge became 90 years old Saturday and was honored at a family dinner that evening with her son and wife, the Reverend and Mrs. Wilbur Troge and some of their children from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and her son-in-law and daughter, Charley and Harriet Trusty on hand for the occasion. The following afternoon relatives and friends called at her home to greet her.

Minnie's grandfather and grandmother came to Mitchell County from Germany when Minnie's father, Reinhard Hartwig, was a lad of eight years. They settled on a farm five miles southwest of Osage and that farm is still in the Hartwig family, owned now by her nephew, Wilmer Hartwig.

Minnie didn't have far to go to school since the Cedar Township School No. 8 was on the corner of her parents' farm.

She and Albert Troge were married October 25, 1911 and they established their home on the farm only a half-mile south of her birthplace. Her husband died in 1919, when her son Wilbur was three and daughter Harriet was eight months old.

She recalls that as a farm woman, she saw her share of hard work. She raised large flocks of chickens, some years as many as 1,000. That was back in the depression days, and she sold her chickens a few at a time to provide necessities. Eggs brought 11 cents a dozen or less.

Retiring from the farm in 1925, she moved to her present home in Osage, and two years later she became a clerk at the Daylight Store, then owned by the late B. E. Peterson. Mr. and Mrs. O. C. Holcomb bought the store from Mr. Peterson in 1945, and she stayed as a clerk for more than a quarter of a century, retiring because of a broken hip.

"In those days cotton thread was five cents a spool, and that spool was wood - not plastic," says Minnie. "And there were just three kinds of fabric, cotton, linen and silk - no synthetics. That was something for the future," she remarked.

"I remember some lady customers coming to the store with a pattern for a garment, and I had to lay the pattern on the fabric of her choice so that she wouldn't have to buy any more of the material than necessary. Another customer made a practice of coming into the store at 11 o'clock at night to pick out the patterns of her choice. Oh, yes, we stayed open Wednesdays and Saturday nights until the customers quit coming in," Minnie remarked.

Minnie Hartwig Troge, born March 21, 1891, the daughter of Reinhard and Emma Dieterichs Hartwig, has been a devoted member of Trinity Lutheran Church since its founding. She and her father's names are on the list of charter members of that church. Before Trinity came into being, she was a member of St. John's Lutheran in Cedar Township.

Mrs. Troge's family includes her children and spouses, Pastor and Mrs. Troge and Harriet and Charley Trusty; six grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren.

[Mitchell County Press, March 25, 1981]
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NOTES:

Her full name was Minnie Rosina C. Hartwig Troge.

Minnie's father was Reinhard Theodor Martin Hartwig (20 NOV 1855 - 21 FEB 1936)

Her mother was: Emma Augusta Dieterichs (7 JAN 1866 - 3 APR 1955)

Below are two photos of Minnie. One young and one older.

Mitchell Obituaries maintained by Sharyl Ferrall.
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