MARY (SUHLING) MADER
Wife of Dominick Mader
1856-1946

Mary Julia was the daughter of August and Maria Suhling born in America in October of 1856. Her parents came from Germany in 1847. The family had traveled by oxen to Milwaukee and purchased land in what is now the Milwaukee business district. Her father August was a cobbler and made shoes with wooden pegs instead of nails. He sold his property when friends wrote that Bostwick Valley near Barre Mills looked just like Germany and purchased a farm there.

Mary married at age 22 to Dominick Mader. He was short and she was tall and slim. Besides having to care for her family and later her father, Mary did all the cooking for the men working in the brick yard across the road. Margaret (Mader) Seiler wrote to her grandchildren;

“One day Mrs. Mader and the maid walked a mile to visit a neighbor. Mrs. Mader told the children if they went outside to be sure to have the door closed. After she left they thought it would be nice to go wading in the creek. Away they went as fast as they could, leaving the door open. When Mrs. Mader returned she found chickens on top of the bread she had raising in the tins. This was terrible, twenty two people to feed and no bread. Long, long ago people baked their own bread. There were no bakeries and stores did not sell bread. Mrs. Mader hurried up and made biscuits to go along with the other food for the evening meal. In the morning she made pancakes and started some more bread.”

“Grandma Mary was stern,” Bill Mader said, “and used to dress all in black.”

Widowed at age 78, her son Hank and his wife took care of her in her home at 1406 Johnson St. After a lingering illness, Mary, age 89, died in a local hospital May 22, 1946.

DOMINICK MADER
1851-1934

Two years before the family immigrated to America, Dominick was born September 20, 1851, the youngest child of David and Mary Mader. Until he was 27, Dominick lived at home and worked on his father’s farm.

In December of 1878, Dominick bought out his brother Frank’s share in the (Weimer) brick yard becoming the sole owner and that same year married Mary Suhling.

“…Dominick Mader has manufactured brick since that time, turning out from 8-10 hundred thousand each season, and selling them in La Crosse. He is a self-made man who has procured a good income from his business.”(1)

The 1880 Federal Census lists Dominick age 28 as a brick maker, Mary 23 keeping house, Arthur one month old, two sisters as servants, and 14 hired men working in the brick yard. Dominick must have built the attractive two-story brick house across the road from the brick yard. (The house was built by 1892 but was not there when the photo was taken from Irish Hill.)

The first child of Dominick and Mary lived only 5 1/2 months. Her name is engraved on David’s tombstone; “Maria M. Born the 4th of February and died the 25th day of July, 1879.” Five more children were born and raised on the brick yard; Arthur in 1880, August 1884, Henry 1885, Dominick 1886 and Mary 1889. Also living with them was Dominick’s father-in-law August Suhling, from the time his wife died in 1886 until his own death in 1904.

In a letter to her grandchildren, Margaret (Mader) Seiler wrote:

“…There was not much time for the Mader children to have fun. As soon as they were able they had to help in making the bricks.”

Brick became two cheap to be profitable ca. 1893, so Dominick rented his place to a dairy man and moved his family to 226 So. Third St. in La Crosse where he had a saloon business up town. After four years time they moved back to the brick yard and dairy farmed for awhile before they started to make brick again. Dominick sold the brick yard in 1906 to his nephew John Boma. In 1909, Dominick purchased the old Neumeister farm of 240 acres called Oak Springs farm for $22,000, located just south of the County Poor Farm (Hill View Nursing Home). By this time all the children were in their twenties. They lived in the big farm house which had five bedrooms. Dominick and his sons, who were still living at home, dairy farmed. Much of the bluffs behind the farm were treeless then became fields.

Many fourth generation members recall trips to Dominick’s farm in horse and buggy.

After ten years Dominick sold the farm to Hyde and Funk on a land contract and retired to 1406 Johnson St. Some years later Funk and Hyde were unable to make the payments and Dominick got the farm back. Dominick Jr. and Arthur became partners and went back to the farm for their father who was too old. One month before he died, Dominick moved back to the farm home, passing away May 14th 1934.

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JACOB BOMA
Husband of Caroline Mader
1841-1930

In Baden, Germany, Jacob was born the son of Franciska Boma in July of 1841. He served in the army under Kaiser Wilhelm. Jacob had said, “If Kaiser Wilhelm told you to climb up that wall, you climbed up the wall!” He immigrated from Germany in 1865 with his father, three sisters; Salomea, Sophia and Caroline, a brother Martin and a nephew Sebastian.

The Boma farm was originally his father’s but upon his father’s death in 1875, Jacob took over the farm. At this time Jacob was 34 and had married Carolyn Mader three years previously. The Platt Book records the Boma farm to be large even in 1874 and by 1906 it consisted of 380 acres.

Andy North related the following story of his Grandpa Jacob having had too much to drink:

“He didn’t know two sheets to the wind and pulled into the wrong farm where he unhitched the horse. The horse took off for home and Jacob had to walk. The next day he had to go back and get the wagon.”

Jacob lived to be 90 years old, a resident of La Crosse county for 65 years. He died in his home November 5, 1930.

CAROLINE (MADER) BOMA
ca. 1847-1931

Caroline left Germany for America when she was a little girl about 6 years old, having been born in February ca. 1847. (1) In 1872 she married Jacob Boma, a boy from the neighboring farm across the road. Carolyn was only five feet tall while her husband Jacob was six feet and four inches.

All the children of Caroline and Jacob were born at home on the Boma farm. One could say they had two families: The first family was Frank, born in 1873, John 1874, Joseph 1876, Edward 1878, and Mary 1880. Of the five, four died while still young children and only Frank, the eldest, lived to adulthood. Edward four, and Mary two, died of diphtheria in January of 1882, about one day apart and John eight, died less than one month later. Joseph died an infant two months old in 1876. The second family was John born in 1882, Julia 1884, and Mary 1885. This left nine years difference between Frank and the “second family.” John too was to die as a young man of 26 in a hunting accident.

Jacob built the beautiful big brick house on Boma Road. The walls were 18 inches or more thick, lined with plaster inside. At first it was a square, one-story house, then the roof was raised and an upstairs was added. The last addition was two rooms built on the east side of the house in 1884, which included a summer kitchen. With the summer kitchen the house had two big kitchens and eleven rooms all together; seven rooms downstairs and four rooms upstairs. The most unusual feature was an inside rounding wall which everyone commented on. The enclosed stairway off the dining room curved around this wall in a ‘S’ shape.

“Every Sunday all the family came out to Caroline’s. She was known for her fried potatoes.”
–William Schnell

“Grandma Caroline cooked potatoes a day ahead with the jackets on and fried them with lard in a heavy pan on the wood stove.”
“On Sundays we used to have some meals there cooked on the wood stove. Bash Boma, the Schnells, Ed, Billy, Helen, Florence and Marie, Gladys and me.”
“The old folks ate first in the dining room while we kids sat in the kitchen waiting. Between the two rooms was a door with a glass window. This one Sunday, Ed Boma would go look through the window and say, ‘They’re still eating.’ A little while later he would look again and say, ‘They’re still eating.’ After a little while he looked again and said, ‘ They’re still eating as steady as before.'”
“Ed Schnell would go to Grandma’s and the first place we’d go was the pantry, help ourselves to ham and apple kuchen.”
–Andy North

Frank Mader Sr.’s grandchildren remember going out to Boma’s when they were children for family occasions. They went for rides in the Boma’s horse and buggy that had a top with tassels on it.

Caroline was a very quiet woman who spoke very little English. Widowed only two months, Caroline passed away on January 6, 1931 at her home on Boma Road. She was survived by three children; Frank Boma, Julia Schnell, and Mary North; one brother, Dominick Mader and seven grandchildren. Caroline was laid to rest beside her husband Jacob in an unmarked grave in the Boma family plot. Near the fence on the hill of the old cemetery stands a tall Boma monument which reads; “Kinder Von (Children of) J. and K. Boma” with the names of the four young children beneath.

An ornate gold crucifix under a glass dome that came with the family from Germany and belonged to Caroline, is now a treasured heirloom.
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CATHERINE (DELPHENICH) MADER
Wife of Theodore Mader
1858-1931

Catherine was born in Iowa of German parents from Prussia in October of 1858. Her husband was thirteen years older than she. Kate survived him by three years and they are buried by her parents, Canton and Catherine Delphenich, in the La Crosse Catholic Cemetery.

Florence (Mader) Hoff remembers her great aunt Kate as being very stern. She said, “They had their squabbles. Once Theodore came over and exclaimed, ‘I wish the battle-ax would die!”

“She heckled the heck out of him.” William Schnell said. He recalls his great uncle Theodore coming over when he was a boy and saying, “She has a tongue like a rattlesnake, club her to death and her mouth will still go!”

Julie (Boma) Schnell told her children, “Aunt Kate cut her yard with a sickle in the moonlight. No one else did. She was so meticulous.”