Greetings. Adolph Lentz was my great-Grandfather. My grandfather and my father all were involved with the A. Lentz Co. I am fairly new at researching, but I have relatively good information about the descendants of Adolph.

One of Adolph's sons, Frederick W., married Grace Radtke in about 1910. Grace, like her parents Carl and Ottilia ("Tillie"), was born in Berlin. She was born in December, 1887. Ottilia was Adolph's sister (Grace and Fred were first cousins). She is the sister referred to in Gustav's death notice. I do not have a date of birth for Ottilia. Family history has her date of death as June 1, 1928. Carl ("Charles") and Ottilia had five children according to our records: Herman, Grace, George, Gustav and Carl. That is about all I have right now.

I do not have a list of Adolph's siblings. I had not heard of either Emil or Gustav until I came across your posting. I also do not have any information about Adolph's parents. If you have any such information I would be grateful if you would send it along. If I learn anything more, I will try to let you know.

So your great-grandfather was Adolph. Was your grandfather Otto and your father Howard?

I didn't know about Gustav until I went to the Wauwatosa Historical Society and looked through old newspapers from 1903. This is what I found:

September 26, 1903
Wauwatosa News
Died-Gustav Lentz, Wednesday night, September 23, aged 52 years, 11 months, at his home on Fifth Avenue, after a lingering illness. He is survived by his widow and 5 children, 2 brothers, Adolph and Emil Lentz and a sister, Mrs. Chas. Radtke. The funeral will be held at the St. John's Lutheran Church tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock.

I actually have a newspaper death notice for Ottilia Radtke! It said she was "aged 68 years" so I'm guessing she was born around 1860.

The only thing I have found for a parent's name was on Emil Lentz's death certificate, it said, "Father's Name: Frederick; Mother's Name: Unknown".

I've been working on my genealogy off and on for about 12 years. I recently purchased Family Tree Maker 2011 and a subscription to Geneaology.Com and have found a ton of information but there are still holes!

P.S. Sorry it took me so long to respond...I don't read my e-mail too often!

Hello. You can see that I am pretty delinquent about checking this FamilyTreeCircles site. Sorry that so much time has elapsed. I took a break from this side of my family over the autumn. But, I have some additional information for you that I found after I first wrote.

By the way, you have identified me correctly. Born and raised in Wauwatosa, Howard was my father and Otto my grandfather. I now live in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Emil and Adolph's parents were: Friederich Lentz (Lenz) and Elisabeth (Maria) Liesert (Lieseth). I found this information using "familysearch.org" which led me to Gustav's marriage record and his death record. Friederich and Elisabeth were also found on Adolph's marriage record.

I find five children for Friederich and Elisabeth: Gustav (b: 10/25/1850); Adolph (b: 11/6/1857); Ottilia (b: 9/1860); Emil (b: 1/7/1863; and Ernestine (I have not found a birth/death date for her, or any other information for that matter; although I suspect she might have married a man with the last name of Brosius).

Friederich, Elisabeth and all of their children are generally identified as coming from the "Posen" area of Germany. This was a province and covers a fair amount of territory in what is now, mostly, western and southwestern Poland. I don't know of a village/town/city from which the Lentzes came. I know that Ottilia's daughter, Grace, is identified as being born in Berlin, which is fairly close to the old border of the province of Posen.

I have the name "Anna Eichoff" as Gustav's wife. I do not have the names of any of the five children mentioned in the obituary. If you have those names could you send them to me? Gustav is buried in the Wauwatosa Cemetery (76th Street just north of North Ave.). I do not see an "Anna" Lentz buried there.

Emil, by the way, is also buried in the Wauwatosa Cemetery as is his wife Mary Lange. I would be happy to send you the list of Lentzes buried there if you would like. If you wish, you could send me an e-mail at "chuck.lentz@chucklentzlaw.com" to open up direct communication. If you would prefer not to do that, I will try to remember to check this site more often to look for any postings from you.

One mystery I ran into is a man named Rudolph Lentz who is also buried in the Wauwatosa Cemetery. His date of birth is given as 3/2/1861. This makes him a clear contemporary of Emil, Adolph, etc. And, this birth date would fit into a gap between Friederich and Elisabeth's two youngest children. But, I have not yet found any records that establish him as a sibling. Do you know anything about him?

Although I do not have the names of any of Gustav's children, I have names for the children of Adolph, Emil (your branch) and Ottilia. If you need/want any of that information just let me know. And, of course, if you know anything more about Ernestine (or any siblings that I do not yet have) I would appreciate it if you could fill me in.

It has been interesting to see how many Lentzes there were spread around the Wauwatosa area at one time and how many worked at the lumber/millwork company. My father worked with his father (Otto) at the lumber company until it closed in 1963. I have a lot of good memories of that place. Growing up, though, we didn't know any Lentzes outside of our first cousins. And, other than my Aunt Grace (born: Radtke), I myself did not know any Radtkes. My father would only occasionally talk about his own cousins and, being a typical kid/teenager, I didn't pay much attention. Adolph was married twice and had 11 children -- 4 boys and 7 girls. Of the four boys,though, one died in infancy (Erwin), one had only one child that I know of (Herman, father of Terry Lentz) and one had no children (Frederick, husband of Grace). This means that except for my own cousins, the descendants of Adolph with the last name of Lentz are limited to my father's cousin Terry as far as I know).

If you would care to share any information about the descendants of Emil, I would be grateful. I have Emil and Mary's children as: Frank, Richard, Emma (Emilie), Arthur Emil, Ella, Gertrude and Emil Walter. I have some children for Frank, Richard and Emil Walter but don't have any for the other siblings and don't know if the information I have is complete.

That is my report for the time being. Hope you find it interesting and useful in your own searches. By the way, my main sources of information have been: ancestry.com and familysearch.org. Familysearch. org is a free service that I have found particularly helpful in tracking down records from Germany. Ancestry.com is a subscription service that has a LOT of information and the added benefit of making available actual photographs of many of the census, etc. records they have. I find it really cool to look over the handwritten records.