Week 14: #52 Ancestors – Begins With a Vowel
By Eilene Lyon
My great-great grandmother, Olive (Springer) Gusso, was born into a large family of first-generation Americans in 1870. Both her parents were German-born immigrants, Charles Springer of Heidelsheim and Margaret Delle of Mainz.
The Springer family moved from Wisconsin to South Dakota when Olive was 11 years old.1 At age 18, she married Charlie Gusso and they had three sons and a daughter together.2 The Gussos had a nice farm near Florence, in Dexter Township, Codington County.
Olive belonged to the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and loved music. I expect she may have had a piano in her home, but I don’t have any direct evidence. Some of what I know about her life comes from my Grandma Reatha’s diary from 1932.
Because Olive was widowed the prior year, Reatha, her sister Eleanor, and their cousins called on “Grandma G” regularly. One of their favorite activities at Grandma’s house was singing, and Reatha copied down music from Olive’s collection.
Reatha’s Gabert cousins, Grace and Harvey, lived with Grandma Olive some of the time. Their parents were separated and their mother lived in Minnesota for a while. Their father had been in legal trouble for running liquor during Prohibition.3 By living with their grandmother, Grace and Harvey could stay in school with their friends.
A few excerpts from Reatha’s diary:
January 24: “This afternoon mother & us girls went up to Grandma G’s. Grace and I sang until we were nearly hoarse. Always enjoy singing any way.”
April 10: “This p.m. Eleanor & I went up to Grandma G’s. Grace & Henry were up there. We sang a few songs. We stayed there for supper. After supper I copied some songs that I wanted to copy while Grace & the other girls played games. . . . After that was over Grace started to holler because Ervin wasn’t there. I thought I had a temper but hers is worse. I wouldn’t want to call Everett such names.”
June 18: “Eleanor and I went up to Grandma G’s. We went up to talk to Grace—We haven’t had a chance to talk to her for 2 wks. because she has been in Fergus Falls with her mother.”
June 23: “This PM Eleanor & I went with Grace, Harvey, Stella, & Grandma G. out to York’s. Gee, we had a lot of fun out there. I met Dolly York and her husband today for the first time. When we came back from there we stopped at Medicine Lake and us girls went in bathing.”
Reatha helped out with some chores at Grandma G’s house and it seems that sometimes Olive took her grandchildren out for treats like the day at the York’s and Medicine Lake, or going into Watertown to see a movie.
Most of Olive’s younger siblings remained in South Dakota or Minnesota, but others roamed westward to California, Colorado, and Montana. One brother died in New York state. Both of their parents are buried in Dexter Township at the Helgen Cemetery.
Olive lived to age 70 and was buried by her husband in Watertown’s Mount Hope Cemetery.4
Feature image: Olive (Springer) Gusso (left) on May 28, 1939 with three generations of descendants: granddaughter Reatha (Gusso) Halse, son Walter Gusso, great-grandsons (my dad) and Treslin Halse.
- Gusso, Olive. Obituary. Northern Union Outlook 5, no. 4 (Nevada, Iowa: June 24, 1941): 6. ↩
- Codington County (SD) Marriage Book A, p. 136. “Charles J. Gusso, age 27, farmer and Olive Springer aged 19 [sic] were by me a duly elected Justice of the peace City of Watertown 28th March 1889 at 12 oclock in the presence of William L. John and Flora John.” (The witnesses were younger half-siblings of Charlie Gusso.) ↩
- “Liquor Law Breaker Gets Stiff Sentence.” The Daily Plainsman (Huron, South Dakota), Dec. 4, 1930, p. 7 – via Newspapers.com. ↩
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/119840849/olive-a-gusso ↩
Myricopia 
So Grace had quite a bad temper!
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According to Reatha!
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Unreliable witness, perchance??
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Probably not.🙂
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I didn’t realize that Springer was a German name, but it makes sense to me now that I think about it. I like Grace Gabert’s outfit, very fetching.
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I was torn as to which photo of Grace to use. I have her in several “get-ups”!
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Who is Ervin? I wonder why is absence was only noted after the games…?
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Good question! Clearly someone who Grace thought she had some claim on. He apparently didn’t think so!
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He probably heard about her temper and ran for the hills! lol
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🤣
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How wonderful to have that diary! Does Ervin appear in any other entries? We all want to know why Grace was so mad!
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I guess Ervin York was her boyfriend and she expected him to be there for some reason, and he wasn’t. Grandma was very vague about a lot of things in her diary. Here’s another comment she had about Grace and Ervin:
Gee, Grace is silly when she gets started. No stopping her. I wonder if Ervin would think she’s so wonderful if he could see her the way she acts sometimes. Oh well, why worry about her.
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I think I would have liked both your grandmother and Grace!
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My grandmother was a real doll!
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How nice to have a photo with all seven siblings in it – I wonder if that is unusual? I know my grandmother had nine siblings and in the few old pictures I have, there are no photos of my grandmother with any of her siblings, not even with her parents in the same photo. I think my mom captured her grandparents’ photos when she got her Baby Brownie camera and there are very few of those photos.
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There are a couple not in the picture, but I didn’t make a point of figuring out who was missing! Certainly the oldest sister is not there. And one of the brothers.
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It’s still remarkable to see them lined up in a row like that!
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It is unusual to have everyone in a single row!
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What a treasure trove you found in that diary!
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Oh, it is quite a delight!
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Wonderful post, Eilene! I was thinking about all these German ancestors of so many of us. I remember reading that it’s largest ancestry group in the United States, even ahead of English and Mexican, for instance. And yet, did you ever read Little Women, for instance? In those days the Germans were the poor, ill-thought-of immigrants who needed a hand up. That was just before the Irish who were followed by the Italians and Jews.
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That’s true, but later the Germans were desirable immigrants for being educated, skilled laborers. Would be interesting to see if something changed in Germany or was just a change in perception in America. Reatha, my grandmother, was 3/4 German.
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Some time ago I was trying to figure out why my paternal grandmother’s family left Budesheim, near Bingen in the latter part of the 19th century, but also I had seen many had left that area even earlier. I found a wonderful article that I can no longer remember very well or where to find it that explained what happened in Germany. It was something to do with laws that basically drove out a generation. I don’t know if it was just the area they were from or not.
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Forced military service drove a lot of people away. Lack of land, too. The pull of homestead land in the US was strong.
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My great-grandfather’s story was that he didn’t want to serve. He had a wife and children, but they wanted him because he was a blacksmith which was considered practically a horse vet in those days and wanted him for that reason.
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What’s ironic is that many who came here joined the US military!
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Yes that’s true. But not my great-grandfather. He couldn’t get a job in the veterinary field as he had no formal vet training, so he became “head engineer” (read: maintenance man and janitor) of a school. But he had a whole family to support. First, though, he came alone and worked on building the railroad!
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He did what he had to do. I’m awed at what immigrants have always had to do – even just the move is a huge deal.
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I can’t even imagine, especially the teenagers coming by themselves!
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Maybe teens find it more fun – a big adventure.
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Maybe some teens. But I suspect a lot of them were scared.
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No doubt.
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Great post – that diary is a treasure! Loved reading about Grandma G and how her house was a gathering place for the children…
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In the late 60s it was Reatha’s turn to be the grandma/hostess at her house!
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That diary is akin to a treasure!
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It is a wonderful window into my grandma’s life!
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Very Interesting read, I come from the Charles Springer family. my great grandfather was Charles Springer, My grandfather was Everett Charles Springer, my father was William Owen Springer. It is great to get more information. Thank You
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Hi David! Thanks for stopping by. I was working on a post about Charles Springer a couple weeks ago, but haven’t decided what direction I want to go with it. You should look up my post about Heidelsheim. One thing I find interesting is that his birth was recorded in a Catholic Church (not that the family was actually Catholic), his funeral was held in a Methodist Episcopal church, and he is buried in a Lutheran cemetery. According to his obit, he was Seventh Day Adventist!
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