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.