Obit: Janing, John Carl (1881 - 1955)

Contact: R. Lipprandt
Email: bob@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Bub, Ecke, Fenn, Hinz, Hoegger, Janing, Keifer, Kerwin, Klister, Nagel, Rodewald, Schroeder, Stuebbe, Wiegand

----Source: The Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Sheboygan County, Wis.) Tuesday, January 11, 1955, Page 8

Janing, John Carl (15 June 1881 - 11 Jan. 1955)*

John Janing, Blacksmith at Newton 51 Years, Dies

Newton (Special) - John C. Janing, 73, the widely known village blacksmith here for 51 years until his retirement about two years ago, died at 4:30 a.m. today at St. Nicholas Hospital, Sheboygan

In failing health since his retirement, Mr. Janing had been taken to the hospital Sunday.

Born at Unity, Wis., June 15, 1881, he was a son of the late Frederick and Ernestina Wiegand Janing. When a boy of 4, he moved with his parents to Newton where his father set up a blacksmith shop in the center of this Manitowoc County village. As a boy of 15, he began working with his father in the shop and in 1901, upon his father’s death, took over the trade of shoeing horses, making wagons and repairing farm implements.

With the exception of several years, during which he engaged in farm work, Mr. Janing had continued to operate the blacksmith shop for 51 years until failing health force him to discontinue the heavy work.

Life of Hard Work

The village smithy liked to call the "good old days" in the trade when, during busy seasons on the farm, he would be up at 2 a.m., turning out regular work by 6 o’clock, thus enabling him to shoe 10 or more horses in the course of a regular working day.

When he started in the trade everything was done by hand. However, in the late years he became a handy man with a power hammer, arc welding outfit, electric grinder and numerous other tools that have replaced muscles.

As a result of the mechanizing of farm work, Mr. Janing shod his last horse some five years ago. During his young days he could boast of having sharpened 35 plow shares a day.

When he began shoeing horses the price per job was only about 15 to 20 cents. It had risen to $2 several years ago.

After his retirement Mr. Janing sold his shop to Henry Rodewald, also of Newton. Although the building still stands along Highway 141 here, it is not being used as a blacksmith shop. All of Janing’s tools and equipment have been sold elsewhere.

On June 9, 1904, he married the former Augusta Nagel of the Town of Liberty. The couple observed its golden wedding anniversary this past June.

Funeral Thursday

Janing was the founder and an active member of the Blacksmith’s Association.

Surviving are his wife: five daughters, Mr. Robert (Esther) Hoegger of Sheboygan Falls, Mr. Anita Klister of Sheboygan, Mrs. Emil (Elvira) Kerwin of Kohler, Mrs. Gordon (Irene) Keifer of Tucson, Ariz., and Mrs. Ray (Lorraine) Hintz of Hika; 17 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Also surviving are four sisters, Mrs. Henry Bub and Mrs. Otto Fenn of Sheboygan, Mrs. Emma Schroeder of Manitowoc, and Mrs. Henry Ecke of Dorchester, Wis.

One daughter preceded him in death.

Services will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday at Salem Ebenezer and Reformed Church, Newton, with the Rev. K. J. Stuebbe, Pastor, officiating. Burial will be in St. John Cemetery, Centerville.

Friends may call at the Stolenberg Funeral Chapel, Cleveland, from 2 p.m. Wednesday until 11 a.m. Thursday and after that at the church.

* Death date verified via the Hamann Family Tree

 

 


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