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Note: He left Mariahilf during the great exodus of Germans from Galizien (Galicia) which begun in the late 1800s, peaking in the years before WW1. This exodus occurred chiefly because the weak and disorganized Austro-Hungarian government allowed the area to be controlled by the increasing number of Polish and Ruthenian settlers, who began to systematically discriminate against Germans by cutting off funds for the German-speaking schools, requiring the lessons be taught in Polish. They also forced the church services to be conducted in Polish. Besides the United States and Canada, one of the destinations of these people was the Austrian crown land of Bosnia. Michael first took his family to Polje, Bosnia shortly before moving on to America.
Michael immigrated to the US through Ellis Island aboard the NDL Grosser Kurfürst in steerage, departing Bremen and arriving on 26 JAN 1910, along with his brother Alois. In 1917 the Grosser Kurfürst became the troop transport ID-3005 USS Aeolus. After WW1 it became the Munson Line "City of Los Angeles, finally being sold to Japan for scrap in 1937.
Michael arrived with $10 in his pocket.He and Alois proceeded to their brother Frank's home in Dearing, KS. He was listed as having left his wife behind in Polje, Bosnia, and he was noted to be 5'-8" with blue eyes and black hair. According to family stories, his brother Frank paid for his passage. It is likely some of his relatives had moved to Bosnia, and he left his family with them while he proceeded to meet up with his older brother in America and get established there.
Prior to leaving Mariahilf, he obtained a copy of his Baptismal Certificate on 27 JAN 1908. According to this record, (Eccliastic Book 2, page 136) his parents were Joannes HOFFMAN (son of Joannis HOFFMAN and Anna HUBER) and Amelia GRUBER (daughter of Jacob GRUBER and Anna BAUER). His father's baptismal Certificate says Michael's grandfather was Frank HOFFMAN. It is likely this was his correct name and he probably went by Johann which may have been his middle name. This is speculation, but reasonable, given that his son was Johann. His god-parents were Michael and Rosalina LEHNER. Oral family tradition has it that he immigrated to America along with his father, John (and possibly 2 sisters?).
He was listed in the 1910 census (20 Apr 1910) as living in his brother Joe's house along with his brothers Frank and Alois in Fawn Creek Twp., Mongomery Co., KS. According to family tradition, he worked as a furnace-man in the zinc smelters.
In 1920 they were living in Strike Axe Twp., Osage Co., OK and John was working in a zinc smelter (in Bartlesville, OK). After a brief while in Dearing, KS, the family moved back to Bartlesville, OK. Later, the family settled on the "old Haddock place" southeast of Collinsville in 1928.
My uncle Frank told me that one year (after the Collinsville smelter closed in 1925) all 11 family members drove to New York City in a 1925 Hudson sedan to work in a cousin's foundry (Wiehl Bros. Brass Foundry, Brooklyn, NY) that made novelty burlesque ashtrays. They drove back to Oklahoma in the Hudson the next year.
He worked with the WPA during the early years of the Depression. He was never naturalized but his declaration of intent had been filed by 1930. Besides working in the zinc smelters he was a farmer, and he died around 7:00 PM on Christmas Eve 1936 of influenza (he caught it on or about 18 NOV) and acute encephalitis which showed up on or about 27 NOV. These diseases were quite common for men working in the zinc smelters.
1910 KS, Montgomery, ED172, p. 9A, (17)
1920 OK, Osage, ED 97, (15)
1930 OK, Tulsa, Collinsville, ED10, (06)
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From: http://www.tulsaokhistory.com/cities/collinsville.html
The real boom for Collinsville came with the smelters in 1911. The Chamber of Commerce induced the Prime Western and Bartlesville zinc smelters to locate here. These manufacturing concerns induced large numbers of people to move to Collinsville for employment and at one time the population of the city approximated 8,000 people. Eleven new subdivisions totaling some 796 lots were added to the town. The smelters were located on a hill commonly known as "Smelter Hill" that had been platted for homes as Morrow Heights Addition. Many buildings were built in the days of the "boom", including City Hall in 1913 and the Carnegie Library in 1917. During World War I, the government shut down one of the zinc plants because it was reputed to be a German institution and that knocked the bottom out of Collinsville economic conditions. [update to this: E-mail received from Virgil Cheney: "The two smelters spoken of in the article on Collinsville history were never located on a "Hill". The remnants of the smelter can still be seen next to the railroad tracks south of town and are about the same elevation as the town itself. What is known as Smelter Hill was a community of houses and of people who worked at the Smelter. I've lived on Smelter Hill for 43 yrs and my abstract covers 40 lots, there was never a smelter here."
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