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Henry Gottlieb Bremser 1940
German Patriarch and Business Owner
My great-grandfather Heinrich "Henry" Gottlieb Bremser was born Philip Gottlieb Elias Bremser on September 22, 1864, in Grebenroth, Hessen-Nassau, Germany. (Read the story on how we finally learned his true identity.) His wife Phillipina Klein was born in Burgschwalbach, about 16 miles away, on March 11, 1863.
Family legend says that Heinrich Bremser wanted to leave Germany to avoid the Kaiser's draft. In the late 19th century, Germany has become a major world power. All eligible men were required by the German government to spend two or three years in the military. From 1881 to 1890, about 1,342,000 Germans left for America. A woman’s role in German society was described by Kaiser Wilhelm II as circumscribed by Kinder (children), Kirche (church), and Küche (kitchen). Sometimes a fourth “K” was mentioned: Kleider (clothes).
The Wedding Banns
Henry and Phillipina Bremser's daughter, Minnie (b. 1896) wrote, "Mother [Philipina Klein] told me her father [Johann Jacob Klein b. 1830] was very opposed to Mom and Dad getting married." Phillipina was pregnant when they married on 27 May 1888. Their first child Elizabethe was born 2 Nov 1888. Henry's great-grandaughter Jane Beasley repeated the story: "Gramma's father would not have permitted her to marry Grandpa if she had not been pregnant with her first child when they married." Their marriage date is 27 May 1888; my grandmother Elizabethe was born 2 Nov 1888.
The text of the Henry Bremser and Philipina Klein's wedding banns (or announcement):
No. 12 (1888) (the number was mentioned in the church record) Hahnstaetten, at May 19, 1888.
In front of the signing registry officer showed up for the purpose of marriage:
- The farmer Philipp Gottlieb Elias Bremser, known by person, evangelic religion, born at September 22, 1864 in Grebenroth, living in Hahnstaetten, son of the linenweaver Philipp Nikolaus Karl Bremser and his dead wife Marie Jacobine born Weidenmueller, living in Grebenroth.
- Katharine Philippine Klein, known by person, evangelic religion, born at March 11, 1863 in Burgschwalbach, living in Burgschwalbach, daughter of the stonecutter Johann Jacob Klein and his dead wife Katharine Wilhelmine born Seel, living in Burgschwalbach.
Witnesses of his banns (wedding announcement) were:
- The cabinet-maker Philipp Wilhelm Busch, known by person, 21 years old, living in Burgschwalbach.
- The tailor Philipp Friedrich Debusmann, known by person, known by person, 26 years old, living in Hähnstaetten.
Emigration to America
Henry arrived on Ellis Island in New York Harbor at age 28, on May 12, 1892, on board the Spree. Also on board was his wife, Phillipina Klein; their two daughters, Elizabeth (Lizzie), age 4, and Anna Karlena (Lena), age 2; Phillipina's father, Johann Jacob Klein; and Phillipina's 16 year old brother Karl. According to his great-granddaughter Jane Beasley Raph, Jacob's health failed and he died the year after they arrived, in 1893. "They always said he died of homesickness," she told me.
Finding Work in Norwalk
After arriving in the Norwalk, Ohio, Henry found work at the old Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad roundhouse and Haddie found work for a family as housekeeper. Henry's granddaughter, Minnie wrote, "As time went on and Papa [Henry Bremser] was better able to master the English language conditions improved for them and they purchased the Homestead on [357] Elm St. (This was sometime prior to 1896.) Winters were always hard since there was no mason work to be had, no heated concrete in those days."
"To carry them thru the winter, Mama took in washing and ironing, if my memory serves me right she did as many as 21 washings in a week with an old wooden tub wash machine that had to be hand operated, pushing the handle back and forth for hours. Often during those winters when Papa had little or not work they would have to run up a grocery bill at a store at the intersection of Townsend and East Main. I always remember wanting do go along, and that was no short walk. But the owners of the store — [their] name was Erb — and they were also German and he would always give us a piece of candy or a wiener. When spring came and papa started back to work, he first thing Mama would aim to do is get that grocery bill paid, and I recall definitely her telling it would be nearly a hundred dollars for a winter's groceries."
In 1901, Bina "was pregnant... she got very large and she was of small stature and for the last month or so... she could hardly walk. She always sat in the rocker...and Lena and Lizzie would push Mamma around in that rocker. When her time came to deliver they had old Dr. Schuerer come to the house, no hospitals in those days, I was taken over to the Yeagers and can still remember her walking me back. The Dr. decided Mama could not give birth to the baby and it was either he save Mama or the baby, and Papa wanted Mama sound and the child had to be cut away. All I remember Mama said he was a very big baby and he was buried in the same grave as Edna.
Starts Manufacturing Cement Block
"As time went on, Grandpa had better mastered the language he got plenty of work, but Grandma continued to take in washings and irons. At some point Papa became interested in cement blocks and it was known he was the first to manufacture cement black in Huron Co. and he made them in the basement. You may recall there were stone steps leading to the basement and he fixed a ramp so he could wheel the sand and stone into the basement and carried down the bags of cement.
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| The "Homestead" in Norwalk, Ohio as it looked when Henry and Bina bought it. Lena, Edna, Elizabeth, Bina, and Henry. 1896. |
When he would empty a bag of cement it sifted thru everything even the house and mama nearly went crazy. He would pound out whatever number one nite, the next nite he would carry them out one by one to cure, and the pound out more and that was a routine nite after nite." In 1902, Henry started a business supplying concrete block and concrete construction.
Join the German Lutheran Church
There were so many German-speaking emigrants in Norwalk that one of the two Lutheran Churches in town held German language services. St Paul's German Lutheran Chruch on the north side of town served the German-speaking residents, and St. Peter's served those who preferred English. Henry and Bina attended the German congregation.
Henry and Bina had four more children: Lena, born in 1891 (m. Jake Miller); Edna, was born in 1893 and died at age 4; Wilhelmina "Minnie", born in 1896 (m. her first cousin, Curt Klein); and an unnamed son who died at childbirth in 1901. He was buried over Edna in the family plot in Norwalk.
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| The Bremser Family in 1905, from front middle, clockwise: Minnie, Bina, Lena, Lizzie, and Henry. |
Buys Bell Coal Company
Minnie wrote, "He made these mostly in the evenings after working as a mason all day, and Gramma Bremser had to put up with the cement dust filtering all around," according to her granddaughter, Jane Beasley. This small start led to the beginning of the Bremser Coal and Supply Co. on Woodlawn Ave. Bina worked hard too, selling eggs, doing laundry, and selling butter she churned herself, and saved her earnings.
"At this time a Mr. Bell owned the buildings on R. R. property and got to know him quite well. One morning as Grandpa walked thru his property enroute to go uptown, cross-lots, as we called it in those days, Mr. Bell stopped Dad and ask if he would be interested to buy his buildings, since it appeared in the newspaper that natural gas was going to piped into Norwalk and that would ruin his business, which was mainly coal. Dad jumped at the chance, I knew [the price] for many years, but it has left me, but it was not a big price, since mama had almost enough money saved up to buy and she was so anxious to get rid of that cement dust she gladly gave Dad the money. This was the start of Bremser Coal and Builders Supplies. Lena worked for Dad for a period of time, until she and Jake were married and then I took over the office, if my memory serves me right, I must have been about 16 [in 1914]."
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| Bremser Brothers Four Bremser brothers emigrated to America. Philipp Heinrich Bremser or Henry (center front); Wilhelm (left); Phillip (middle rear): and Karl (right). A baby sister died in infancy. Philip helped manage the masonry business and Wilhelm made cement blocks. Phillip followed his brothers Henry and Karl to the United States on April 12, 1910 but returned to Germany soon there after. |
Minnie Bremser Attends Business College
"I never had a high school education. I was in my Freshman year and they started having the girls who were interested and had the required grades to play [in the school yard]. In my... middy blouse and skirt and tennis shoes, but the school did not furnish them. I went home from school all elated that I was going to play and told Mama she said I would have to tell Papa, that was the blow, Papa said if that was what I was learning in school, I was to get out of school and go to work. There were no laws in those days that could stop him. Practically every one of my teacher called Papa but he wouldn't give an inch. I had to quit school and did housework for a family named Wingiter that lived at the southwest corner of Prospect and League. I worked there until Lena and Jake were engaged [in 1914] and then Papa made arrangements for me to go to Business College, on the third floor of the building that for years was our Post Office. He paid for a 12 month course, at the end of 9 month I was permitted to take substitute work thru the Christmas Holidays, but Papa told me I could not take a steady job when I finished my 12 months, that Lena & Jake were going to be married. I faintly remember the [wedding] day was to be Aug. 12 [1914], I could be wrong.
"When I started working for Papa I had to be to work at 6:30 in the morning and worked until 5:30. On days when Papa would be working out in Country jobs Mama would bring me over some lunch at noon. These were long hours, tiresome and lonely since few customers. The business didn't flourish in those days, so to keep busy, I cleaned a room adjoining the main office, painted it and bought a sewing machine, took a course in dress making and that started my sewing and fancy needle work career. The business was started with the old blind horse that Papa bought with the business. I'll never forget she went a certain gait all day, but once she became familiar to her new home back of 53 E. Elm and knew she was headed for the barn could she trot!
From Horses to Trucks
Time went and Papa bought a team of horses and larger coal wagons, but soon trucks came in use and our first truck was a Ford and a man by the name of Henry Blakely drove the truck. Time went on and more cars were being used and a man by the name [blank] had a garage on Townsend Ave. close to where Route 20 branched in. He purchased coal from us and one day he came in the office and wanted to sell Papa a Reo car, Papa's answer was " I can't learn to drive a car" and the man said, "But Minnie can learn." "No" was Grandpa's reply, "She's too young." He persuaded Papa to let him take me out for a trial run and when he came back he said, "Minnie will have no trouble." That was the beginning of my driving days, no learner's license required, I just started to drive, and learned that Mrs. Mich Newman was the only other woman driver in Norwalk. That situation soon changed."
Son-in-laws Take Over Business
Henry operated the coal company jointly with his mason and contracting business until his retirement in 1923. When Henry retired, he split the company between his two sons-in-laws, Jake Miller and Curt Klein. Curt and Jake ran the coal company from 1924 until the partnership was dissolved in about 1942. Curt and Minnie ran the Bremser Coal & Supply Company and added a ready-mix cement plant to the business. It won the contract to pour much of the concrete when the interstate highway system was built through the area.
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| Bremser Supply concrete silo circa 1945. |
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| Curt Klein next to a Bremser Concrete truck, late 1940s. |
On August 3, 1942, Curt and Jake bought the Smith Monument Works on N Prospect St., founded in Norwalk in 1884, from Fred Smith.
Curt continued to operate the Bremser Coal Company until his retirement in 1955. The cement company won the contract to pour much of the concrete when the interstate highway system was built through the area.
In the dissolved partnership, Jake assumed control of the Norwalk Monument Company business, which the men had bought a few years before and operated as a separate part of the Bremser Coal Company. Jake ran it until his retirement in the early 1970s.
A Carol for Henry Bremser
By the late 1920s, the German-speaking St. Paul's German Lutheran Church on the north side of Norwalk had experienced a significant decline in German-speaking members. It was finally shuttered in 1933 and the remaining 12 members joined English-speaking St. Peter's Lutheran Church. Marilyn Field, daughter of the pastor at the time, Carl Wannemacher, remembers welcoming the new members with a rendition of the German hymn, O Tannenbaum.
"We used to have a choir made up of seventh and eighth grade girls directed by Mrs. Augusta Kohlmeyer. The year that Mr. [Henry] Bremser and the other members of the German Lutheran Church joined our church Dad thought it would be nice if we girls would sing O Tannenbaum (Oh Christmas Tree) in German.(1)
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| Henry Bremser and his grand-daughter Annabeth Beasley in about 1918. |
"He thought it would make Mr. Bremser and the other German members who joined feel more at home. We learned all four verses and I still love to sing it today in German, although I only remember the first verse and need help on the others. Dad told Mr. Bremser to be sure and come to the Christmas program and Mr. Bremser was very pleased."
(My then 12-year-old mother, Annabeth Beasley, was one of the children who learned to sing O Tannenbaum in German that year. The carol remained a cherished favorite her entire life, and she always recalled the tears in her grandpa's eyes as she sang in her best German.)
Bells for the Norwalk, Ohio Lutheran Church
In the late winter of 1924, the congregation of St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church in Norwalk, Ohio, wavered between building plans it could afford and a church design it really wanted. Like a wide-eyed Christmas shopper with a credit card, it ordered the church it wanted, and prayed it could pay for it.
The question was whether to build a church for $25,000 without a bell tower or spend $31,000 for a building with a bell tower. The congregation couldn't resist the drawing with the bell tower and the vote was unanimous. A Monroeville contractor, Henry Schneider, thought the estimate by architect Granville Scott - with or without a bell tower - was too low. And he was right. Nevertheless, the tower became part of the new St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church, even though there were no plans for a bell to go in it.
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| The bell donated by Henry Bremser was dedicated on Christmas Day of 1936. |
The bell came later in 1936, during the depth of the Great Depression. Henry Bremser, who owned a coal yard in Norwalk, persuaded the vestry to create a fund for a bell. He had come from Germany where all churches had bells, and he thought St. Peter should have one. The vestry agreed but vowed there would be no bell until it had money to pay for one. Bremser apparently overcame this problem by writing a personal check for most of the cost. The 966-pound bell was cast of copper and tin by a St. Louis company. A hole was cut in the ceiling above a stairway, and the bell was hoisted into place with a rope and pulley. Senior deacons Merrill White and Elmer Christel were placed in charge of ringing the bell on Sunday mornings.
Occasionally a deacon would pull too hard on the rope and the bell would flip over the top and become stuck upside down. The custodian, Walter Schlegelmilch, would climb through a trapdoor in the ceiling of the balcony to reach the bell and flip it back.
The bell was left behind when St. Peter sold the church to the Salvation Army in 1974. A free-standing bell tower was erected at the new church on Benedict Avenue in 1978, again at the persistence of a German immigrant, Ulrich Mangold. It was designed by a son, Ernest Mangold. The price was $17,677. Three years later, the congregation removed the bell from its old church and re-hung it in the tower in front of the church where Norwalk Lutherans worship today.
The old bell that Henry Bremser bought no longer is rung, but there is a device inside to toll it during The Lord's Prayer. The sound of ringing church bells you hear at St. Peter is from a tape player connected to speakers in the tower. The three bells you see in the tower are mostly for show. But one of them has more than esthetic value. It's linked forever to the congregation's past.(1)
During the Depression, their daughter Lizzie's husband John left her. Bina sent her daughter money from her egg fund on several occations, until Lizzie and her two daughters Jane and Annabeth moved back to Norwalk, renting out her home in Kansas City. They moved 13 times over the next 9 years. In 1935, Henry and Bina paid for Jane to attend Bowling Green State University in Ohio. In 1939, Heinrich, heavily pressured by his wife Bina, agreed to give their daughter Lizzie an early inheritance: he paid off both mortgages on the house in Kansas City. Lizzie and Annabeth moved back to Kansas City.
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| Henry and Philippina Bremser (center) and their descendants. Back row, L-R Minnie Bremser (Klien), Lena Bremser (Miller), Elizabeth Bremser (Beasley), and Jake Miller; (middle row, L-R) Curt Klein, Thelma Miller, Leland Miller, Gramma Bremser, Grampa Bremser, Jane Beasley, and Marie Miller; (front row, L-R) Annabeth Beasley, Bob Klein, Mary Siefert, and Majorie Miller. |
^(1) From One Hundred Years of Amazing Grace, History of a Lutheran Congregation, 1901-2001. St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church, 243 Benedict Ave., Norwalk, OH 44857 p48, 60