Johann Georg Bruch, 1856-1904

Johann Georg Bruch, the eldest child of Adam Bruch and Carolina Lehde, both immigrants from Prussia, who met and married soon after arriving in St. Louis in 1852, was born on 12 March 1856 and baptized a week later at St. Joseph’s Church.

Johann called himself John. He had five younger siblings, two of whom, Henry Herman and Anna Elizabeth, grew to adulthood. The others died as young children. The family, despite his father Adam’s career as a carpenter, was very poor, and by the time he was fourteen, John was on his own. The 1870 federal census shows he was earning a living tending bar.

The 1880 federal census lists John as boarding with the Joseph Hannibal family. Joseph ran a grocery store located across O’Fallon Street from St. Joseph’s Church at the corner with 11th Street where he employed John as a salesman. The building seems to have had residences upstairs with the store below since the Buchers, whose daughter Mary Angela would eventually marry John, lived at the same address as the store.

Two years later, on 31 January 1881, John and Mary Angela were married at St. Joseph’s Church. Father Braun, S.J., wrote:

January 31: John George Bruch, son of Adam Bruch and Carolina Lehde, and Mary Angela Bucher, daughter of John Bucher and Apollonia Schmidt, announced together the unfortunate fact that they had been married since June. In my presence and that of those written below, Henry Bruch and Barbara Bucher, they are bound.

Henry Bruch was John’s brother and Barbara was Mary’s sister.

On 19 September 1882, Mary and John welcomed their first child, Mary Elizabeth, known as Mary. A second child, Cecelia Ann, was born on 12 September 1885. Her godparents were Anna Elizabeth Bruch, John’s sister, and his friend Harry Hannibal. Three years later, a third daughter, Franceska Appolina, whose godparents were Joseph Hannibal and her grandmother, Appolonia Bucher, was born on 1 September 1888. Finally, twins John and Elizabeth “Lydia”, were born on 28 March 1892.

In 1886, John was chosen as godfather for his nephew, brother Henry’s son, John Joseph Bruch. Henry and his family were living nearby at 1118 O’Fallon.

John worked as a porter in Hannibal’s dry goods store, while his wife Mary helped support the family with her dressmaking business, well known for her expertise making wedding dresses, and the children attended St. Joseph’s School. They lived various places on what is today, Tucker Boulevard and 12th Street, near O’Fallon. Later, they moved further north and attended church at St. Liborius Church.

Unfortunately, John was not well, suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, from which he died, on 18 May 1904, at the age of forty-eight. His daughter Franceska remembered him as being a warm and loving person whose death was a tragedy for the family. He was buried from St. Liborius Church and laid to rest in Calvary Cemetery.

Written by Janet Clark Bagley
May 2024

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