John Lewis Bruckner (M), Born: 25 Sep 1866, New Chester, Adams, WI
Died: 26 May 1912, New Chester, Adams, WI
Marriage 1: 23 Jan 1896 to Augusta Strohschein (F) in New Chester, Adams, WI
Born: 21 Dec 1879 in Prussia/Germany
Died: 24 Dec 1966, Oxford, Marquette, WI
Children of J. Lewis and Augusta (Strohschein) Bruckner
Child 1: Johnnie Bruckner (M), B; 27 Mar 1897, Died: 22 Jun 1897, New Chester, Adams, WI
Child :2 Esther Alvina Bruckner (F), Born: 8/9 Apr 1898, New Chester, Adams, WI
Died: 9 Sep 1997, Friendship, Adams, WI
Marriage 1: Fredrick T. Janke (M), 19 Apr 1917, Born: 15 Aug 1892, Died 11/16? Nov 1967,
Oxford, Marquette, WI
Children of Esther and Fred Janke
Arnold Janke (M), Born: 1 Dec 1919, Died: 31 Oct 1998, Oxford, Marquette, WI
Child 3: Walter Lewis Bruckner (M), Born 29 Jul 1901, New Chester, Adams, WI
Died: 11 Jul 1988, Oregon, Dane, WI
Marriage 1: Emma Bisseger (F), Born: 14 Sep 1894, WI
Died Mar 1967, Madison, Dane, WI
Marriage 2: 1967 to Marcia Patterson (F), Born: 28 Jul 1906, Died: Jul 1992, Madison, Dane, WI
Child 4: Edwin Robert Bruckner (M), Born: 15 Jan 1904, New Chester, Adams, WI
Died: 22 May 2003, Collegedale, TN
Marriage 1: Myrtle Hall (F), Born: 2 Apr 1907, IL, Died: Sep 1990
Child 5: Evelina (Evelyn) Alvina Bruckner (F), Born: 21 Apr 1906, New Chester, Adams, WI
Died: 16 Feb 1989, Eugene, OR
Marriage 1: Robert (Bob) Haughey (M)
Marriage 2: John Struble (M)
Marriage 3: Ray Burkhart (M)
Marriage 4: James Wagner (M)
Child 6: Arthur William Bruckner (M), Born: 26 Jul 1908, New Chester, Adams, WI
Died: 12 Dec 1993, Pasadena, CA
Marriage 1: Eleanore Louise Reynolds (F) on 12 Jun 1937 in Los Angeles, CA
Born: 13 Feb 1914, Detroit, MI, Died: 24 Oct 1964, Los Angeles, CA
Eleanore's father (John William Reynolds) was a widower and married Catherine Trahey.
Child 7: Lewis E. Bruckner (M), Born: 20 Sep 1911, New Chester, Adams, WI
Died: 27 Oct 1980, Westfield, Marquette, WI
Marriage 1: 9 Mar 1935 to Elizabeth J. Dewar (F) in Westfield, Marquette, WI
Born: 1915, Died: 22 Aug 1984, Westfield, Marquette, WI
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John Lewis Bruckner was born in 1866 on the John Gottfried Bruckner farm by Fenner Lake. He was always called "Lewis" - his middle name. He had an older half brother, H. Edward, and in 1867 his younger brother Samuel (Sam) was born.
J. Lewis and Sam were born in a log house that their father JG Bruckner had built around 1850 after immigrating from Prussia/Germany and moving to Wisconsin. JG Bruckner first lived in Pennsylvania for a while with a half brother. After moving to Wisconsin, JG Bruckner had two wives who both died in child birth. Edward was born in Prussia/Germany in 1857 and immigrated in 1864 with his mother Anna Micbauch who married JG Bruckner after his second wife died in 1863.
Their father, JG Bruckner died in 1882 at the age of 72. Sam was 14 and J. Lewis was 15. Edward was about 10 years older and had moved to Nebraska some time before his step-father died. While Sam and J. Lewis had worked hard helping their parents farm the land, their mother Anna apparently didn't feel she could manage the nearly 300 acre farm with two teenage sons so she took them and moved to Nebraska to live with a cousin and be near her son Edward.
Sam worked with Edward on the building of the railroad west from Lincoln, NE. It is not known what J. Lewis did during the time he lived there. Sometime prior to 1898, Sam, J. Lewis, and Anna moved back to farm in Wisconsin. Sam and J. Lewis were older then and were able to manage the farm.
In 1896 J. Lewis, who was 30, married the 16 year old Augusta Stroschein who lived on a neighboring farm. As a wedding present, Augusta's father John Stroschein helped J. Lewis build a new house just east of the JG Bruckner log house. It is not known when the log house was torn down.
J. Lewis and Augusta are remembered as hard working, but kind and fun loving parents. J. Lewis would travel whenever an opportunity would arise such as the World's Fair in St. Louis. Augusta would go with him when she could. Any circus, within "horse-traveling" distance, was a must for the whole Bruckner family.
It was hard making a living on the farm. The 1910 census shows J. Lewis, Augusta, Esther, Walter, Edwin, Evelyn, and Arthur Bruckner living in Packwaukee which is about 10 miles SE of the farm. They lived there for about a year while J. Lewis had a job delivering freight from the railroad station.
J. Lewis, and his brother Sam raised sorghum on their farms. Sorghum is like sugar cane and is planted and grown like corn. In the Fall the leaves are stripped off and the stalk is run through a press to squeeze the juice (syrup) out. The syrup is boiled for a long time to produce a thick sweet syrup. J. Lewis had the equipment required to do this and it was called a Sorghum Mill. Sorghum syrup was used as a sweetener in many recipes. J. Lewis sold the syrup. J. Lewis and Sam worked the mill together each fall, sometimes from 4 am to 10 pm.
J. Lewis was a serious photographer and took many family pictures and probably earned extra money by taking pictures for others. He had a good camera which was large and used glass negatives. He built a separate shed for his dark room so he could develop and print pictures. It was about 8x12 feet in size and stood next to the windmill. After his death it was used as a work shop and it survived into the 1950s. Some of his glass negatives survived in a small box and copies of a few of them are included in this website.
J. Lewis and Augusta took care of his mother Anna until Anna died in 1907. J. Lewis made several modifications to their house while they lived there. Click here to view changes made.
On 26 May 1912, J. Lewis had worked up a sweat pulling a marker to mark the rows for planting early potatoes. He then got on a corn planter and got a chill. He came in the house, put on a heavy fur coat, and went to bed. The doctor came, but had nothing to give him other than whiskey. A few hours later, J. Lewis Bruckner was dead at the age of 46. J. Lewis and Augusta had seven children that were born in the house that J. Lewis built. Of their six living children, the baby, Lewis was only 8 months old and Esther, the eldest, was 14. Their first child, Johnnie, had died in 1897 when only about 4 months old.
After both J. Lewis and Augusta's second husband had died, the house was purchased by Augusta's youngest child Annie and her husband. After Annie's husband died in 1966 the house was sold to a non-family person. It is still being used as a vacation home.
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