Lewis Bruckner
Lewis was the seventh and last child of Lewis and Augusta Bruckner. He was born in 1911 died from cancer in 1980 at age 69 in Westfield, WI. Information about his life is included following the pictures.
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 Elizabeth (Dewar) & Lewis Bruckner
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 Elizabeth & Lewis Bruckner with sisters
Dorothy Cottrell (L-center) and Esther Janke (R-center)
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 Betty & Lewis at Red Rocks
in Colorado in the 1950s
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 Lewis and Betty in their home on a Saturday night
when relatives came to watch TV
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Sometime in the mid to late 1920s his mother and step-father bought a Model-T Ford. Neither of his parents knew how to drive but wanted a car so their children could drive them to town for shopping trips and to church. By then his older brothers lived elsewhere so Lewis was the one who drove his parents where they wanted to go. He was not supposed to use the car otherwise but he often took it without permission. It has been told that during the time of prohibition Lewis sometimes made extra money by using the car to "run" moonshine. There was a good sized still on Mud lake which is a rather hidden lake a short distance east of Fenner lake and less than one mile from the Bruckner farm. The moonshine would be put in a barrel and floated across the lake to a point where it could be picked up and driven to the local moonshine distributor. It is not known how often he "ran" moonshine but it is told that at least once he was chased by the police but apparently he was not caught. He definitely had a reputation of living on the wild side.
After Lewis moved away from home the job of driving the folks fell to his younger sister Dorothy. Sometime in the late 1930s/early 1940s he owned a car with a rumble seat. He loved giving his nephews an exciting ride in the rumble seat on the local gravel roads.
As a young man he worked at the Lawrence brewery (west of Westfield by the Lawrence lake dam) where he met his wife Elizabeth (Betty) Dewar. He spent the rest of his working years as a handy man and mechanic for companies in the Westfield, WI area.
Lewis and Elizabeth (Betty) did not have any children but they always liked to spend time with their nieces and nephews. They were the first ones in the family to have a TV in the Oxford-Westfield area and relatives spent many Saturday nights at their house watching the Hit Parade. Betty always served ice cream and cake.
In the late 1950s Lewis and Betty made a vacation driving trip from WI to CA and back. On the way to CA they stopped in Colorado to visit relatives. Jesse Paddock, a cousin through the wives of his uncles Rob and Willie Stroschein, lived in Greely. It is not known just when, but Jesse got involved in the selling of shares in Okalahoma oil wells and Lewis had invested a significant portion of his saving in the oil well shares. One reason for the trip west was to drive back through OK and have a look at the oil wells. It was later found out that the oil well shares were part of a ponzi scheme and all of the invested money was lost. Jesse Paddock was probably not aware that he was part of a ponzi scheme as he invested heavily of his own money.
After Greely, Lewis and Betty visited a nephew in Denver and then headed west over the Loveland Pass. That was before the interstate highway and tunnel through Loveland Mountain was built. It was a two lane road with many sharp hairpin turns and steep grades. Shortly after crossing the pass and starting downhill a large semi-truck came up close behind them with the horn blowing all the time. It quickly became apparent that the truck brakes had failed but there was on coming traffic and no place to get off the road. Lewis kept driving faster and faster and squealed around corners nearly going of the side of the mountain. Special dirt run-off places are built just for trucks that lose their brakes and just before a tragedy happened the truck was able to take one of the emergency run-offs. Lewis and Betty said they had never been so afraid and fully expected to die. That was the last long driving trip they ever took.
Lewis was a fun-loving good old boy who loved to party and drink with friends. He definitely had a bit of a drinking problem but was never obviously drunk when visiting family members and most of the time was able to hold a steady job.
His wife Betty had unbelievable tolerance. She had an alcoholic brother who she had to watch after and who sometimes lived with them. She always smiled and never complained. She was a very pleasant person. Betty was born in 1915 died from breast cancer in 1984, four years after Lewis died from cancer.
After the funeral for Lewis his older brother Walter commented that he was amazed at the large number of people at the funeral. While his drinking problem sometimes affected his jobs, he had a lot of friends and was greatly loved
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