My maternal grandfather, Don Krueger, was a phenomenal storyteller. The way he wove humor into his narratives and took his stories in unexpected directions allowed him to command a room without the giant stature and booming voice usually required to do so. Unlike the storytelling elders of the not-too-distant-past who carefully elevated the heroism and sacrifices of prior generations while burying the negative aspects, grandpa style was more genuine. He talked about both the good and that bad, and painted the people of the past as humans. If he fibbed at all in his stories, it was mostly to get more laughs rather than inspire awe.
He had a goofball personality that us grandkids naturally gravitated to. A love for Bugs Bunny and Disney cartoons, funny faces, and fart jokes (“barking spiders”) that appeals to the basic instincts of kids. I later learned that he likely also used this as a coping mechanism to mask a deeper sense of anxiety and depression, something I relate to as well, but that’s another story. I find myself thinking of him often these days; my little boy is has a goofy sense of humor like he did. They would have adored each other.
When grandpa talked about his childhood and family, his stories inevitably drifted to his own maternal grandfather (my 2nd great-grandfather), Herman Buss Jr. He painted Herman as something of a German Mr. Bean, constantly beset by bad luck in everyday situations that turned the mundane into physical comedy. It seems like a fair assumption that some of grandpa’s unique sense of humor may have come from his own grandpa, “Herman the German”. These stories are what originally captured my attention about family history when I was little, so it’s natural to start with one of the more unique aspects of his story here.
In reconstructing a life’s journey, one can’t rely purely on anecdotes and memories. They can become clouded with time, retelling, and obfuscation both unintentional and contrived. As such, the story of Herman’s marriages to a series of sisters always struck me as unlikely. Naturally finding his story was one of the first things I tried to do when I started tracing my family history, and I was gratified to find that the hard evidence and primary sources tell and even more remarkable story than grandpa did.
Hermann Buss Jr. was born on March 10, 1876 in the rural village of Stramehl, Kreis Regenwalde. At the time, this region near the Baltic Sea was part of the Province of Pomerania within the Kingdom of Prussia, and had been part of the new German Empire for just over 5 years. Today, the village is part of Poland and known as Strzmiele; like much of Pomerania, it was depopulated of Germans in the wake World War Two. The Buss family was Lutheran; it is not clear whether they were native to the region or had been part of the Prussian resettlement in the 18th Century carried out by Frederick II ("Friedrich der Grosse") to push the native Poles into the minority.
Hermann Jr. was the 8th of 12 children, of whom 10 survived to adulthood, a good ratio for the time. His father, Karl Friedrich Hermann “Hermann” Buss Sr. had been born in Stramehl on November 26, 1842 and his mother, Ernestine Friederike Johanna Schmidt, had been born in nearby Kreis Naugard in 1844. Hermann Sr. apprenticed as a brickmaker, living and working on an estate owned by Bernhard Bismarck, brother of the “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck. The family had sufficient land to grow their own food, but only enough money for subsistence. In 1888, the family emigrated to America and settled in Northeast Iowa, where a large German immigrant community was being established. Hermann Sr.’s story has significant documentation as well, but deserves its own post.
In America, both Senior and Junior dropped the second “n” in their first names (or, more likely, simply lost it due to American vernacular). I have a single photo of the family from approximately this time; Herman Jr. is in the upper right corner, approximately 10 years old. I do not know whether this photo was taken in Germany or America, but I suspect it was taken in America given the family’s financial situation that caused them to relocate.
Grandpa had many stories about Herman Jr., most of them humorous and many at Herman’s expense, to be saved for another time. More importantly, grandpa also remembered him as a man of great kindness and generosity who loved his family and made time for them, especially his many grandchildren. The documentary evidence would appear to back this up. He also had an unusual marital history, even for the era. He was married 4 times; the last 3 of his wives were sisters, and the 4th wife was an aunt to the 1st. Sound confusing? Well…yes, yes it is.
I know very little about Herman Jr.’s younger years, but on September 6, 1898 when he was 22 years old, he married Helene Amalia Gielau at Maxfield Township, Bremer County, Iowa.
Helene was 3 years younger than Herman, also born in Pomerania. They had 4 children, of whom only 2 survived to adulthood. The first was Albert Hermann Emil Julius “Pussy” Buss, born in 1899, and the second was Martha Bertha Marie Buss, born in 1902. Martha was my great-grandmother. Martha had a great fear of death; my mother remembers that whenever the church bells rang for a funeral in town she would sink into a deep depression. The origin of this feat occurred in 1907 when Helene died during a medical procedure in Iowa City, Iowa on October 26th. Martha did not remember much detail about this; her mother told her she had to go for a surgery, and all she knew was that her mother never came home. Her childhood would be filled with such losses.
Page 1, Waverly Democrat, October 31, 1907 edition
A young father with two children under 10, Herman remarried just over a year later, this time to Auguste Wilhelmine Ewald on December 30, 1908. Typical for the area, Auguste was also from Prussia, born there August 22, 1874. Unfortunately, Auguste passed away less than 3 years later on May 21, 1911. I have not been able to find documentation regarding cause of death to this point. Family lore says cholera, but I have no evidence to back that up.
It didn’t take Herman long to find another spouse, because on November 29, 1911 he married Auguste’s younger sister Pauline, born March 12, 1879 in Keokuk, Iowa. Shortly thereafter, Pauline became pregnant, but the child was stillborn on February 25, 1913. Again I lack formal documentation of what happened next, however Martha remembered that she suffered complications of childbirth, and died a few weeks later on March 4, 1913. Martha remembered her as going away for a surgery like Helene, with the same result.
Herman’s fourth and final wife, and the woman who Martha would always remember as her “mother”, was Anna Amelia (Ewald) Gielau. Anna was the older sister of Auguste and Pauline, born June 9, 1866 in Bresin, Kreis Schwetz, Pomerania, making her 10 years senior to Herman. In 1888 she had married Johann “John” Gielau, and they had gone on to have 10 children. Unfortunately, in 1909 John ended his life by suicide on their farm near Sigourney, Iowa. This had left Anna alone to raise 6 children who were still at home.
As their surnames indicate, John Gielau had been related to Helene Gielau, Herman Jr.’s first wife. Helene's father Emil was John's older brother, making John her uncle. Confused yet? Yes, Ancestry.com was too, popping up a plethora of “Are you sure?” type warnings as I attempted to tag the right people in the profile.
Regardless, this meant that his children Albert and Martha were related to Anna’s children through their biological mother Helene. Specifically, they were 1st cousins, once-removed because Helene was a 1st cousin to Anna’s children.
With this situation, a match that may have been more of financial and familial responsibility rather than romance was made. My grandpa certainly remembered it this way, or at least that it had been part of the calculation: Herman was financially successful and lonely, and felt his children needed a mother, while Anna lacked financial stability and had many children to raise. Herman Buss Jr. and Anna Ewald Gielau were married on June 1, 1914, and she and her children moved into Herman’s home along with Albert and Martha, a house which suddenly became crowded with family, and as Martha remembered it, with great love. She certainly was never lonely again.
Thankfully, Anna lived a long life, dying at the age of 75 on October 1, 1941. My great-grandmother Martha had considered her as “mother” for 27 of her 39 years and would always remember her with affection and admiration.
Her passing did not end the close family bonds between the cousins who had become brothers and sisters. Herman Buss Jr., father to some, step-father to some, cousin-in-law to others, remained the anchor for the family, as demonstrated by the photo below. The picture belonged to my grandpa Don Krueger, circled in red, and is labeled simply “Christmas, 1946”. His grandpa Herman Buss Jr. is again circled in green. It was taken at the home of Martha (Buss) Krueger and her husband Carl “Chill” Krueger in Denver, Iowa and features several generations of Buss and Gielaus associated with him.
Herman Buss Jr. died on January 7, 1949, aged 73 years, a man who suffered great loss yet gained a large and grateful family through the process. His influence lives on in this writing, and I hope for his sake I didn’t get anything wrong. If I did, I’m sure he’d laugh it off; such was his character.
Buss/Gielau Christmas 1946. Per memories of my grandmother Arlene (Jans) Krueger, those pictured are:
Back row left to right: Carl F. “Chill” Krueger Jr., Gerald and James Gielau, William “Bill” Gielau, Oscar Gielau, Freda (Thuesen) Gielau, Lena or Della Gielau, Clara Gielau, Lucy Gielau, Marie (Reinbold) Buss, Albert “Pussy” Buss
Middle row left to right: Herman Buss Jr., Martha (Buss)
Krueger, unknown child, Ida Gielau
Bottom row left to right: Jeanette Gielau, Madeline
Gielau, Marian “Mickey” Krueger, Dorla (Sterner) Gielau, Richard “Dick” Gielau,
Helen Buss, Don Krueger, unknown
An abridged family tree effort to map the individuals in this story, which serves to demonstrate the cousin relationships between Herman Buss Jr.’s biological children and Gielau step-children. Unsurprisingly, Ancestry.com struggles to correctly apply algorithms to this situation.
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