Month: January 2014

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52 Ancestors Henry George Buisch

Henry George Buisch is my great grandfather. His youngest child, Grace Rose, is my grandmother. Henry was born in December 1848 in either Wyoming or Erie County New York to Henry Buisch and Margaret Hausauer. The earliest record I currently have for Henry is the 1860 US Federal Census for New York.

BUISCH_Henry_G_b1848_18600000_FedCen_clip
Henry Buisch, 1860 Census

Henry is 12 years old and living with his grandparents, Michael and Margaret (Zittel) Hausauer. The Hausauers own a large farm in Wales Center, New York. Note the spelling of Henry’s last name — it is spelled the way the name is pronounced. This surname has also been spelled Bisch, Busch and Buesch over the years in census records.

Henry and Mary George meet and marry in Batavia, New York in the 1870s. Mary was born 25 September 1851 in North Java, New York to Michael George and Elizabeth Dupris. Mary is working as domestic help at the Ives farm and Henry is a barber living at the St James Hotel. They marry at an Evangelical Lutheran church in Buffalo, New York on 25 August 1874.

1875 NY State Census, Genesee County, Batavia, Marriage Schedule
1875 NY State Census, Genesee County, Batavia, Marriage Schedule

In the 1880 US Census, Henry and family are living at 66 Main Street near the St James Hotel. Henry’s barbershop is at the same location. The family is listed right before the residents of the St James hotel are enumerated. The St James is where Henry lived when he first came to Batavia.

St James Hotel, Batavia, New York, ca. 1886
St James Hotel, Batavia, New York, ca. 1886

The oldest three children, all boys, have been born by this time.

  • Henry George Buisch, Jr b: 3 June 1875 in Batavia, New York
    • married: Jessie Edith St Clair on 9 December 1896 in Batavia
    • died: 25 May 1912 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Edward William Buisch b: April 1877 in Batavia, New York
    • married 1: Isabel Cummings about 1905 in Rochester, New York
    • married 2: Elsie C Berry in 1918 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    • died: 1 August 1931 in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania
  • Louis Herman Buisch b: 5 September 1879 in Batavia, New York
    • married 1: Olive Mary Greenhow on 27 July 1910 in Hornell, New York
    • married 2: Florence Myrtle Hartline
    • died: 19 June 1952 in Ohio

In 1883 the family was still living and working on Main Street. In the early morning hours of 8 January 1886, the St James Hotel burns down. The Buisch family was living on Summit at the time of the fire according to a Batavia business directory, but Henry’s barbershop was still on Main Street. I can imagine Henry concerned about his business in those early morning hours. The fire is something that the family and community would have remembered as it was the second time in the hotel’s history it had been destroyed by fire.

An 1890 Gazetteer & Directory Genesee County shows Henry’s barbershop at 45 E Main and the family is living at 38 Walnut. The family lives at the home on Walnut until the early 1900s when they relocate to Rochester, New York.

38 Walnut, Batavia New York
38 Walnut, Batavia New York

The St James Hotel is reconstructed and reopens in 1889 as the Hotel Richmond. By the close of 1889, Henry and Mary’s family is complete with the birth of my grandmother on Christmas Eve.

  • Evelyn Katherine Buisch b: June 1881 in Batavia, New York
    • married: Harry Roy VanWinkle on 28 June 1916 in Rochester, New York
    • died: 11 July 1962 in Los Angeles, California
  • Mary Helen Buisch b: November 1884 in Batavia, New York
    • married: George W Lauer, Sr on 30 November 1918 in Rochester, New York
    • died: May 1942 in Rochester, New York
  • Gertrude Mary Buisch b: March 1887 in Batavia, New York
    • married: Alfred George Meyers on 9 June 1909 in Rochester, New York
    • died: May 1947
  • Grace Rose Buisch b: 24 December 1889 in Batavia, New York
    • married: Raymond Curtis Williamson on 31 July 1912 in Rochester, New York
    • died: 7 January 1986 in Las Vegas, Nevada
BataviaNY_190000_MainSt
Main Street, Batavia New York, ca. 1900. Hotel Richmond pictured on the right.

Sometime around 1901, the Buisch family relocates to Rochester, Monroe, New York. The move may have been made motivated by opportunities available for the family in the larger city. Interestingly, Henry does not open a barbershop in Rochester. Eventually he begins a painting contractor’s business. Over the years, his sons work on and off in the business with him. Henry and Mary eventually own their home at 256 Warwick Avenue.

I like to imagine that on lazy summer afternoons, the family was able to spend time together at Ontario Beach Park walking on the beach or midway, riding the amusement park rides or just relaxing in chairs on the beach.

On 25 November 1923, Henry George Buisch passed away. He is buried at Mt Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York. Mary (George) Buisch, who passed away in 1934, is buried next to Henry although the headstone does not have her name on it.

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Notes:

  1. This post was last updated/edited on 14 March 2014.
  2. If you have questions about or corrections to anything posted here, please post a comment or contact me using the form on my Contact Me page.
  3. More about Henry George Buisch can be found on the Buisch Surname Page
  4. Link to another article about the St James Hotel fire

Cite This Page:

Erin Williamson Klein, “52 Ancestors #1 Henry George Buisch.” My Family History Files, 20 January 2014 (https://myfamilyhistoryfiles.com/buisch/52-ancestors-1-henry-george-buisch/: [access date]).

Please do not copy without attribution and link back to this page.

 

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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge

Amy Johnson Crow of NoStoryTooSmall has issued a challenge to family history bloggers to post about an ancestor a week during 2014. I read about the challenge on the Ancestry blog and thought I would participate.

52ancestors

The challenge: have one blog post each week devoted to a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem — anything that focuses on one ancestor.

The whole idea appeals to me for several reasons. First there is the motivation to stay on top of my blog and post consistently. [I’m hopeful!] I also think that focusing specifically on an ancestor a week will give me direction in cleaning up my files and reorganizing them — one of my goals for 2014. Finally, while much has been researched and written about my mother’s side of the family, on my father’s side of the family there is next to nothing. Well, that’s probably not quite true… it’s just that in comparison, it seems like very little.

My mother’s paternal ancestors were famous shipbuilders from Scotland who settled in Quebec, Canada. There is a point on a bay with a lighthouse named after them, their original settlement still stands, there are histories, stories, songs, photos and even paintings supposedly done by a princess about members of this family. On my mother’s maternal line, there are cousins that are family historians who are the keepers of the stories and the photos.

[I was hoping to find my box of photos today that are in storage to add in some pictures of my brothers and me with our Canadian cousins but I cannot find the box. I will update this when I come across it.]

In the summer before I turned fourteen, my family took a vacation to visit my mother’s parents in Canada. Family crawled out the woodwork up there. There was a grandmother AND a grandfather, aunts and uncles and cousins galore! Back home in New York, there was my grandmother, my aunt [my father’s mother and his sister] and her husband — that was all. There were no other aunts and uncles, no great aunts and uncles and definitely no cousins. I wanted to know why. What happened to everyone? And wanting to know is what started my obsession with genealogy.

In stepping up to the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge, I hope to add a little life to the people I’ve found in my father’s lines. I might even share a little about my mother’s ancestors as well.