I am L.E.E. Mitchell, TikTok and YouTube local historian. L.E.E. Mitchell, or Lorraine (Rainey) Mitchell is my brand name in my capacity as a historian. Under a different name I am on of many group experts in Elk County PA Genealogy Group. My brand has allowed me to go back to my roots in college as an aspiring writer and prove myself based on my own merit. The J. B. Bauer family history isn’t some dusty list of names and dates. It is very much alive and relevant in the present day, touching on issues of immigration, and identity. Furthermore like any living organism this family history continues to grow as I learn more things. Finally, if you have enough imagination, as you learn about each person, they come to life. I plan to include a surname study of the name Bauer in this series as well. This will serve as a reference to all of the other family histories I publish and areas of interest in the local history of Elk County.
This first installment simply an explanation of the established male line. My work is well documented and this is only the first installment in a long series. I still have leads to follow, sources to be deciphered and more ancestors to align in your tree.
The basics of any family history starts with an established male line. You start with living males and work backwards in time. From there you can establish a sound tree with multiple sources to draw from. Ancestry and other genealogical sites are not the only places to acquire documentation. There are multiple sources, many for free, to use if you cast a wide net and work the problems. The farther you travel back in time the more ancestors you gain. In the past, families consisted of many children, so the amount of cousins you have grows substantially. Genealogical work has reunited families, brought the contributions of forgotten ancestors to light and has enriched local histories.
In the early settlement of St Marys and Benzinger Township, there were at least four different unrelated Bauer families that I have counted and one from Fox Township. While two have proven to be connected the rest are unrelated. Not only have I established this on my own, but I talked to Ellie Bauer of the St Marys and Benzinger Township Historical Society confirmed it.
Due to the many Bauer families in the area in the 1840s,1850s and 1860s, I have specifically labeled yours the J.B. Bauer tree, named after your immigrant ancestor. Your basic male line is this, starting from the present and working backwards in time; 1 living Bauer born in 2005- 1 living Bauer born in 1967- Robert Bauer Sr-Alfred Bauer-George Wiliam Bauer-John Baptist Bauer (whom this story is named after)- John Bauer. That is where I started working from the very basics, obituaries and the app Find a Grave.
In August I encountered Retired Command Sergeant Major William Bischoff of Nevada on Ancestry. I set up a Bauer ancestry tree in order to keep everyone straight and to catalog documents I found. He encouraged me to pursue the Bauer line because as he said “ a whole new world would open up to me”. I had no idea what he was talking about. However I discovered that no family tree with this established male line existed, until I documented it. To the best of my knowledge, there is no established family tree for any other Bauer families in the area in 1850. That is why many Ancestry members immediately started using the information on mine for their tree because I filled in certain holes for them. I took his advice as a personal challenge and went after it with great determination. My plan is to see this through to the end.
The focus is on the dead in a written family history, so I will start Robert Bauer Sr. He was born on January 31,1945 in St Marys Pennsylvania. The resemblance between him the youngest in the male line is quite remarkable, (grandfather and grandson both in a football uniform) He attended both Central Catholic School and St Marys Area High School. He played basketball in junior high for the crusaders and football and track for the flying dutchmen. He married Linda Meyer, who is still living. Another story for a different time is the four unrelated Meyer families in St Marys and the former Benzinger Township. The most famous Meyer (General Edward C. Meyer) family in St Marys is related to the Gausmans through Mary and Bernadine Meyer going all the way back to the 1870s. The Gausmans were very prosperous in the local farming industries. I plan to tell the Gausman story too. They are very well documented and there is extensive information and items from them in the historical society.
After high school, Robert went to work for Stackpole like many other members of his family. He established his family home in one of the new developments on a road, where an old farm once stood. All of these records are open to the public for everyone to access. This family has a long legacy with the former Stackpole company going all the way to George Bauer. They worked very hard and were devoted to the company. I have read most of the Stackpole history book and it is peppered with the names of Bauer family members. Considering the company’s global reach and contributions to two world wars, it is quite an honor to have ties to the Stackpole legacy. Unfortunately, Robert Sr died in the summer of 2005. It would have been a privilege to meet him.
Robert’s father was Alfred Bauer, born in St Marys, Pennsylvania, on January 14, 1911. As of yet, I have no clear record of what schools he attended, but more than likely it was Central Catholic. (I will find out what schools he attended though) According to the records I have, he did not play any sports. However, he wasn't just a factory worker, but an accomplished muscian. . He played the drums and was part of the local orchestra for sixty years, and a member of the American Federation of Musicians Local 134 out of Jamestown New York. He was a blacksmith for the carbon company. Alfred’s father George was a blacksmith as well. This family excels at work with their hands, and blacksmithing was a as much an art as an industrial skill. He grew up on Rightmeyer street, where the previous Rightmeyer farm was located. Alfred was married twice, first to Mary Kearney in 1930 and then to your Great Grandmother, Virginia, (Scotty) Scott in 1940. Alfred and Virginia were married in Port Allegheny in McKean County. This male line is dominated by youngest sons, which created additional hardships for men in Germany. Alfred is the youngest son in this family. Alfred had a few brothers and sisters who are of interest, especially in regards to minor roles in local baseball history and the Stackpole history. Stackpole and local baseball history are newsletters I plan on writing at another date. Alfred passed away on December 15, 1994.
Alfred's father was George J. Bauer. I have to specify which George Bauer, because I counted at least three unrelated George Bauers in the 1800s alone in our local history. George was born on February 17, 1864 in St Marys. George is also the youngest son in this family. I am still learning about him. He most likely grew up on farm in the Munster Road and State Road area. Based on census records it was a very small farm, and possibly members of the family had to hire themselves out as day laborers to supplement their income. I am not even sure if ,like a lot of the early settlers, the farm he grew up on was set up in the German way like theirs were. I am planning an installment on early village life in Germany, which I will use to explain some peculiarities of St. Marys. Based on school records in the Benzinger Township history book he didn’t get a whole lot of education and neither did his brothers and sisters. He would have attended the Benzinger Township school,where the present day post office is, until 8th grade on a sporadic basis. Farming was a family affair back then, so everyone had to help, leaving very little time for education, sports and leisure. However, at some point, George acquired an apprenticeship as a blacksmith, which was a wise decision on his part, because farming at the time required the use of a blacksmith. I can imagine he worked for one of the local blacksmith shops or worked freelance hiring himself out to different farms to fulfill certain orders. In 1889, he married Barbara Heiberger. She was also a laborer before she was married. Their occupations are found on their marriage certificate. They had many children, some of who also worked for the Stackpole company as well. I plan to write something about them as well. George eventually was hired by the Stackpole company after it was established in 1906. He was a veteran member of the company serving them for twenty years. George had brothers and sisters as well, who have fascinating stories that I plan to write about as well. It is through George’s sisters and his daughters that the connections to the Gausman family are found in this family tree. I will definitely come back to this later. George passed away on February 23, 1942 in Dr. Luhrs private hospital. He was sick with an infection for six weeks before he passed away. All of these documents, birth, death, marriage certificates, city directories, maps, censuses, deeds, US customs reports, and ship’s manifests are found in government and museum archives available to the general public. Then there are church records and additional records the US government and other countries have made available. Finally, there are archived newspapers and yearbooks, libraries and records in places like German societies that are available to the public.
John Baptist Bauer is the most fascinating man in the male line, primarily due to the fact that he was hard to track down and facts about his life required dogged determination to find. He was born on fSeptember 22, 1819 in Forbach, Restart, Baden-Wittenberg. Now there is some dispute about that,but based on the Ahnentafel (German genealogy, roughly translated into ancestors table) I found, I One of my tasks is to decipher his baptismal record. That would provide me with his parents' names and his father’s occupation. His father’s name, John Bauer, which came from John Baptist Bauer’s death certificate. Looking for a John Bauer in 1819 Germany is like looking for the right needle irln a stack of needles. However, it has been estimated that John Bauer was born in 1799 or 1800. John Baptist Bauer preferred to be called Baptist, which fits the German naming traditions of the time. His original name was Johann Baptist Bauer. Johann was his baptismal name and was rarely used, although he Americanized it to John on his trip over to America. His immigration and life in Germany will cover another newsletter alone, so I am saving that for later. He arrived at Castle Garden in New York City in late September of 1849. Most likely he remained in New York until he could earn enough money to travel to St Marys. He arrived here in St Marys between 1850 and 1851, and married Therersia Gradl in 1851. Leonard, the oldest, was born in 1853. He also has a fascinating life history as well. According to the Benzinger Township school records, he, Leonard, and Gerhard Gausman, were classmates in 1859 at the Benzinger Township school, along with thirty other children, primarily boys, or various ages. As I said before I believe they established a homestead and small subsistence farm in the Munster Road and State Road area. He lived a very long life, dying on June 3, 1917 at the age of ninety-seven. He remained at the homestead he built with his son, John (Schipper) Bauer until he died.
There were a little over nine hundred people here in 1850 and they all interacted with each other, so telling this story is a lnk to all of the other ancestors' stories and our local history at large. I want to tell. Also I merely glossed over many topics, such as German immigration and village life, early St Mary’s and Benzinger Township, and how our local history is very much relevant today. This story is an adventure through time, bringt the people, events and places alive again.