ANCESTOR NO. 13: OSCAR RICHARD BRUGUIER (1873-1950)

 My grandmother was so proud of her father, the pharmacist Oscar Bruguier. At a time when few people went to college, he earned a degree.

She told me that when he saw her mother riding a horse in the park, he fell so madly in love that he dropped out of medical school and married her. I don’t know if that’s true, but I did find an article naming him as one of the graduates of New York College, now called Columbia University.[1]

Oscar was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, but my mother recalled he spoke with a German accent. My grandmother said that they spoke German at home. He was born on December 15, 1873.[2] His parents, Franz von Bruguier and Anna Ladewig, were both immigrants from the German state of Brandenburg (before Germany was a country).[3] Oscar’s parents had sixteen children, but only four survived childhood. He had an older brother Paul, a younger sister Minnie and a younger brother Frank. His father Frank had his own pharmacy, and Oscar probably grew up helping his father in the family business.

May 1896 was an exciting month for Oscar. First, his graduation ceremony took place at Carnegie Hall on May 7, 1896. Then, he married Mary Augusta Feldweg on May 20. This photo was probably taken when they married.

A person and person posing for a picture AI-generated content may be incorrect.

      Oscar and Mary had eight children in all:[4]

      Alma Bertha Bruguier, born on April 1, 1897

Lillian Mary Bruguier, born on August 30, 1898

Irene Anna Bruguier, born on January 4, 1900

Viola Bertha Bruguier, born on November 11, 1902

Harold Oscar Bruguier, born on July 12, 1905

Oscar Robert Bruguier, born on September 23, 1908

Warren Kenneth Bruguier, born on July 16, 1911

Laverne Audrey Bruguier, born on March 23, 1918

 

A group of people posing for a photo AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Since Harold was born in 1905, this was probably taken about 1907. My grandmother Viola is on the left.

Oscar incorporated the Bruguier Chemical Company with three partners on June 16, 1908.[5] Although Mary was pregnant with Oscar Jr., later known as Bob, Oscar immediately sailed to Germany to visit his father’s relatives in or near Berlin. He left sometime after April 28, 1908, when he applied for a passport, and sailed back home on July 28, 1908.[6] The family was still corresponding with those relatives as recently as 1962.

Oscar formulated his own tooth powder, advertised from 1910, a “peroxide toilet cream,” advertised from 1911, talcum powder, etc. My mother remembers a “rose cream lotion,” although I haven’t found an advertisement for that item. The company was short lived. It dissolved in September 1912. My grandmother thought her father’s business partner spent way too much money buying a violet-colored delivery van and advertising the products all across the country. She also said her father sold the pharmacy and ended up working there as an employee. Here are the products advertised in Wisconsin, at the end of 1912, in a giveaway of a diamond ring. No wonder there were financial difficulties! I found no advertisements for the company after 1912. One of the partners, “the head of the Joseph Hensler Brewing Company” lived across the street, according to my grandmother’s memoir. Her version of the story is that “he was so freely spending Pa’s money to promote the Bel-Bon Co. that he (Pa) decided to take his formula… so that was the end.”

A paper with a list of powder AI-generated content may be incorrect.

 

 

A close up of a can AI-generated content may be incorrect.

I was able to buy this old can, still full of talcum powder, from eBay. I read that it won a design prize when it was created.

They printed “Pronounced Broogeer’s” on the labels because they thought customers were too embarrassed to ask for the product because of fear of mispronouncing the name. I took French for seven years and that is NOT how to pronounce this name, whose ending (ier) is typically French. However, it IS how people who had lived in Germany for generations would pronounce it. My third cousin, who is descended from Oscar’s brother Paul, said they always pronounced it Broogeer. My grandmother always pronounced it Broogayer (which approximates how Bruguiere is pronounced). The pharmacy was the target of anti-German vandalism during WWI and after that the family stressed its French heritage, so much so that later generations forgot about the German roots. The family is essentially Germanic dating back to at least the mid-1700s (going back generation by generation, our Bruguier ancestors married a Feldweg, Ladewig, Kleinholz, and Negendanck).

Some of Oscar’s children changed the spelling to Bruguiere, but for consistency I will use the Bruguier spelling. The name is obviously French, but the pronunciation changes when the final E is added. During World War I, someone threw a brick through the plate glass window of the pharmacy. Even the name of the street it was on was changed, from Hamburg Place to Wilson Ave.[7]

 

A black and white sign with white text AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Closeup from a newspaper advertisement.

Newark had city directories printed almost every year, and listings for Oscar show that he lived near his parents until after his father died in 1906. Then he and the family moved in with his mother. When she moved away, to live with his sister Minnie in 1914, he bought the house my mother remembered visiting, shown below. It can still be seen on Google Street View, unchanged, at least on the outside.

A picture containing building, old Description automatically generated

887 S. 19th St., Newark, N.J.

When the U.S. entered World War I, even middle-aged men had to register for the draft. Oscar’s draft card said he was 45, stood five foot six inches, was of slender build, and had gray eyes and gray hair. He was a self-employed druggist, working at 72 Wilson Avenue. He signed the card.[8]

A close up of a signature AI-generated content may be incorrect.

As the father of five girls, Oscar probably walked all of them down the aisle when they married in 1920 (two of them), 1924, 1926, and 1941. This family Bible page, headed Heirathen (“marriages” in German), shows the couples and dates.

A paper with writing on it AI-generated content may be incorrect.

 

A person and person holding a baby Description automatically generated with medium confidence

Mary and Oscar Bruguier, probably summer or fall 1931; Mary is holding Mom.

My mother remembers him during World War II, saying “Damn dose Nazis!” and pounding his cane on the floor as he said that. She also remembered that every Christmas Eve Oscar and Mary hosted a party at their home, that all the eight children and the grandchildren came to.

Oscar died at home, of cancer. He was buried at Fairmount Cemetery in Newark, the same cemetery where his parents and some of his brothers and sisters are buried.[9]


[1] “Graduates of the New York College,” American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record (New York: American Druggist Publishing Co.: May 11, 1896), 28: 286; image, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/sim_american-druggist_1896-05-11_28_9/page/286/mode/1up?q=Bruguier: accessed 28 Sep. 2021)

[2] “U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 25 September 2025) > Passport Applications, January 2, 1906-March 31, 1925 > 1908-1910 > Roll 0059-Certificates: 50879-51829, 27 Apr 1908-5 May 1908 > image 461 of 1191; passport no.51196 issued to Oscar R. Bruguier, 29 April 1908.

[3] New Jersey, marriage certificate no. B-177 (20 May 1896) Oscar R. Bruguier and Marie Feldweg; New Jersey State Archives, Trenton, N.J.

[4] “1920 United States Federal Census,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com:  accessed 19 September 2021) > New Jersey > Essex > Newark Ward 16 > District 0283; Oscar Bruguier, 887 So. 19th St., ED 283, 16th Ward, Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, sheet 10B (penned), dwelling 130, family 237, line 77.

[5] Corporations of New Jersey, p. 95, (http://www.njstatelib.org/slic_files/searchable_publications/corp/NJCORPn95.html: accessed 29 Sep. 2021).

[6] “New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 22 September 2021) > Date > 1908 > Jul > 28 > Kronprinzessin Cecilie > image 57 of 117, Oscar Brugnier [sic], line 28, departed Bremen 21 July 1908, arrived 28 July 1908, citing NARA Roll T715: 1897-1957.

[7] “PUT THE KAISER IN HIS PLACE BY RE-NAMING NEWARK STREETS,” 3 Dec. 2019, City of Newark (https://www.newarknj.gov/news/put-the-kaiser-in-his-place-by-re-naming-newark-streets: accessed 29 Sep. 2025). This article also mentions rock-throwing mobs attacking German shops.

[8] “U. S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com:  accessed 25 Sept. 2021) > New Jersey > Newark City > 04 > Draft Card B > image 674 of 807, card for Oscar Richard Bruguier, serial no. 4184, Local Draft Board No. 4, Newark, N.J; citing NARA record group M1509, (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

[9] Essex County, New Jersey, death certificate no. 37293 (9 Oct. 1950) Oscar R. Bruguier; New Jersey State Archives, Trenton, N.J.

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