Fruits of One Tree

Francis Bruguier, my grandmother’s grandfather, was an unlikely immigrant from east Germany. It’s a mystery why he left his home. As far as can be determined, he had no relatives where he settled in America. Unlike our colonial British ancestors, who left England because they refused to follow the official state religion, or our poverty-stricken Irish ancestors, who survived famine that decimated their countrymen, Francis Bruguier probably grew up in comfortable circumstances. His grandfather Carl Joseph von Bruguier was of the minor nobility. [1] Francis’ father Carl Alexander von Bruguier was a chancellor in the civil service for Prussia, the most powerful of the German speaking countries that later united to form Germany. Francis’ mother was Sophie Henriette Hermine Kleinholz. Francis was born as Carl Ernst August Franz von Bruguier on May 23,1841 in Seeburg, a small town in Brandenburg, a little west of Berlin. [2] A few years later, his father was posted to Senftenberg, a small ...