Bio: Gensmann, Jacob (1844 - 19??)

Contact: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Gensmann, Breitenbach, Haider, Schulze, Zimmerman, Wilde

----Source: History of Marathon County Wisconsin and Representative Citizens, by Louis Marchetti, 1913.

Gensmann, Jacob (24 February 1844 - 19??)

151GensmannJacob

Jacob Gensmann, president of the George Ruder Brewing Company of Wausau, Wis., and a director of the First National Bank of this city, has spent almost his entire life in Wisconsin and is justly numbered with the big and helpful men of Wausau. His birth took place February 24. 1844. in Kreiss Bacharach, Province of Rhine, Germany, a son of Philip and Elizabeth (Breitenbach) Gensmann.

In 1851 the parents of Mr. Gensmann emigrated to America and. although but seven years old at that time, he has very distinct recollections of the great changes in the life of the family incident to travel and association with new and wonderful conditions. Philip Gensmann settled with his family on farm land in Washington County, Wis., and the son gave his father assistance until he was fifteen years of age. He had but few educational opportunities, but possessed sound common sense and the sturdy spirit of independence inherent in every real German and in thinking of his future, decided that the acquisition of a trade would be the first step in advancing it. For three years he served as an apprentice to the shoemaking trade in a neighboring village and was eighteen years old when he came first to Wausau, a very different place indeed from what it now is, the change having been brought about by the energy, enterprise, and wisdom of such men as Mr. Gensmann. He secured work at his trade with George Haider, a shoe merchant, located on the main street of the village, and when his employer moved to another place some time later, Mr. Gensmann with Ernst Schulze and Peter Zimmerman, started into the shoe business under the firm name of Jacob Gensmann & Co. Mr. Gensmann continued in the business until 1867, when he embarked in the saloon business in a small building on the site of the present substantial one and remained in that business until 1872, when he started in the lumber business, first being alone and later being in partnership, his operations in subsequent years reaching into vast amounts. Mr. Gensmann has erected a number of the substantial business blocks at Wausau and has had many business enterprises operating with his capital. It may not be out of place to quote here a bit of advice that Mr. Gensmann once gave when asked to point out the way to young men ambitious for success: "Make it a point never to spend as much as you earn, and keep constantly at work. You will find that if you lay by some money each month that some day you will have a comfortable competence."

At Wausau, in 1868, Mr. Gensmann was married to Miss Amelia Wilde, who was born in Germany, and seven of their sixteen children are living. He has always taken an active and earnest interest in civic matters and at times has consented to serve in the city council and on public boards of different kinds as emergencies have arisen, but his participation in politics has been merely nominal. Mr. Gensmann is one of the heaviest tax payers of Wausau.

 

 


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