Charles and Grace Burgus....

Charles Thomas Burgus

My Paternal Grandfather

Son of Charles and Elizabeth (Ries) Burgus, my great grandparents, who migrated from Germany in 1800's , 13 children were born into this family.

The family of Grace Turner Burgus and Charles Thomas Burgus

Front Row: Eva, Grace(mother), Charles(father), Mary, and Amye.

Back Row: Cecil, Ralph, Jesse(my dad), Carl, Donald and twin sister Doris.  I just realized that one of the sisters is not in the picture.  Ruby  and her husband had taken off to Washington state for a while to work a job. I don't remember what kind of job that it was.

The photo had to have been taken in the 1940's as two of the brothers are wearing their uniforms.  Unfortunately the picture was taken at about the time that one of the son's lost his own son in a drowning in Thayer Lake.

I won't give you all of the information about each but I want to share a little about some of them. Four of the sisters remained housewives most of their lives. One of them was a teacher for most of her life to help support her husbands farming and also to support herself after he died.  The one that was in Washington state lost her husband and worked as a welfare administrator the rest of her working years.

The oldest brother was a train fireman, who road the trains first to scoop coal and then eventually was a co-worker with the engineer. He was deaf after all the time he spent on the train. One brother owned a farm implement dealership then a laundromat. Two of the brothers became farmers after the war, and one brother, a mechanic, died of cancer in 1957 when they could then do nothing about it or didn't really know how to diagnose it.
The first to die was my Grandfather Burgus in 1949.  The youngest girl and last of the family to die was about five years ago. All of them are gone.

As a side note of interest, three of these sisters each lost babies due to the RH factor.   My mother, not a sibling to these women, lost a daughter because of the blood complications also.  My dad had the O blood type apparently with the wrong combo with my mom. From my research, I find that it is all related to the RH and it could affect any blood type. If one has a negative Rh and the baby develops with a positive RH it can be fatal. They now know to immediately transfuse them with the correct blood type and they survive.

I have a very bad photo of the full family of 13 that my grandfather belong, and I need to really work on it. My great grandfather Charles Burgus and his brother migrated here together, leaving behind parents and three other brothers and sisters.  While here their mother died, the father remarried so they had 6 more half brothers and sisters. 

I also have a wedding picture of my grandmother and grandfather Burgus when she and he were very thin. I need to work on that photo before I can show it. 
Grace, my grandmother was from a solid line of English blood with Abernathy and Turner in her line. 
Charles was from the German line with the mixture of Ries in it, which, I have found to be a German name also.

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