Another of the young teenagers in the Calumet German Band photo (along with Newell Bidwell, age 12, and Earl Smith, age 13), John Hans Jurgen Brumm was the son of Jurgen (George) Brumm (1862-1946) and Mary Holst (1866-1919)(1), both of whom had been born in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
Although the Brumm and Holst families arrived in the U.S. earlier than the families of some other band members, they reflected a common migration pattern for German immigrants to the Midwest in this era, stopping first in Scott County, Iowa, where the passenger railroad crossed the Mississippi River, then moving on to Tama County, a vibrant German immigrant region, and later relocating to northwest Iowa. By 1874, Jurgen’s father Hans Brumm (1822-1898) was already in Tama County, and there he and his wife Anna Rohwer(2) (1828-1899) raised four children. At least one of the older children stayed in Scott County, but Hans and Anna and their younger children Jurgen and Margaretha Brumm (1858-1905) moved on to O’Brien County. By 1887 they had moved to Liberty Township, which is where Jurgen married Mary Holst in February of that year.
Mary Holst’s family followed a similar pattern. Her father, Johann (John) Phillip Holst (1836-1910), and mother, Anna Elsabet Vogt (1839-1927), had emigrated from Germany in 1869. After their own moves from Scott to Tama County and then from Tama to O’Brien County, they owned a farm between Calumet and Paullina. Mary’s brother, John Henry Holst (1881-1964), also farmed in the area.
These families figured prominently in the establishment of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Calumet. Three of John Hans Jurgen Brumm’s family members — paternal grandfather John Phillip Holst, father Jurgen Brumm, and uncle William Johannsen (1855-1910, husband of his aunt Margaretha Brumm) — were founding members of the church in 1891.
Jurgen Brumm and Mary Holst Brumm initially farmed near Calumet, but they then moved to town, where they operated a hotel, saloon, and grocery store. They lost two infant children, but John Hans Jurgen Brumm was born in 1894(3), followed by his sister Linda Anna Marie Brumm (1898-1980).
The hotel, saloon, and store that the Brumm family operated in Calumet would have been among a small number of commercial establishments on West 2nd Street, the main east–west street through town. Along with the significant presence of a grain elevator and lumberyard, situated along the railroad line, the town had a block-long row of buildings that included a bank, post office, town hall, and several retail businesses. A photo shows the downtown area as it appeared around this time.
In 1908, the Brumm family — father Jurgen, wife Mary, and the two children John and Linda — apparently traveled back to Germany for a visit. A passport application by Jurgen on 9 May 1908 specified that the family intended to go abroad for a period of about three months.
In the immediate years after this 1909 Calumet German Band photo, John Brumm was a laborer in Calumet. Then, like his young band colleague Newell Bidwell, he was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War I. He served as a corporal in the 331st infantry regiment, was listed on the rolls of soldiers headed to Camp Gordon (Georgia) in September 1918, then served with that regiment in Brest, France, in November 1918, arriving back in New York in January 1919. Following the war, the 1920 census shows John working as a carpenter in Liberty Township, living in the household of his grandmother, Anna Vogt Holst.
However, John Brumm eventually moved away from Iowa. The records for several years are somewhat unclear, but he married twice. The first marriage, around 1926, was to Bertha L. De La Moreaux, born about 1896 in Wisconsin. In the 1930 census, they are shown as living in Chicago, where John continued to work as a carpenter and Bertha was working as a salesperson in a real estate office. At that time, they shared their household with Bertha’s widowed mother, Mary De La Moreaux (born about 1878), and her 14-year-old sister, Elmyra De La Moreaux. Nothing more is known about the three De La Moreaux women or the marriage of Bertha to John Brumm.
By 1946, John had relocated to Cincinnati, where he continued his carpentry work. But at some point he married Ruby Idell Nichols (1911-2008), born in Tennessee to Eugene Nichols (1886-1912) and Lovie Mai Bruce (1890-1957). The 1950 census and Cincinnati city directories for 1951 and 1953 show John working as a carpenter in the construction industry and Ruby working for a cigar manufacturing company. John died just a few years later, however, in 1956, at the fairly young age of 61. Ruby Nichols Brumm lived on into old age, dying at 97 in 2008.
John Hans Jurgen Brumm left no direct descendants; he is not known to have had children with either of his spouses. He is buried in Baltimore Pike Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Subscribers to Ancestry.com may wish to further explore some family connections of John Brumm by accessing an Ancestry profile page (within the context of a “Mugge Family Tree”).
Connection to Other Band Members
Young John Brumm, 14 years old at the time of the photo, and his 12-year-old bandmate Newell Bidwell (1896-1918) shared an in-law cousin relationship. John was the first cousin of Dora Johannsen (1886-1956), the wife of Lester O. Bidwell (1886-1953), who was Newell’s first cousin once removed.
John would also later share a connection with bandmate Henry W. Mugge (1891-1967). John’s aunt — his mother’s sister Annie M. Holst (1873-1941) — had married Ernest Andrew Boldt (1874-1940) in 1899. Annie and Ernest were the parents of Arnold John Boldt (1899-1955), John Brumm’s first cousin, who in 1929 would marry Nora Sophia Emma Mugge (1903-1996), sister of Henry W. Mugge.
A schematic, available here, makes these two complicated connections clearer.
Connection to the Mugges
Mugge family members may wish to note that Nora Mugge Boldt (1903-1996), mentioned above, was the eighth of 10 children of Johann Hermann Mugge (1865-1931) and Bertha Henrietta Dora Steffens (1868-1946). She and Arnold Boldt (1899-1955) were the parents of Burleigh Boldt (born 1932) and Wesley Herman Boldt (born 1933). See a photo of the family of J. H. Mugge and Bertha H. D. Steffens Mugge.
Footnotes
(1) Her probable birth year is 1866, although her headstone shows 1865.
(2) “Rohwer” is the most likely surname spelling, although some records indicate “Rohwe.”
(3) Although John Hans Jurgen Brumm was born in O’Brien County, there are conflicting records on his place of birth within the county. It may have been either in or near the towns of Paullina (Summit Township) or Calumet (Liberty Township).