Bio: Gassner, Frank (1863 – 19??)

Contact: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Gassner, Baen, Stieber, Huldabaugh, Heil

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

Gassner, Frank (4 October 1863 – 19??)

FRANK GASSNER, who owns 120 acres of fine land situated in the town of Marathon and has a one-half interest in 200 acres mainly timberland in partnership with Joseph Stieber, has been a resident of Marathon county since he was fourteen years of age. He was born in Gilmore Township, Adams County, Ill., October 4, 1863, and is a son of Michael and Josepha (Baen) Gassner.  

Michael Gassner was born in Austria and was a man of fine education. He came to the United States and to Illinois, leaving his first wife, who followed three years afterward and was shipwrecked on the voyage, but was rescued and later died at Quincy, 111. Some years afterward Michael was married secondly at Quincy, to Josepha Baen, who was born in Bavaria, Germany, and died in Adams County, Ill., at the age of forty-four years. About eighteen months afterward Mr. Gassner with his five children, three of whom are now deceased, moved to Marathon county, settling in the neighborhood of Marathon City, where he secured three 40-acre tracts, and his death occurred on his first tract of forty acres, three miles east of Marathon City. He was then sixty-nine years old and his burial was in the St. Mary's Cemetery. He was both a faithful Catholic and liberal in his church support, helping to erect the second Catholic Church at Marathon City. He was so upright a man that he was universally respected and his fellow citizens elected him to positions of responsibility. He served two terms as school treasurer of the town of Marathon.

Frank Gassner obtained all his schooling in Adams County and after coming to Wisconsin assisted his father for a year and then went into the lumber regions and continued until he was twenty-six years old, when he settled on the farm on which he yet resides, which lies two and three-fourth miles east of Marathon City. He has fifty acres of his land cleared and has made all the improvements here and during the summer time attends to his crops, but in the winters engages to some extent in logging. He is also interested in the dairy business at Marathon City, is a stockholder in the Central Creamery Company, of which he was president for two terms, and is a stockholder in the Farmers Produce Company, a charter member and president of the first Marathon City Company.

Mr. Gassner was married October 12, 1886 to Miss Anna Stieber, who was born in Baden, Germany, a daughter of Joseph and Caroline (Huldabaugh) Stieber, who came from Germany and settled first at Two Rivers, Manitowoc County. Wis., for one year and then moved to the town of Marathon in Marathon County, where they lived at the time of death, the mother being aged forty-two years and the father seventy-five years. They were members of St. Mary's Catholic Church. To Mr. and Mrs. Gassner the following children were born: Justiana wife of John Heil, Jr.; and Eulalea, Anthony, Frank and Richard. The family all belong to St. Mary's Catholic Church. Mr. Gassner is a member of the Catholic Knights of Wisconsin and of the A. S. of E. He is a lifelong democrat, a loyal party man and has served his town one term as supervisor, twenty-one years as school clerk and sixteen years as town treasurer.