Brown County MN Archives Biographies.....Liesch, Philip 1868 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 November 25, 2014, 10:56 pm

Source: See Below
Author: L. A. Fritsche

PHILIP LIESCH.

   Philip Liesch, the Well-known proprietor of the Liesch Printing Company at
New Ulm, this county, and publisher of the Brown County Journal and the New Ulm
Volksblatt, two of the best-known and most widely circulated newspapers in this
part of the state, is a native of Wisconsin, having been born in Wyalusing,
Grant county, that state, August 23, 1868, son of Anton F. and Magdalena (Nutt)
Liesch, the former a native of Switzerland and the latter of the Austrian Tyrol,
who came to this county from Iowa in 1876 and settled at New Ulm, where their
last days were spent.

    Anton F. Liesch was born in the canton of Grisons, in the republic of
Switzerland, eldest of the two sons born to his parents, natives of that same
canton, who spent all their lives there, he having had a brother, Andrew. About
the time of the Civil War, Anton F. Liesch came to the United States and located
in Wyalusing, Wisconsin, in which town he engaged in farming. There he married
Magdalena Nutt, who had come with her parents, Casper and Rosalie Nutt, natives
of Lichtenstein, in the Austrian Tyrol, in 1848, she then having been a babe in
arms, the family settling in Guttenberg, Iowa, where she spent her girlhood days
and where her parents spent the remainder of their lives, both living to good
old ages. Casper Nutt and his wife were the parents of seven children, Mary,
Magdalena, Joseph, Barbara, Theresa, Catherine and Louisa. In 1874 Anton F.
Liesch and his family moved from Wisconsin to Iowa, locating at Sibley, where
they remained for two years, at the end of which time they came to this county,
settling in New Ulm, where Mr. Liesch and his wife spent the rest of their
lives, becoming well-known residents of that then rapidly growing little city.
Anton F. Liesch died in 1899, he then being sixty-six years of age, and his
widow survived until 1912, she being sixty-three years of age at the time of her
death. They were earnest members of the Catholic church and their children were
reared in that faith. There were seven children, as follow: Philip, the
immediate subject of this biographical sketch; Ida, wife of August O. Berndt, of
New Ulm, and George A., of New Ulm, the other four dying while young, Anna, when
eleven years old and the second eldest being killed in the cyclone which swept
over New Ulm in 1881.

     Philip Liesch was six years old when his parents left the farm in Wisconsin
and moved to Iowa and was eight years old when they came to this state, in 1876,
and settled at New Ulm. He, therefore, has lived in New Ulm practically all of
his active life, and has been a witness of the extraordinary changes which those
years have produced in this section of the state of Minnesota. Philip Liesch
attended the parochial schools of New Ulm and in 1883 entered upon an
apprenticeship to the printer's trade in the office of the New Ulm Review, with
which newspaper he was thus connected until 1887, in which year he went to St.
Paul, where for nearly eleven years he was connected with the Pioneer Press
Company. In September, 1897, the month in which he was married, he returned to
New Ulm and bought the newspaper and the printing plant of the Volksblatt
Publishing Company and immediately took over the publication of that paper,
which he has continued ever since. On October 15, 1898, Mr. Liesch issued from
the Volksblatt office the first copy of the Brown County Journal, a Republican
newspaper, and has ever since continued the publication of that paper, the
latter being printed in English and the former in German. In addition to getting
out his two excellent newspapers, Mr. Liesch is also extensively engaged in the
job-printing business and has a wide patronage in that department of his
printing plant.

     The Brown County Journal is stanchly Republican, faithfully reflecting its
editor's views on the political questions of the day, and both it and his German
paper, the Volksblatt, wield a large influence for good hereabout. For a short
time Mr. Liesch served as deputy oil inspector for Brown county, and on March 2,
1911, was appointed postmaster of New Ulm, in which position he served with much
satisfaction to the people of that city for a period of four years.

     Mr. Liesch has been a member of the Republican county committee and for a
number of years acted as treasurer and chairman. He was also a member of the
Republican state central committee for a number of years and gratuitously has
given liberally of his time to further the interests of the party.

     On September 28, 1897, Philip Liesch was united in marriage to Clara
Follman, who was born at Mankato, this state, April 28, 1875, daughter of John
Nicholas and Bernardina (Schaefer) Follman, the father being a native of
Luxemburg and the mother was born in Iowa and came to Brown county with her
parents in June, 1856, and lived on a farm in Cottonwood until 1874, when she
moved to Mankato, where she was married to Mr. Follman, who was engaged in the
drug business and where he died in 1875. Mrs. Liesch is the only child born to
that union. To Philip and Clara (Follman) Liesch seven children have been born,
Adelyn E., Robert P., Estella L., Aura H., Victor E., Marie C. and Phyllis C.
Mr. Liesch is a member of the Knights of Columbus; the Catholic Order of
Foresters and of the German Catholic Aid Society, in the affairs of all of which
organizations he takes a warm interest. He and his family are active in local
good works and are held in high esteem by their many friends 

Additional Comments:
Extracted from:
HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY MINNESOTA
ITS PEOPLE, INDUSTRIES AND INSTITUTIONS

L. A. FRITSCHE. M. D.
Editor

With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records
of Many of the Old Families

VOLUME II
B. F. BOWEN & COMPANY, Inc. Indianapolis, Indiana


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