Biographical Sketch of Joseph Dreis, St. Joseph, Buchanan County, MO

>From "History of Buchanan County, Missouri, Published 1881, St. Joseph
Steam Printing Company, Printers, Binders, Etc., St. Joseph, Missouri.
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Joseph Dreis, who devoted the best part of his life to the education
of the children of the first German settlers of St. Joseph, and to
whom many citizens are indebted for their knowledge, deserves spec-
ially to be mentioned.  He was born April 11, 1828, at Bremen, on 
the Mosel, Prussia.  When eighteen years of age, after having had
his primary education, he went to Trier, where he visted higher 
schools and studied to prepare himself for the duties of a teacher.
From 1850, he served three years as a soldier in the King's Body
Guard of the Prussian Army.  In 1853, he was honorably discharged,
and immediately emigrated to America, arriving at New York City,
which place he left after a short rest and went to Jefferson City,
Missouri, where he was employed for three months.  In 1854, he came
to St. Joseph and immediately opened a German school.  He was success-
ful and soon had thirty pupils, a large number for that time.  In 1855
he married, and in 1856, left St. Joseph, but returned in 1860, when
he again opened a private German school, and as his great merits as a
teacher were known and acknowledged by the Germans, he soon had more
than one hundred pupils.  By the request of the directors of German
school, who had erected a school building, he accepted the position of
teacher of the Deutsche Verein Schule.  By his high qualities as a
teacher, and his energy, he was so successful that in 1868, the old
school house became too small, and a new and larger one was erected,
which soon after was visited by one hundred and fifty pupils.  In 1869
he resigned his position as teacher and opned a hotel opposite the
narrow gauge railroad depot.  In 1871, he added to the hotel a grocery
business, which he carries on with great success.  He was married on
August 22, 1855, to Miss Magdalene Elizabeth Bode.  They have had 
eleven children, of whom four are living: Carl August, born August 5,
1863; George France, born January 1, 1866; Johanna Sophia, born Feb-
ruary 23, 1871; Johann Philip, born October 9, 1877.

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