CEDAR COUNTY, NEBRASKA - Herman BRUENING
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From January 29, 1931 Cedar County News

DEATH COMES TO PIONEER RESIDENT

Herman Bruening of St. Helena dies suddenly Sunday afternoon

CAME TO BOW VALLEY OVER 60 YEARS AGO

Funeral is held Tuesday morning.  Pioneer is buried at Chapel Cemetery 
Near which he had First Blacksmith Shop.

Pioneers gathered from all of north Cedar County Tuesday morning to 
attend the funeral rites of Herman Bruening, early settler of Bow Valley 
and St. Helena, who died early Sunday afternoon at his home in St. 
Helena where he had lived since the town was founded.  

Death was caused by old age and complications from which he had suffered 
intermittently for the past year and a half.  The illness which preceded 
his death came over him only Saturday evening, and his death came suddenly 
shortly after the dinner hour Sunday.

St. Helena and the surrounding community was saddened by the death of 
this grand old man, whose death ended a life that was woven into the 
history of pioneer days.  His funeral was one of the largest ever held 
at the St. Helena church, and the procession that followed the funeral 
cortege to the cemetery was a long one.

He was buried near the little chapel southwest of St. Helena, where he 
had attended Mass when the church was the first to be built in Cedar 
County.  It was near the little chapel that he had his first blacksmith 
shop, back in the seventies.  Many early settlers of the community will 
recall times when they had their horses shod by the pioneer blacksmith…
and children of those days will remember watching the flames of the forge 
and the ringing of the hammer on the anvil.  

Mr. Bruening was born on June 29, 1851, at Kunfeldt, Germany, coming with 
his parents to America in 1860.  The family landed at Valdemar, Maryland 
and came on to Sioux City, then the civilized border of frontier life.  
With lumbering oxen drawing their car, they came on to Cedar County.

The newcomers settled on a homestead north of Bow Valley.  Their first 
home was a dugout, a meager shelter from the winds and storms that had 
no mercy on the ill-protected family.  

After a year or so, Mr. Bruening went to Dubuque, Iowa and worked in 
the carriage and wagons shops there for about a year and a half.  Times 
becoming harder still, he came back to Cedar County and started a shop 
of his own at First Bow, where the first church of the county was built.  
With a team of oxen he drove four and a half miles north of his first 
business location, hewed wood from virgin timber and hauled in down to 
erect the shop building.

Later the blacksmith shop was extended into an implement business from 
which some of the first machinery in the county was sold.  When the 
town of St. Helena was founded, he moved his business to the new 
settlement where he lived ever since.  

Mr. Bruening is survived by his wife who was Miss Elizabeth Kerkering, 
before their marriage in Cedar County over a half century ago (note:  
This is a mistake – his wife was Mary Schremp), one daughter, Mrs. 
William Heitman of Quinn, South Dakota; four sons, Carl, Adolph and Joe, 
all living on farms at St. Helena, and F.G. Bruening of Hartington.  
A son, William, died 24 years ago at the age of six years.  He is also 
leaves a sister, Mrs. John Kathol, Sr. of Bow Valley.

Pallbearers at the funeral were six grandsons:  Ignatz, Florenz and Arthur, 
sons of Mr. And Mrs. Carl Bruening, Otto and Paul, sons of Mr. And Mrs. 
Adolph Bruening, and Freddie Heitman, son of Mr. And Mrs. William Heitman.  

Mr. Bruening had been up and about until Saturday evening, though his 
health had been poor for over a year.  His death came shortly after the 
dinner hour on Sunday.