Pgs 791 - 92

WILLIAM WEGNER, a substantial farmer of  Waukechon township, Shawano county, was born in Pollnow, Prussia, Germany, August 5, 1832. He is the son of Henry and Fredericka (Norse) Wegner.
     
Henry Wegner was a shepherd by occupation. Both he and his wife died in Germany before their son William came to America in 1866. They left four children, namely: Amelia, who married in Germany John Gise, a day laborer, and they went to South America, since which time William has heard nothing from them; William, subject of this sketch; Albertine, wife of William Grunwoldt, a farmer of Waukechon, where they located in 1868, and have reared a family of children; and Charles, who is a railroad man, and has always followed this business, living in Germany. 
     
William Wegner was early reared to habits of industry, and has done hard work ever since he was a boy. His educational advantages were very poor, as he only attended school about two years, and was in the army from 1855 to 1858 in Germany.  He was a hostler and teamster, and worked hard all the time until he came to America. In 1859 he married, and by his wife, Caroline Beilke, had six children, as follows: Wilhelmine, deceased; Charles, now a drayman in Wausau, Marathon county, who has a wife and family; Otto, who is in Oshkosh, and has been employed for twelve years by the street railway company, has a wife and three children; Bertha, deceased in infancy, and two who were twins, also deceased in infancy.  William Wegner's wife died in 1865, and he again married, this time taking for his wife Fredericka Rannow, and thus obtained a mother for his children. By his economical living he had saved enough money to come to America, and with his wife embarked at Bremen on a sailing vessel, arriving at Quebec after a voyage of forty-nine days.  Coming to Waukechon, Wis., a stranger in a strange land, he had just fifty cents left. He engaged in day labor, and the next year bought eighty acres of land in Belle Plaine township (then Oak Springs), Shawano county. He had no team. In one day a log house, 12 x 16 feet, was built, covered with slabs, and with split basswood for floor, and this made their home. He had to work two days to buy an axe, and with it commenced to clear his land. He worked for Mr. Schewe, then a new settler, and on his own land when unemployed elsewhere. He also worked in the woods. Wheat was his first crop. He raised 146 bushels, valued at $2 a bushel, and thus had a start.  He then bought an ox-team, and the work of clearing went briskly on. He bought forty-seven acres more, lived there a year and a half, and then, selling the farm, bought a hundred acres in Section 5, which still forms a part of the land where he now lives. He then had to begin over again, working in the woods to help out, and in the summer cleared his own land, and he has succeeded by dint of hard work and economical habits, today owning 460 acres of land, of which one hundred are cleared, the work done mainly by himself and team.  In 1883 Mrs. Wegner died, leaving seven children, as follows: Julius, in Oshkosh, Winnebago county; Albert, in Wausau, Marathon county; Rudolph; Joseph; Otilie, in California; Martha, wife of Herman Bloomky, a farmer in Waukesha, Wis., and Emma, who lived at home, died of cancer.
    
In 1883 Mr. Wegner married Bertha Maas, and they have had nine children, namely: Amelia, William (deceased), Hanna Clara (deceased), Herman, Dora, Paulina, Laura, Margaret and Conradina. The parents of Mrs. Wegner, Fred and Minnie Maas, of Nebraska, had a family of six children, born in Germany. Mr. Maas was a farmer. Politically, Mr. Wegner is a Republican; he is chairman of Shawano Agricultural Society is school clerk, and has been chairman of his township six years. The family are members of the Lutheran Church.