Obit: Brossow, John (1883 – 1972)

Transcriber: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Brossow, Berthold, Brosseau

---------Source: OWEN ENTERPRISE (Owen, Clark County, Wis.) 04 May 1972

Brossow, John (7 FEB 1883 – 28 MAR 1972)

"From Horseback to Jet Age," John Brossow, Withee (Clark Co., Wis.), who shared many American pioneer experiences, died at 89 years of age.

"I think that few generations saw in their lifetime as many changes as mine did," was a comment made not long before his death, by John Charles Brossow, 89, of Withee. Mr. Brossow died March 28, 1972 in Marshfield, where he had been under hospital and convalescent care for a month.

In 1913, he bought 80 acres of forest near Withee and developed a high producing farm, from which Holstein cattle were shipped in the past as far as Mexico and South America. He took a keen interest in politics, science and literature. On one occasion he was asked by a rival political party to be a candidate for the state assembly, but refused because of family responsibilities. The family's books were in his early farming days, and informal lending library for the neighborhood, and always faithfully returned. A small memorial fund is being established at the Withee Library by friends and family.

John Brossow was born February 7, 1883, the son of Francis and Anne (Berthold) Brosseau. (The spelling of the name was inadvertently changed by a Union Army paymaster.) His early childhood was spent in Ohio, where his father, a Civil War Vet and a veteran of the French Army, had business interests. Later the family moved to upper Michigan, living in Iron Mountain, Norway, Vulcan and other mining communities. Mr. Brossow retained vivid memories of the iron mining and lumbering days in the 1880's and 1890's. When he was 12, he and another lad took a herd of horses 75 miles through the woods, stopping overnight at an Indian camp, where they were guests at a supper of muskrat baked in clay. "Good too!" he recalled.

As a teenage he worked in lumber camps, at a lumber company's "New York Farm" and paper mills in towns including Niagara, Menomonee and Gladstone, Michigan. He was interested in sports, particularly swinning, and once swam seven miles across Little de Moquette.

He put himself through barber school in Chicago and worked at that trade in Chicago and northern Illinois towns, meeting many political leaders, race horse owners, and other sports notables, and social personalities at the time. Among those who impressed him were the legendary Mark McCormick He was a bicycle enthusiast and a soog amateur boxer, knew and could recall throughout his life the performance of noted race horses, and was an early devotee of baseball. Besides barbering, he worked for a time in a Peoria, Illinois factory.

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Obit: Brossow, John C. #2 (1883 – 1972)

Transcriber: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Brossow, Peterson, MacKay, Pralguske, Vlack, Thronson

----Source: THORP COURIER (Thorp, Clark County, Wis.) 06 Apr 1972

Brossow, John C. (7 FEB 1883 – 28 MAR 1972)

Services were held at 10:30 a.m. Friday at the Hoeper-Kraut Funeral Home, Owen, for John Charles Brossow, 89, of route 2, Withee (Clark Co., Wis.), who died Tuesday at the Marshfield Convalescent Center.

The Reverend Hilding Peterson, pastor of the United Church of Christ, Owen, officiated, and burial was in Riverside Cemetery, rural Withee.

Mr. Brossow was born February 7, 1883 in Ohio and was married in Kenosha, September 17, 1904 to Lillian MacKay, who preceded him in death in March 1950.

The couple went to Withee in 1913 and he had resided on a farm in the Town of Hixon since that time.

Survivors include four sons, Frank, route 2, Withee, Glenn, Medford, Elwin, Pocatello, Idaho, and Jay Lynn Brossow, Racine; three daughters, Mrs. Julius (Elsie) Pralguske, Waterloo, Iowa, Mrs. Edward (Jessie) Vlack, North Chicago, Illinois, and Mrs. Tori (Olive) Thronson, Kenosha; 21 grandchildren, and 24 great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by two sons.