WilliamA. Broker
WILLIAM A. BROKER was bornin Lippe-Detmold, Germany, March 19, 1837. He was a boy of eleven yearsof age when his parents, Samuel and Sophia (Haupfer) Broker crossed theAtlantic in the spring of 1849, to New Orleans, and thence up the Mississippiriver to St. Louis. This was during the year of the great cholera epidemicin that city, and within a few days the father and three of the childrendied, the mother and William having it severely, but recovering. When theywere able to leave, the mother and her four small children moved to a farmnear Watertown, Wisconsin. About one year later the mother died of choleramorbus, she being then fifty years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Broker had alwaysbeen members of the German Reformed Church.
Mr. William Broker is theyoungest of the children yet living. He is now pattern maker for the St.Louis division of the Quincy railroad, which is located at Beardstown.He has been a resident of the same city since 1851. He was only fourteenyears old when he arrived at Beardstown, and learned the trade of a practicalcarpenter mechanic under C. A. Bushman. After learning his trade he workedon his own account, and later became a carpenter for the old Rockford company.In 1869, when the railroad was bought up by the Quincy company, he becametheir pattern-maker in 1879. He has ever since been regarded as a good,reliable workman, and a true, straightforward man, and his long associationwith the railroad company is a recommendation of him as a citizen.
He was married in Beardstownto Miss Dorothea Kratz, who was born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, in 1844,and was twelve years of age when her parents emigrated to this country.They have seven children: Frank, living at home, is a machinist; Sophiaand Katie are at home, they having been well educated in the high schoolof the city; William is learning the machinist trade; Minnie, Amelia andSamuel are at home. Mr. and Mrs. Broker attend the Lutheran Church. Mr.Broker is a Republican, and a member of the A. O. U. W. He is highly respectedby all.
Biographical Review ofCass, Schuyler and Brown Counties, Illinois, Biographical Review PublishingCo., Chicago, 1892, page 287.
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