This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Surnames: Frantz, Schaad, Neuenschwander, Hockemeyer,
Classification: Biography
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/kh.2ADE/975
Message Board Post:
This book has no cover, and no index, and no author. I bought it on Ebay; it just has the
insides, but it is full of Indiana biographies. I am not researching this family, just
thought I would share. I do not know anymore about these families or these surnames. NOTE:
I don’t know if there is any additional mention of this family in the book, it has no
index. I do not want to sell this book. I am typing the biographies from it.
Typed by Lora Radiches:
Surnames in this biography are: Frantz, Schaad, Neuenschwander, Hockemeyer,
FRANKLIN E. FRANZ, like many men, gained an enthusiasm for motor mechanics when
a boy, and that early enthusiasm opened the way for his permanent business career. His
knowledge of motors has been combined with a high degree of salesmanship ability, and as a
result of a number of years of experience he has founded and built up one of the leading
sales agencies of Fort Wayne, known as the Beacon Motors Company. Mr. Franz was born at
Berne, Indiana, January 3, 1892, and is of Swiss and German ancestry. His grandfather was
a master of the cheese making industry as practiced in Switzerland and he came to the
United States and became interested in the cheese business in Wisconsin and later settled
near Berne, Indiana. He was president of the American Swiss Cheese Makers Association, and
was a very successful businessman. On coming to America he first located in West Virginia,
in 1878. He died near Berne, Indiana. Ernst Franz, father of the Fort Wayne automobile
man, was !
born in Switzerland, April 14, 1865, on the day and the hour that Lincoln was
assassinated. He was fourteen years of age when he and his mother, Elizabeth (Schaad)
Franz, came to America to join his father. Ernst Franz completed a high school course
while still in Switzerland, and after coming to America worked in his father’s cheese
business at Berne, Indiana. Later he took up the study of medicine and graduated from the
Hahnemann School, known as the Chicago Institute of Homeopathy, in 1893. He first
studied with Dr. Peter Sprunger at Berne, Indiana, and had practiced before graduating
from the Hahnemann School. Altogether he has devoted forty-two years of his life to
the duties of a homeopathic physician and is still a busy doctor in his community.
He is a Republican in politics and a member of the Mennonite Church. Dr. Ernst
Franz married Lea Neuenschwander, who was born in Iowa, December 31, 1865. To
their marriage were bo!
rn two sons and seven daughters, and all are living except one daughter. Franklin E. Franz
attended public school at Berne, Indiana, and as a schoolboy most of his thought was
directed to mechanics. He has been working around automobiles and more or less
continuously in the automobile business since 1909. During the World war he was assigned
duty as an instructor in motor mechanics with the United States Army, and served until
honorably discharged in 1921. Mr. Franz in 1922 established an accessory and
automobile business at Decatur, Indiana, and in 1923 became salesman for the Willis
Overland cars. During 1924 he received a high place on the company’s list of salesmen
by selling $100,000 worth of cars, a record that only the leaders in the business ever
accomplished. As assets to his salesmanship he knows motor mechanism, possesses absolute
integrity and a pleasing personality, and has many friends both in and outside of the
motor business. In 1926 h!
e organized the Beacon Motors Company, of which he is general manager and director. The
company has its location at 810 South Harrison Street in Fort Wayne. Mr. Franz is
a director of the Fort Wayne Civic Symphony Orchestra Association, is a member of the
Lions Club. He married, July 16, 1916, Miss Bertha Hockemeyer, of Decatur, Indiana. They
have three children: Franklin E., Jr., born October 26, 1917, Robert William, born January
11, 1920, and John David, born March 31, 1928.