Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Barbara Brück (also called Brueck or Brick) was born Sept. 5, 1845, in Blankenheim, Hersfeld-Rotenburg, Hessen, Germany. Blankenheim in Regierungsbezirk Kassel (Hesse) is about 190 miles (or 306 km) southwest of Berlin, Germany’s capital.

Barbara’s parents were Pvt. Peter Bruce Brick (1820-1882) and Elizabeth Ehlen Brick (1825-1894). Her grandparents were Johannes Brueck and Anna Barbara Bell Brueck (1781-1820); and Thomas Ehlen (1775-1832) and Ursula Vogelsberg Ehlen (1779-1832).

Barbara and her parents moved to Racine, Wisconsin when Barbara was five years old, and they became settler-colonists in the United States. They arrived in the United States on April 30, 1852, in New York. After a short time, they moved to St. Joseph Township in Scott County.

Barbara’s father was a private in the Minnesota Heavy Artillery in the Civil War. He was inducted on Sept. 27, 1864.

Barbara’s future husband Adam Geiß Geis, at age 21, was drafted into the Fourth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment on June 6, 1964. Adam was a private in the Civil War.

When Pvt. Geis returned from the Civil War, where he served under Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, Adam and Barbara married at St. Mary of the Purification Church in Marystown, near Shakopee, on Jan. 18, 1866.

Barbara and Adam settled on a forty-acre farm in Spring Lake Township. They lived there for 38 years. In 1904 they moved to a smaller farm near Marystown. Ten years later, Barbara and Adam moved to a little house in the shadow of St. Mary of the Purification Church.

Fourteen children were born to Barbara and Adam.

Pvt. Adam Geiß Geis died Aug. 17, 1933 in Marystown. He was buried at St. Mary of the Purification Cemetery, Marystown in Louisville Township.

During the last 15 months of her life, Barbara lived with her daughter, Maria Ann Geis Hennen (1872-1961). Barbara had a slight cold for several days, but three days before she died, she had the privilege of becoming a great-great-grandmother.

Her great granddaughter, Margaret Sand Dellwo, had a child on Feb. 14!

Barbara’s slight cold suddenly became serious, and before medical aid reached her, she died of apoplexy. Apoplexy is rupture of an internal organ and the accompanying symptoms. The term formerly referred to what is now called a stroke. Nowadays, health care professionals do not use the term, but instead specify the anatomic location of the bleeding, such as cerebral, ovarian or pituitary, but in 1934, it was the word used for Barbara’s stroke.

Barbara’s funeral service was by Rev. Father Klein at St. Mary of the Purification Church in Marystown. Barbara was a long-time faithful member of St. Ann’s Society of the Marystown church, and the society attended the funeral as a body. Six grandsons of the beloved woman served as pallbearers, including Paul and Alfred Geis, Leander Scherer, Alvin Hergott, Lawrence Hennen, and Jacob Menden.

Barbara was buried next to Adam, in the cemetery next to St. Mary of the Purification Church in Marystown.