Wenzel was the seventh child of Franz von Gruner and Katharina Bergmann. He was born on 28 September 1831 in Reichenberg, Bohemia (now Liberec, Czech Republic) and died on 15 April 1885 in Branch County, Michigan. In 1858 he married Emily Randall. He came to this country at the age of seventeen with his parents in 1847. Soon afterward he went to work on a far in Rochester, New York for Benjamin Crippen, where he mastered the skills needed for his later venture into farm ownership.

In 1853, in the company of his older brother Anton, he bought a ticket for Chicago, but stopped off in Coldwater, Michigan, where he had a letter of introduction to Lorenzo Crippen, member of a group that was settling a new town along the Coldwater River. Anton and Wenzel were persuaded to settle there on the west banks of the river. They remained in partnership for several years, adding to their properties, then divided their lands after Anton married.

Wenzel married Emily Randall in 1858, daughter of Orson Randall of an old-line colonial family. Orson had gone to Hillsdale County, Michigan in 1837 and opened a Public House, or inn, and it was there Emily was born. The family later recounted tales of their first home in what was then a wilderness crossroads. It was a crude cabin, with a quilt hung in place of a door. They were fearful at times that wolves would surely take possession; they came so close to the door. They quickly built a more substantial dwelling.

Orson did a thriving business, but eventually he traded his property for a tract along the Coldwater River in Branch County, land that abutted Gruner land. He built an substantial home there and named it Willow Bank. It was there that Wenzel and Emily met and married.

In 1884, Wenzel made a trip back to his homeland in Bohemia. Some of his well-written and descriptive letters to his wife were published in the Coldwater newspaper. He had intended to return again the following summer, with his wife, but was stricken with a fatal heart attack in April 1995. He was only fifty-four.

Wenzel was described as having a cheerful and happy disposition, a love of family, and interested in public affairs, particularly in the area of education. He was also said to be thrifty and industrious, wise in many ways and a successful farmer, well liked in his community. His untimely death was mourned in newspaper headlines.

Wenzel and Emily had seven children, three girls and four boys, Mina, Mary, Edna, Ward, Benjamin, Bartlett and Starr.


G-71 Mina Laura Gruner (1860-1896)
(Third Generation)

Mina was the oldest child of Wenzel Gruner and Emily Randall. She was born in Branch County, Michigan in May 1860 and died in Coldwater in 1896, as the age of thirty-six. She married Edwin E. Lewis, a local merchant, in 1888. They had one daughter, Anna, who married a Lewis. Anna had no children.


G-72 Mary Katherine Gruner
(1861-1911)
(Third Generation)
Mary, the second child of Wenzel Gruner and Emily Randall, was born in 1861 in Branch County, Michigan and died there in 1911. She married William F. Mitchell, a Coldwater merchant in 1885.

Mary and her two daughters, Hester and Emily, made a train trip in1908 to Winfield, Alabama to visit her brother Benjamin. While she was there, Emily contracted malaria. Mary had no confidence in Alabama doctors and insisted on returning home to her doctor in Michigan. By the time they reached Chicago, thirteen-year-old Emily seemed much improved and it was decided to stay over for some sightseeing. Her condition worsened quickly and she died soon after returning home. Her mother was devastated and never recovered from the shock. She died three years later.

Hester was never compared favorably with her sweet younger sister. She became something of a loose cannon, and eventually ran off to join a theater group. She married a Cuban, Count Duany and would return to Coldwater, dressed in expensive but flashy clothes and telling about her exciting life. Her father had her body returned to Coldwater for burial. She had no children.


G-73 Edna Gruner
(1864-1910)
(Third Generation)

Edna was the third child of Wenzel Gruner and Emily Randall. She was born in Branch County, Michigan in1864 and died in Chicago, Illinois in1910. She is buried in Lagrange, Indiana, her home after her marriage in 1885 to Sylvester Treat Vesey (called Treat by the family).

Edna had planned a formal wedding May1885. When her father died a few weeks before, it was decided to have a quiet ceremony at home. Edna, whose German name was Adna, was described as a stately and very beautiful woman, talented in many areas and devoted to her family. She and her husband had been attending the theater in Chicago and had dashed for a streetcar when she was suddenly stricken with a massive heart attack. They had five children, Wenzel, Horace II, Sylvester Treat II, Lottie Emily and Horace III.


G-73-1 Wenzel Gruner Vesey
(1887-1924)
Fourth Generation.

Wenzel married Mable Vesey (no relation) in 1916. They had no children.


G-73-2 Horace Vesey II
(1889-1889)

Horace Vesey died in infancy


G-73-3 Sylvester Treat Vesey II
(1890-1903)

Sylvester Treat Vesey died in childhood


G-73-4 Lottie Emily Vesey
(1893-1985)

Lottie married Vern Cline, a farmer, in 1912. They had two children, Evelyn Edna, who died following a tragic accident at the age of two on 1915, and Hubert Monroe, an educator and athletic coach, He also managed the family farm after his father’s death in 1943.


G-73-5 Horace Vesey III (1898-1958)

Horace was a World War-1 veteran. He received a degree from Tri-State College in Angola, Indiana and taught school for one year before beginning to farm. He married (1) Esther Burton in 1918, and (2) Mildred Fern Hunt in 1941.


Horace and Esther had three children, Kathryn (Revis), Edna (Stevian) and William. The latter two are deceased, but all three have numerous descendants. Horace and Fern had one child, John Horace, who is a writer and one time news reporter.


G-76 Bartlett Randall Gruner
(1872-1907)
(Third Generation)

“Bart” as he was remembered, was the sixth child of Wenzel Gruner and Emily Randall. He was born in Branch County, Michigan in 1872 and died in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan in October 1907. His wife was Hester Harris, whom he married in 1897

Not much is known of Bart, because he left Coldwater at the age of nineteen and died at the age of thirty-four. He went to Mt. Pleasant, Michigan to go into the bakery business, first in partnership, then branching out into his own business. His death of typhoid was a great shock to the city, as he was highly regarded in the community. Businesses were closed out of respect for the man they mourned as “The Passing of A King” because of his regal bearing, love and good fellowship. He left no children.

Wenzel Gruner G-7 and his family in 1884.