Читать книгу Memoirs of Milwaukee County, Volume 3 - Josiah Seymour Currey - Страница 47

Peter Hubert Brodesser, mechanical engineer and elevator manufacturer, who is now manager with the Kaestner & Hecht Company of Milwaukee, was born in Cologne, Germany, March 6, 1863. His father, Peter J. Brodesser, also a native of Cologne, followed merchandising in that city and became a prominent business man there, passing away in 1869. He was married to Miss Marie Birkhauser, who was born in Muelheim-on-the-Rhine and who, following the death of her husband, came to the United States with her family in 1871. They landed in New York and made their way at once westward to Milwaukee. She was a daughter of Joseph Birkhauser and she came with five of her brothers to the new world. Her remaining days were spent in Milwaukee, where her death occurred March 3, 1901, when she was seventy-two years of age.

Peter H. Brodesser was brought to America by his mother, when a lad of eight years and his education was acquired in the public schools of this city. He afterward learned the machinists trade in the shop of Peter Weisel and was there employed for five years. He later accepted a position as stationary engineer with the Best Brewing Company and during this service prepared through private study and through study in the evening schools, to enter the University of Wisconsin at Madison. While attending that institution he pursued a mechanical engineering course, covering three years and met all of his expenses and his tuition, from his earnings. He then accepted a position as mechanical engineer with the Bullock Machine Company of Chicago, building Corliss engines, there remaining for a year and a half. Later he returned to Milwaukee, where he established a machine shop on Clyboum street, conducting it for two years, the business being carried on under the name of Brodesser & Ternes. The steady growth of the enterprise led to the purchase of a place on Commerce street, to which the business was removed in order to secure more commodious quarters. Carrying on his work of study and experimentation Mr. Brodesser produced several inventions along mechanical lines in connection with elevators, meat rockers and bark conveyors for tanneries. These inventions today are in use throughout the world. In 1890 Mr. Brodesser purchased the interest of Mr. Ternes in the business and reorganized under the name of the Brodesser Elevator Manufacturing Company, in which George Mueller became his associate. In 1895, however, he acquired the interest of Mr. Mueller and at one time his father-in-law, Christian R. Stein of Madison, was also interested in the Brodesser Elevator Manufacturing Company. In 1902 Mr. Brodesser purchased an acre of land at Burleigh and Weil streets and there erected a large elevator plant, which he leased to his corporation, a removal then being made from Commerce street. Mr. Brodesser retired from the business in 1914. In 1919 he took the agency for the Kaestner & Hecht Company, manufacturers of passenger and freight electric elevators and he continues in that connection, being general agent for Wisconsin and northern Michigan. His long experience with the elevator trade well qualifies him for the responsibilities and duties that devolve upon him and he is today a most prominent figure .in connection with elevator interests in the middle west. His Inventive genius has given to the world many valuable devices and he now has an invention, the patent on which is pending, that enables an electric elevator to stop exactly at a floor and to operate at a saving of about forty per cent of power.

On the 27th of October, 1888, Mr. Brodesser was married to Miss Otillie C. Stein, a daughter of Christian Stein of Madison, Wisconsin, who is a banker and retired lumber dealer. He was born in Tauberbischofsheim, Germany, and became a prominent citizen of Madison, where he passed away in 1907. To Mr. and Mrs. Brodesser have been born five children: Elza, being the eldest; Roman A. married Margaret Lueck, a daughter of William Lueck, ice cream manufacturer of Milwaukee and they have one daughter, Nancy; Marie, the next of the family, is now the wife of Albert Luterbach of Milwaukee, and they have two children, Dorothy and Lorraine. Mr. Luterbach is comptroller of the Palm Olive Company; Lorraine is the wife of Harry Martin of Milwaukee, and they have two children, Harry and Jacob P.; Evyline, the youngest of the family, is attending the State Normal School. The religious faith of the family is that of the Catholic church and they are communicants in the Holy Rosary parish. Mr. Brodesser belongs to the Catholic Knights of Wisconsin and he is a member of the Milwaukee Athletic Club. In politics he is a republican but has never been an aspirant for public office. He has ever been a wide reader and lover of good literature and possesses a fine private library. He largely devotes his leisure hours to the perfection of inventions along the line of his chosen life work. He has taken out six patents and has one pending, as previously indicated, which will revolutionize the construction of elevators. During the World war he entered the engineering service but the armistice was signed before he was called upon for active duty. His son, Roman A. Brodesser, however, was a first lieutenant in the gas division and served for nine months in France. He was educated in mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin. He was married before enlisting, after which he went overseas, rendering valuable aid in the cause of. the American and allied armies. Such in brief is the history of Peter H. Brodesser, who became a resident of Milwaukee at the age of eight years and has spent the greater part of his life in this city, closely identified with its industrial and commercial development. His name is widely known by reason of his inventions and the prominent position which he has made for himself in business circles and his entire record is one which reflects credit and honor upon the city with which his fortunes have been cast.