The Bauman family extends back two centuries, and covers about fifteen generations.
The Bauman name means builders or architect. The name Bauman has an interesting story, involving name change. John Dieter Bauman, son of Meinrich Bauman Sr., willing to educate his twelve children, hired a school-master teacher of English to teach them, as well as the other boys and girls of the neighborhood. Their school-master, not possessing a knowledge of German, spelled the first syllable, “Bau”, “Bow”. Some of the interesting spellings are Bowman, Boman, Boughman.
A German tradition relates that our ancestors were German-Swiss. Another tradition in the family states that “Forstetum-Lippe was their early home section of Germany, in the vicinity of Teutenberger Wald and the upper Hartz Mountains.
The family coat-of-arms depicts an uprooted tree borne over the right shoulder and ax carried in the right hand, proving that the man was going to build from this tree. This is the original meaning of Bauman.
Eight men and Wendel Bauman came to America on the ship, “Mary Hope”. They arrived in Philadelphia in October, 1 709. These families arranged with William Penn’s agent and the Provincial Surveyor for ten thousand acres of land on the Pequea Creek, in the wilderness sixty miles west of Philadelphia, which is now Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Great-great-great-grandfather, George Lohr married Barbara Miller. They had ten children. One of these ten children, George Lohr, married Susanna Bowman Lohr and they had ten children. One of these children was William Lohr, my great-grandfather. He married Catharine Shank and they had seven children. One of these children, William Lohr, Jr., was my grandfather.
My grandfather, William Lohr, was a conductor for the Union Pacific Railroad. He married Alice Heinemeyer and they lived in Columbus. They had three children. One was my father, Louis Lohr. He, too, worked for the Union Pacific Railroad for nearly forty years. He married my mother, Elizabeth (Hoevet) Lohr, and they had five living children. I, Louise (Lohr) Brunken, am the oldest daughter, and I married Milton Brunken. We have eight children and 11 grandchildren. This makes the sixth generation of Lohrs.
By Mrs. Milton Brunken
Source: Merrick County Historical Society, History of Merrick County, Nebraska (1981), Volume I, Dallas, Texas : Taylor Publishing Company, 1981.