NEGenWeb Project
Hall County

 

The subject of this sketch was born in Stanton, Illinois, January, 1869, son of Rev. C. and Mrs. Hannah Buechler. The father had emigrated to America from Germany in 1865. The mother's parents came to America from Northern Germany when she was still a babe and the grandfather on the maternal side died in 1871 as a result of injuries and exposure received while fighting for the Union in 1864.

About 1870 the father was called to serve three German congregations in Northern Ohio and here A. F. Buechler attended the public schools until the age of thirteen, at which time his family moved to Thayer County, Nebraska. After a year of school at Carleton, Nebraska, he began work, at the age of fourteen, as a copyist in the office of the county clerk at Hebron, Nebraska, and four months later took a clerkship in the postoffice in the village of Carlton, work which in later years stood him well in hand. He also carried on general clerks duties in the general merchandise store of S. A. Truesdale, the postmaster. In 1885, he began his advanced education, which consisted of one year in the preparatory department and later four years in the college at Capital University, Columbus, Ohio, from which he graduated in 1890, with the degree of A. B. His parents, in the meantime, had moved to Grand Island, and early in the fall of 1890 he found employment on the Daily Times as solicitor and reporter. In 1891, S. P. Mobley, then business manager of The Independent, obtained a commission with the state's exhibit at the Chicago World's Fair, and Fred Hedde, the founder, and then editor and owner of the Independent gave Mr. Buechler employment as a general office assistant during the absence of Mr. Mobley. So on August 3, 1891, Mr. Buechler began service with The Independent which has continued until this time. In December, 1895, W. M. Geddes and A. F. Buechler, under the partnership of Geddes & Buechler, leased the Independent plant. In February, 1897, Mr. Hedde again resumed charge of the paper, retaining Mr. Buechler as silent partner. Failing health compelled Mr. Hedde's disposal of the plant in 1900 and Mr. Buechler organized the present Independent publishing Company on a capital of $7,000, merging therewith the Standard Printing Company. He has thus been employed and connected with the Independent for twenty-nine years, for the last nineteen years as president, which office has thus far always assumed the editorship.

In addition to the close association with public affairs of the community which the editorship of a daily paper naturally entails, Mr. Buechler has devoted his time and energy to numerous specific public duties. He has assisted in organizing three commercial clubs, during these twenty-nine years, and for five years served as the first secretary and for four years thereafter as a member of the executive committee of the present organization. For two years he also served as secretary of the state association of Commercial Clubs. In 1911, he was appointed postmaster and served one term.

Besides the many tasks which The Independent cheerfully met during the war period, Mr. Buechler was appointed as one of the first directors of the Red Cross and served throughout the war. He was elected at a mass meeting as one of a War Activities committee of five, to take over, at request, all war drives, and was upon the organization of the committee elected as its secretary, serving in that capacity up to and including the Victory Loan Drive. He also served as publicity committeeman in every war drive throughout the war with the exception of the first Y. M. C. A. which was taken up by the association independently.

He was united in marriage in 1891 to Mrs. Lydia L. Boehm. They have a family of four children; the eldest, Theo. E. Buechler, graduated with honors from the local high school, attended Grand Island College one year, whereupon he obtained an appointment as cadet for West Point Military Academy, attended Columbia Preparatory school at Washington, six months, passed the mental and physical examination for entrance at West Point, and upon completion of the course ranked twenty-first in a total entering class of two hundred and fifty-one. He became a captain of artillery, with an assignment of instructor in gunnery in central officers training school, Camp Taylor, Kentucky, and is at present zone major, with the American army at Coblenz, Germany.

Mrs. A. A. Roeser is the wife of the former assistant cashier of the State Bank of Grand Island, and now local agent for Peoria Life Insurance Company. She is a graduate of the local high school and Grand Island Conservatory of Music.

Walter E. Buechler, became a corporal in Company B One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Engineers, American Expeditionary Force, France. He volunteered at the age of nineteen with the Seventh Nebraska Regiment, and when that regiment was abandoned by the War Department, carried out his determination to enter the service by enlisting with the Engineer Corps at Jefferson Barracks. Since his return he has resumed his duties with the Independent Publishing Company.

The youngest daughter, Catherine, age twelve, is attending the public schools of Grand Island.

Mr. Buechler's interest in preserving the early history of the county, of which his efforts in 1907 in securing the personal reminiscences of some of surviving members of the original colony of 1857, and other Hall County pioneers, was an invaluable aid in the compilation of the present volume. The steady substantial growth and recognition being accorded in newspaper circles of the state to the Grand Island Daily Independent attests the success of the services Mr. Buechler and his associates to the Independent Publishing Company, the community in general and Hall County particularly.

[There is a picture of A. F. Buechler on page 818.]

Transcribed by Larry Coates