After recovering the basic details of my ancestors’ lives, such as dates and places of birth, marriage and death, I like to learn as much as possible about their personal lives. Searches of the daily newspapers several days after death in the cities where they lived have produced considerable information. In one case, I discovered that one great-grandfather had been an elected official, a fact that no one in the family had remembered. A great-great-grandfather had journeyed from Scotland to both Australia and California in search of gold. He had only 25 cents to his name when he died, but previously he had been quite wealthy as the result of an invention he had patented and manufactured.
When it came to Barney Hysinger, a paternal great-great-grandfather, however, the only information I had was a family story passed on by my father that Barney had been “quite active in the Jewish community in St. Louis, Missouri.” After hearing the story, I searched that city’s major newspapers from the date of Barney’s death forward for four weeks in the hopes of finding some personal details. Except for obituary notices, however, I found nothing. Then I remembered that the State Historical Society of Missouri, located in Columbia, has microfilmed copies of many newspapers that had been published throughout the state. Their index of holdings showed several weekly newspapers that had been published in St. Louis at various times, including one active during the period when Barney had died.
On a trip to Columbia, I began to review The Jewish Voice. On September 17, 1897, several days after Barney’s death, a story described his funeral. The article provided a short background of his involvement with the Jewish community and stated that his funeral procession had been more than a mile long. Included was the fact that he had held a leadership position in his temple for more than 20 years and that a Jewish retirement home in St. Louis had come into existence largely as a result of his labors. Most interesting was a drawing of his likeness; I had never been able to find a photograph of him.
What the article did not supply, however, was any further genealogical information, nor much about Barney as a person. The article that led to what I really was seeking was the obituary for Barney’s wife, Henrietta. I knew that my great-great-grandmother had died in July 1891, about six years before Barney. Once I found the article about Barney in The Jewish Voice, I thought to look for a similar story about Henrietta. Her obituary stated that on the occasion of the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary, the newspaper’s November 29, 1889, issue “gave a full account of the very happy and rare occasion.” Henrietta’s obituary continued, “owing to the prominence which Mr. Hysinger enjoys in the community,” the newspaper was reprinting a part of the sketch of the couple it had published at the time of their golden wedding anniversary.
Naturally, I quickly turned to the November 29 article, which reported that the celebration began at Temple Shaare Emeth at 7:30 in the evening with an estimated 800 guests present. At the completion of the temple service, the celebration moved to the nearby Harmony Club, where “nearly 300 guests sat down to a sumptuous banquet,” with the affair lasting “till about 3 o’clock in the morning.”
The last paragraph of the article, however, held the information every genealogist hopes to discover. It described how the couple had met aboard the ship that carried them to New York City in 1839 and how they married four months later in Albany, New York. It reported that the Hysingers subsequently lived in White Hall, Illinois, before moving to St. Louis in 1862. There was mention of how Barney had served as president of Temple Shaare Emeth for 12 years and had been very active in the Hebrew Relief Society, as well as being one of the founders of the Jewish retirement home.
With this information, I finally felt that I had discovered the type of role Barney Hysinger had played in his community during his lifetime. The article also revealed several fleeting glimpses of Barney’s personality, which made my discoveries all the more interesting. I had no idea at the time, however, that I would yet come across two additional sources of significant information about this ancestor that, when combined, would provide a complete picture of this man and his life.
The first source of additional information came from a newly published book, Zion in the Valley: The Jewish Community in St. Louis, vol. 1, by Walter Ehrlich, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The index includes 12 references to Barney Hysinger, all extensively footnoted in the text. Thus, I quickly was able to go to the original source material that Ehrlich had used.
A second discovery came about accidentally. I was in a library scrolling through microfilms of The Jewish Voice, when I spotted, in the issue of August 21, 1896, nearly an entire page devoted to Barney Hysinger. Because of his advancing age, Barney had just completed resigning and withdrawing from all community activities. The newspaper printed a marvelous retrospective of his entire life, beginning with his childhood in Oberlauringen, Bavaria, where he was born on August 24, 1819. It noted that he was the youngest of six children and that his father was a trader. Early in his life, Barney, “chafing under the strain of paternal care, made up his mind to come to this country, landing in New York in 1839.” The article recounted how he moved to Albany after four months “and was one of the original nine who founded the first Jewish congregation in that city.” His involvement with the Congregation Shaare Emeth was traced in St. Louis, noting that he had served as the group’s first active president and had served on the board continuously for 27 years. The article recounted how in the early days of the Mt. Sinai Cemetery Association, he raised the money necessary to purchase five additional acres needed because of the demand for burial plots.
The balance of the article went into considerable detail about the man and his personality. It noted that he was a man “of strong likes and dislikes; to some he seemed stern and brusque; to others who know his qualities he is a man of tender heart, tempered with a desire at all times to help the needy and the distressed.” Apparently, this latter part of his personality was developed through his service for many years as president of the Hebrew Relief Society in St. Louis, which brought him into contact with many in need of assistance.
Barney “fought his way through life with a limited education.” Apparently, with his strong likes and dislikes, the discussion of certain subjects “shook his frame when in heated conversation, but afterwards he could forget and forgive.” The writer went on to say that “having associated with him for a number of years and knowing his feelings, I say that he bears no one an ill will.”
The writer concluded with a review of Henrietta’s death several years before. By all accounts, theirs was a good marriage. The author noted that it had “always been his custom to spend every moment of his time not devoted to business or charity, within his home, and he is not given to club life or the pleasures that others seek away from the fireside.” It mentioned how after a marriage of more than 50 years, he was “inconsolable” after Henrietta’s death, but his children prevailed upon him to travel to each of their respective homes, during which time his grief was lessened to some extent. But the loss of his wife was still felt deeply, as the writer commented, “in the evening of his life he turns to the memory of his beloved companion for over 50 years and bears his burden with fortitude and resignation.”
Everything I learned about Barney Hysinger and his interesting life came about as a result of my father having passed on his recollection of a family story that Barney had been “quite active in the early Jewish community in St. Louis.” When I found no information about Barney in the daily St. Louis newspapers immediately after his death, I nearly gave up the search. It was only after I turned to the Jewish newspapers of his time that I uncovered the wealth of information I now have about this great-great-grandfather. The lesson I learned is not to give up after coming up empty-handed in various archives. Often much information exists; it is a question of looking in the right places.
Gene Block has been researching his family history for more than 30 years. His interest in genealogy began when a daughter in junior high school asked for help on a school project involving immigration. Block holds an undergraduate degree in engineering and masters degrees in business administration and environmental studies. He lives in Claremont, California. The lot on which the Hysinger’s home was located is now part of the campus of St. Louis University where he obtained his engineering degree, a fact he did not know until many years later.
