They will be gathering by the Busse load at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Grayslake on June 28 when Mt. Prospect’s most prominent family celebrates 150 years in America. More than 2,500 descendants of Friedrich and Johanna Katz Busse, who emigrated from Hanover, Germany, in 1848, are expected to attend the Busse family reunion. Planning the event has consumed Busse family members for more than 2 1/2 years.
The arrival of the clan — some from as far as California and Texas — is eagerly awaited in the northwest suburbs, particularly Mt. Prospect. “In virtually every walk of the community’s life — government, civic, business — the Busses have been active, prominent and have conducted themselves with distinction,” said Leo Floros, co-chairman with his wife, Lil, of the Mt. Prospect Special Events Commission, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the village.
The group bestowed its Cornerstone Award on the family in February. “We created the Cornerstone Award (for the Busses), which recognized a family that, in effect, was kind of the cornerstone of Mt. Prospect’s history,” Floros said.
Floros rattled off a long list of local Busse accomplishments: “The first mayor of Mt. Prospect was Bill Busse,” he said. “And since . . . the village was organized some 80 years ago, the Busses have been prominent in government. They have served on a number of other commissions and boards. They have been prominent in business, in banking. They’ve been very prominent in real estate, in insurance, in retailing of all types. They’re involved in everything that’s good in the community.”
He cited as evidence the many things named for the family, including Busse Road, Busse Avenue and Busse Woods. “There was a Busse School, which since has been torn down and replaced by Busse Park,” Floros noted.
In short, there are enough Busse achievements to fill a book. So Margot Busse Graves of Mt. Prospect wrote one. “The History of the Busse Family: 150 years in America, 1848-1998” is a 312-page, blue leather-bound volume, with gold stamping. A limited edition of 1,500 copies, priced at $35 each, is ready just in time for the reunion.
The project “has taken a good 18 months out of my life,” Graves said, laughing. “The past year, it has been all-consuming.”
The reunion has been quite a project for the six-member core committee, which consists of George Busse of Mt. Prospect, who served as chairman, and his wife, Esther; Harold and Carol Busse of Mt. Prospect; William Busse Jr. of McHenry; and Graves (a seventh member, Edward J. Busse, died). Several Busses came up with the idea of having a reunion because the family hadn’t held one since the centennial celebration. Relatives had an informal meeting to see if there was interest in holding the event, and they got enthusiastic responses.
In fact, when the staggering number of Busse descendants became apparent, the organizers decided to make additional family history. They contacted the Guinness Book of World Records and completed the necessary paperwork to have their gathering recorded as the largest family reunion. Even though Guinness doesn’t currently list that category, George Busse noted that the editors are interested in establishing it. The Busse history book has a chapter describing how the family came to America, and chapters on each of the six children of Friedrich and Johanna Katz Busse. Graves said that the history is brought up to the ’50s through anecdotes and stories. Her son, Timothy Graves, was responsible for much of the writing. To raise additional funds to cover the cost of publishing the book, as well as to bring the history up to the 1990s, quarter- and half-pages were sold to families. “A lot of them took pictures at family gatherings, and then they wrote a little article,” Margot Busse Graves noted.
But none of those pictures can equal in scope the ones scheduled for reunion day. Descendants from each of the family’s six branches will be grouped in the fairgrounds grandstand for separate family photos.
Documenting the family history was only one aspect of the reunion planning process. Another important task was to keep distant relatives informed about the status of the event.
To do that, Esther Busse, who was in charge of publicity, produced a newsletter called Busse Blitz. The fact-packed publication was mailed to relatives and published on a family Web site (http://members.aol.com/Busse1998), at first quarterly and then more frequently as the event approached.
From the beginning, the committee decided to organize plans along family lines, grouping together the descendants of each of Friedrich and Johanna Busse’s six children: Christian, Fred, Henry, Louise, Louis and Johanna. It was determined that the best way to make that distinction apparent at the reunion was by selling T-shirts in six different colors, one for each family line. For example, as part of the Louis Busse line, George Busse will wear an orange T-shirt. All T-shirts display a tree with “Busse” written down the trunk, roots labeled “Friedrich” and “Johanna,” and branches representing each of their six children.
Committee members also opted to have six large tents erected at the fairgrounds for reunion day, so that each family line can have its own gathering place.
Finding as many family members as possible was a major part of the planning process. Harold and Carol Busse were in charge of locating individuals to help with research, both for the book and the mailing list. They eventually enlisted 75 family members to gather genealogy and addresses. Harold Busse noted that it was relatively easy to find descendants of the four sons who carried the Busse name but more difficult to trace the genealogy of the two daughters.
Carol Busse worked particularly hard to locate descendants of Louise Busse. “I found some names on the Internet and pursued it that way, and then others through a family member or a friend,” she said. “I feel that it’s really important when you do a reunion like this that every family is represented in the same way.”
As names and addresses were gathered, they were added to the reunion invitation list and filtered to Nancy Busse of Villa Park, whose husband Gordon is from the Henry Busse line, for inclusion in a family address book that she created. The document grew to more than 2,000 entries.
Invitations were sent to all families listed in the address book. Although Busse descendants live in 46 states and nearly a dozen foreign countries, the majority of the attendance confirmations have come from the Midwest, where the family is clustered.
Nancy Busse devised a reunion project for her husband to visually illustrate the family’s migration. “We purchased a map of the United States,” she said. “He put a pin in the different towns where these families are from.” The pins are color-coded to correspond to the T-shirt colors, and the map will be on display at the reunion.
“Most of the people settled in the Midwest — Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois,” Nancy Busse said. “But a lot of them went out to the West Coast and down to Florida. And we have about 10 countries outside of the United States where some of the Busses settled in.”
Committee member William Busse Jr., who is executive vice president of the First National Bank of McHenry, was asked to serve as reunion treasurer. “I’m recipient of things like the shirt orders, book orders,” he said. “We had a lot of folks donate money to the cause.” These funds were used to pay the fairgrounds rental fee.
Members of each branch collected memorabilia. Harriet Schwake of Long Grove will show a scrapbook from her husband’s grandmother Anna Busse, who was Fred Busse’s daughter. “She died when she was about 95, so she had quite a collection,” Schwake said.
The most interesting bit of memorabilia that Lorraine Grewe Kehe of Wheeling found for the Johanna Busse family display is a front-page clipping from the Cook County Herald about the 1923 Busse family reunion (others were held in 1898, 1938 and 1948). In addition, Kehe said, “My cousin (Edward Deeke of Palatine) has the rocker that my great-grandmother died in, and he’s going to bring that to the reunion.”
“We’ve got part of a shawl that came over when they came over on the boat,” Harold Busse said. He noted that the adventurous Henry Busse, who arrived here first and urged his parents to come to the United States, left for the California Gold Rush once the family was settled. “We have a gold chain from the gold that he mined up there,” Harold Busse said.
The committee decided to schedule a full day of activities, starting with an outdoor church service, led by Rev. David Zersen of the Henry Busse branch, who is president of Concordia University in Austin, Texas. This honor has special significance for Zersen, whose grandfather Friedrich Zersen spoke at the last reunion 50 years ago. “I was a little child and remember being there,” he said. “For those of us who have those kinds of close family ties in the Busse family in northern Illinois, it’s kind of exciting to try to recapture this moment from 50 years ago when, for the last time, that whole family gathered.”
For the first reunion, marking 50 years of Busse life in America, 500 relatives gathered for a picnic and a barn dance on H.W. Busse’s farm, which was located just east of the original family homestead at Busse and Algonquin Roads, in what was considered Elk Grove Township. The 75th anniversary celebration in 1923 was set in Elk Grove Forest Preserve, which is now Busse Woods.
That was supposed to be the site of the 90-year celebration, but it was relocated to Mt. Prospect because of rain. The centennial reunion celebration, which drew between 1,000 and 1,200 people, was held on the grounds of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Mt. Prospect. At that time, most of the Busse descendants still lived within 20 miles of the family’s original homestead.
Because of the huge turnout expected for the sesquicentennial, no less a site than the Lake County Fairgrounds will do. Carol and Harold Busse will work the information booth. There will also be entertainment for all ages, including a magic show by Harold and Carol Busse’s 13-year-old grandson Dave Busse.
In keeping with the theme, Paul Seils of Arlington Heights offered to stage the Busse 150 Show and Shine Antique Car Show. An area will be roped off for displaying family members’ cars that were built in 1973 and before.
Although the committee hasn’t planned pre-reunion events, members are urging relatives to allow time the day before to visit St. John’s Lutheran Church in Mt. Prospect, where the pioneers worshiped. They are also suggesting a stop at the adjoining cemetery, where Friedrich and Johanna Busse and many of their descendants are buried.
In addition, early arrivals will be able to visit an exhibit about their family that is being mounted by the Mt. Prospect Historical Society at the 1901 Little Red Schoolhouse located at 1100 S. Linnemann Rd. It will feature photographs, documents and clothing, including wedding dresses from the turn of the century.
“It’s basically a retrospective of the family and how significant they were in the building of this town,” said society director Barbara Burke.
William Busse Jr. summed up the importance of the huge Busse clan gathering that the committee has labored on for more than two years. In an age of mega-mergers and insensitivity, he said, “It’s nice to know there’s still a core of people who represent good, wholesome Midwestern values.” And a lot of them are named Busse.
Busse family relatives can contact Esther and George Busse at 847-255-3932 for more information about the reunion.
THE BUSSES WEREN’T ALONE
Busse is undeniably the most prominent name in Mt. Prospect, but other families were instrumental in the village’s early development. Of course, as Mt. Prospect Historical Society Director Barbara Burke noted, “Busses married members of other prominent families, so just about everyone is (a Busse) or is related to a Busse.”
Here are three other families that helped forge Mt. Prospect:
– Biermann: Starting in 1926, Fred W. Biermann began grading and leveling soil for sidewalks and roads. He also dug foundations for homes and churches. His son Frank was chief of the fire department for 27 years. In addition, Frank ran Busse-Biermann Hardware, a longtime fixture in Mt. Prospect, which closed in the 1980s.
– Wille: The Wille family shares a distinction with the Busses: having a road named for them. Conrad Willie founded the Mt. Prospect Creamery, which was one of the village’s first businesses.
Conrad’s son William opened a tavern in 1885 and also started Wille Hall, which served as a community meeting house for many years.
In addition, William Wille was credited with erecting most of the frame buildings in Mt. Prospect, including the first school in Mt. Prospect Elementary School District 57. On that project, the school board, which was trying to conserve funds, wanted a one-room frame structure without cloakrooms. Wille refused to comply, adding cloakrooms and paying for them himself.
In 1972, Albert Wille, Conrad’s grandson, became the first president of the Mt. Prospect Chamber of Commerce.
– Meyn: John Meyn opened the first blacksmith shop in Mt. Prospect in 1883. His son Herman, who served as fire chief, became the village’s second mayor, succeeding Bill Busse.
