Search billions of records on Ancestry.com

.Augusta Wegner Bruce.

contributed by:  

.Ironwood Daily (MI) .
.February 11, 1974 .
. 104, Last Survivor Of Peshtigo Fire Dies .
.
STEVENS POINT, Wis. (AP) — Mrs. Augusta Bruce, one of Wisconsin's oldest residents and the last living survivor of the Great Peshtigo Fire, died at the Portage County Home today. She was 104.

The fire Oct. 7-8, 1871, the same night as the Chicago Fire, devastated more than a million acres of land in northeast Wisconsin and claimed more than 1,000 lives.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

.Milwaukee Sentinel .
.February 12, 1974 .
. Last Survivor Of Peshtigo Fire Dies at 104 .

Special to The Sentinel 

Stevens Point. Wis. — Senvices will be Wednesday for the  last living survivor of the Peshtigo fare, Mrs. Augusta Bruce. 104, who died Sunday at the Portage County Home here.

Mrs. Bruce was born Aug. 4, 1569, or Washington Island off Door County. Her family settled in the Peshtigo area just before the fire that began Oct. 8. 1871. Her parents. Mr. and Mrs. John C. Wegner were German immigrants.  She used to recall her father telling about the fire that claimed more than 1,000 lives. The family took refuge in the Peshtigo River as the blaze roared through the lumber camp. Killing 800 persons in that town alone.

An additional 300 persons died in the area west and south of Peshtigo and about 50 more in Door County across Green Bay. The more widely remem­bered Chicago fire, which started the same day. claimed about 250 lives.

After the fire, the Wegner family moved to Green Bay and, in 1877, moved to a farm near Dorchester in Taylor County. In 1888, Augusta married Henry Bruce, a timber camp foreman. In 1909 the couple moved to Park Falls.

Bruce died in 1940 and Mrs. Bruce went to California where two of her children  lived, but returned to Wisconsin a short time later. She lived at the county home since 1968.

Survivors include four daughters; Mrs. Estella Nelson,  Medford; Mrs. Florence Hansen, Vallejo. Calif.; Mrs Irene Somen, Menomonie, Mich. and Mrs, Carl (Alice) Menzel Stevens Point; one son, John San Jose, Calif.; 18 grandchil­dren. 50 great-grandchifdren and 10 great-great-grandchildren.

Services will he at 11 a.m. Wedensday at the Boston Fu­neral Home, where the body will be at 3 a.m. that day Buri­a will be in Nola Cemetery, Park Falls.
.
BACK TO THE OCONTO COUNTY OBIT PAGE