Biographies For Muscatine County Iowa 1889

Source: Portrait and Biographical Album, Muscatine County, Iowa, 1889, page 495
EMIL GROESCHEL, a carriage painter and real-estate dealer of Muscatine, and a prominent citizen of the community, was born in Germany in 1846, and is the second in a family of nine children. His parents, Cahrles and Mary ( Miller ) Groeschel, were also natives of Germany, and spent their childhood days in the town of Wordingborg near the banks of the Rhine. Near that historic and beautiful river, Charles Groeschel woed and won the lady with whom for forty years he traveled life's journey. In the year 1847 they bade farewell to their native land and set sail for America, landing at Castle Garden, whence they went to Williamstown, Mass., where mr. Groeschel worked at his trade of carriage painting and trimming, which he had followed in the old country. After three years spent in that place he removed with his family to North Adams, and from there to Fort Plain in the State of New York. At length, leaving that city he came directly to the West, and for six years resided in Davenport, whence he removed to Muscatine, making it his home until his death, which occurred in August, 1883. Although a resident of this city at that time, when death occurred he was visiting at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Dr, Emies, of Carroll, Iowa, and one day dropped dead on yhe street from heart disease. He was brought back to his home by his daughter and laid to rest in the city burial ground.

"We bore him to his slumber,
And laid the turf above his breast,
In a green and shady valley,
Where no sound will break his rest.

"There the winds will murmur sadly,
And the night birds warble low;
As they murmured there and warbled
In the springtime long ago."

Mr. Groeschel was a member of the Odd Fellows fraternity and was highly respected by all who knew him. The members of the family left to mourn his loss were his loving wife and six children, who are as follows : Charles, a prominent dealer in flour and grain, and a member of the Chamber of Congress at Cincinnati, Ohio ; Fremont, who married Isabel Goodman, is a commercial traveler for the firm of Myers Bros., of St. Louis, and makes his headquarters at Salt Lake City, Utah ; Oscar, is a prominent real-estate dealer and a member of the firm of Groeschel,Shiley & Co., of Salt Lake City ; Matilda is the wife of A. S. Knowles ; Mary is the wife of Dr. H. T. Emies ; and Emil.

Our subject was but four years of age when he came with his parents to America. It was in the district schools of his adopted country that he received his education, and the greater part of his life has been spent in Iowa. Arriving at man's estate he chose as his avocation for life that of a carriage painter, which trade he had learned with his father, and which he has since followed in connection with the real-estate business. He is now the owner of eight comfortable residences in Muscatine, besides the building where he carries on his business, and several lots on which he contemplates building in a short time. He is one of Muscatine's enterprising, go-ahead business men, who by his own efforts of industry and economy, notwithstanding he started in life with no capital, has accumulated a comfortable property, which will enable him to rest from the more active duties of life in his declining years. He has ever been liberal in the advancement of those interests which have for their object the good of the community. Politically, he is a stalwart Republican, having cast his ballot with that party since the days of Abraham Lincoln. Among the representative German-American citizens Mr. Groeschel deserves a representation, both in the biographical and portrait departments.

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