Nikolaus Maurer

Nicholaus Maurer grew up in a Catholic home in Schifferstadt Germany. His family has a long history of association with St Jakobs (St James) Catholic Church.

He arrived in the United States in 1854 in New York. Family stories say that he came to America with two of his brothers. One stopped in Ohio and the other in Indianapolis.

His Grandson Charles recalled that Nicolaus talked about his home in this region on the border of France, which had been annexed into France in 1799, but became a free state in 1817. The overwhelming majority of the population has spoken German for centuries.

Coincidently, Schifferstadt is not too far south of Weissbaden, where his wife Roma Engelschall's family is from.

Nicolaus was a carpenter and by 1866 he had married Eva, had a growing family, and owned a saloon at Morgan, Taylor and Blue Island Avenue. They went on to have 9 children.

Charles recalled that his grampa would give him pocket change if he would speak German with him. He also recalled delivering cooked geese, ducks and turkeys from the kitchen to neighboring apartments, and rolling barrels of beer down the wooden sidewalks.

Eva Keller Maurer died in 1899 and Nicholas Maurer in 1902. They were then living at 5834 S. Calumet Avenue (still standing) and were buried from the German parish of St. Martin at 59th and Princeton. We are not sure where precisely they were buried. Both certificates say "St Bonificius" but it doesn't make sense that it would be the St Boniface on north Clark. They were taken by horse drawn carriages to the cemetery so it must have been nearby.