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The Buss
Family
of Northampton County The wife of Samuel David (Dave) Boyer (1911-2006) was Dorothy Irene Buss (1914-1987), who came from the Buss family of Northampton County, Pennsylvania. The family understanding is that for generations, Buss family members were farmers in the area of Farmersville, about half way between Easton and Bethlehem, along the William Penn Highway, an extension of Butler Street in Easton. Most of the details of this section on the Buss and related families were developed by Mildred Boyer Harris, oldest child of Dave and Dorothy Buss Boyer. This section includes: The
Buss Family of Farmersville
William I. Buss (1825-1891) Children
of William I. Buss
James Martin Buss (1857-1935) Children
of James Buss
William Thomas Buss (1888-1970) Children
of William T. Buss
LINKS Family of S. David Boyer John Smith and Mary Ann Lee of Easton, Pennsylvania Royer Family of Cherryville Boyer Family of Easton, Pennsylvania Boyer Family of Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania Neil Boyer’s Family History Page The Buss Family of Farmersville In the “Looking Back” column of the Easton Express, dated December 6, 1982, the Buss family was listed as one of the early settlers of the area surrounding Green Pond, which is between Hecktown and Farmersville, in the 1730-1740 period. The old stone house next to what in 2006 was the Candlelight Inn, in Farmersville on the William Penn Highway, has been described as the Buss family homestead. William I. Buss (1825-1891) Because there are many people named Buss in Northampton County (and “Butz” is a well-represented variation of the same name), it is difficult to track the ancestry of Dorothy Buss Boyer back very far. The earliest identifiable ancestor is William Buss, who was born about 1825 and died in 1891, at the age of 66. There is no clear account of this line of the Buss family prior to the birth of William. Northampton County records contain a large document relating to the estate of Abraham Buss of Bethlehem Township, recently deceased, and dated March 2, 1837. A Jacob Buss, apparently a son of Abraham, was one of the administrators of the estate. However, the document is very difficult to read and it is not clear that Abraham and Jacob were related to the William Buss born about 1825. A search through Ancestry.com for Abraham Buss reveals the submission of numerous family trees with his name, but none seems to be related to William. William Buss, the ancestor of Dorothy Buss Boyer, was shown in the census of 1860 at age 35, a farm laborer in Palmer Township. There was no wife with him, at least in that census report, but there were three children: Ellen, 7, Amelia, 5, and James, 2. Also living with him was Louisa Mack, 19, a domestic who possibly cared for the young children while William worked. Before the 1870 census, possibly as early as 1862, William apparently remarried. He was shown in the 1870 census in Palmer Township as a laborer on the property of Joseph Edelman, 34, and Elizabeth Edelman, 63, who was probably Joseph’s mother. A large part of this section of Palmer Township was owned by individuals named Edelman. Part of it was known locally as “Edelman’s Woods.” With William on this property in 1870 was Sarah A. Buss, 33, his second wife, and children Elvin M. Buss, 17, and Ida, 8. A later directory showed her name was “Sarah Ann.” Then, years later, the 1880 census showed William, 55, still a farmer in Palmer Township, living with Sarah A., his wife, 45, and three children: Alvin M., 26, Ida, 17, and Charles W., 5. Also with them was Edwin Woodring, 18, a nephew and servant. (The age of Sarah varies in different census reports, leading to the possibility that she was born in 1833, 1835, or 1837.) Thus, it appeared, through the census reports, that William Buss had two families. The first, with a wife whose name is unknown, appeared to include children Ellen, Alvin, Amelia and James Martin Buss. The second family, with wife Sarah A. Buss, appeared to include only of Ida and Charles, although in later years Sarah had different recollections about her children, at one time saying she had had four. William’s first wife apparently died between 1857 and 1860, possibly in childbirth with James in 1857. Since the second wife, Sarah, gave birth to Ida in 1862, it may be presumed that William was remarried by 1862, and thus may have been without a wife approximately between 1857 and 1862. Mildred Buss Bauder wrote that William and his wife were given a grandfather clock as a wedding present. (It is not clear whether the occasion was his first wedding or his second, to Sarah.) The clock was made by "M. Bush" of Easton, and it is not known who gave the Busses the clock. Mildred said the clock was in the Buss home in Palmer Township until their daughter, Ida Buss, married George Hoff and took the clock with her to their home in New Jersey. After Ida died, George gave the clock to Ida's nephew, William Thomas Buss (1888-1970), and William gave the clock to his daughter, Mildred Bauder, some years before his death. The clock was later given to Mildred's nephew, Richard Walters, who reported in 2006 that it still ran, provided he remembered to wind it every day. Although William and Sarah Buss may have lived in the Farmersville area for a time, in the 1880s they lived along the William Penn Highway, about a mile west of the Wilson Borough limits outside of Easton. Mildred Bauder said the house was on the north side of the highway, adjacent to the property of the new Easton High School. It was a yellow house, she said, and when George Hoff came to court Ida Buss, probably about 1884, the east side of the house was covered with grape vines. Although there was no 1890 census due to a fire, a reconstruction of city directories by genealogical volunteers (http://www.bethlehempaonline.com/beth1890/communities.html) showed that in 1890 in “Palmer Township, beyond 15th Street Easton," William I. Buss and Sarah Ann Buss and their son Charles W. Buss (then 15) lived on Twentieth Street in what later became Wilson Borough. While it had been assumed that William lived on a farm in Palmer Township up until his death, apparently that was not true. It is more likely that, as he aged and became more infirm, he moved off the farm and into a house closer to Easton. William died at age 66 on December 9, 1891, at 9:30 a.m., according to an affidavit filed by his wife Sarah with the Northampton County court on January 7, 1892. On that day, Sarah also signed a legal document through which the court approved her as administrator of William’s estate. His son Elvin M. Buss, then 38, was a witness to the document. Assisting Sarah in posting the $600 security for her to serve as administrator were Reuben Edelman and George Coleman, neighbors who lived near Sarah and William. In a related document of the same day, Sarah swore that “the whole of the goods and chattels, rights and credits, whereof the said William Buss died possessed, do not in value exceed the sum of five hundred dollars, to the best of her knowledge.” Where is Sarah? What happened to Sarah immediately after William’s death in 1891 is not clear. She probably remained living in the same house, joined by daughter Ida, who was living with her in 1880. However, it appears that Ida married about 1884, before William died. There is no Pennsylvania census report for 1890, and the census reports for 1900 and 1910 showed that Sarah was living with her daughter Ida and Ida’s husband George T. Hoff, in Franklin Township, Warren County, New Jersey, not far from Phillipsburg across the Delaware River from Easton. The 1900 census showed George, 39, born in July 1860, with Ida, 37, born in June 1862, and Sarah, 66, born in July 1833, a widow. Ten years later, in 1910, the census showed Sarah, a widow, age 75, in the same township with Ida, 47, and George T. Hoff, 49. Sarah apparently died between 1910 and 1920, since she was not living with Ida and George Hoff at the time of the 1920 census. No report of Sarah’s death has been found. There is, however, a tombstone in the cemetery of St. John’s Trinity Church at Farmersville for a Sarah A. Buss, who was born May 29, 1840, and died March 7, 1910. The dates of birth and death are believed close to those for William’s wife, but the 1910 census was taken in April and said Sarah was living with George and Ida Hoff, and so this may be the tombstone of someone else. Interestingly, the 1900 census said that Sarah was the mother of four children, of whom three were living, and the 1910 census said that Sarah was the mother of three children, of whom two were living. It is not known who was being counted among the children of Sarah, in particular whether she was including William’s children from his first marriage. Ida was certainly one of those children living up past 1930, and Charles was living in 1900, although perhaps not in 1910. Sarah might have had a child who died in the 13-year period between the births of Ida and Charles, which might account for the census report of one child not living. However, Sarah also might have considered that Alvin, apparently the son of William’s first wife and step-son of Sarah who lived with William and Sarah, was counted in her family. Alvin reportedly had died in 1893. Two other step-children, Amelia and James, were still living in 1910. Children of William Buss. The children of William Buss seem to be these: Ellen Buss
(1853-?)
Alvin M. Buss (1853 or 1854 – 1893) Amelia Buss Hay Bender (1855 - after 1935) James Martin Buss (1857-1935) Ida Buss Hoff (1862 - before 1935) Charles Buss (1875-abt 1910) Details are as follows: 1. Ellen Buss was born in 1853 and is known only through the 1860 census, which said Ellen was seven. Her name and that of Alvin, presumably her brother, are similar, and their reported years of birth (1853 and 1854) are very close. This raises the possibility that the names “Ellen” and “Elvin” were confused, that there was actually only one person, and that Ellen actually did not exist. Ellen was described in the 1860 census as “f.” (female) at age seven, but no other information on such a person has surfaced. Either she was confused with Alvin or she might have lived and simply died at a young age. 2. Alvin Buss (also written as Elvin and Elwin) was born in 1854 according to two census reports, but in 1853 according to a family record. Both census reports, 1870 and 1880, showed Alvin living with his father and William’s second wife, Sarah. However, given his date of birth, it is not likely that Alvin was Sarah’s child, since Sarah apparently was William’s wife only after 1862, when her daughter Ida was born. Alvin was listed as a servant, possibly for someone else, when he was 26 in 1880, living with his father. The only other information about him is that he was a witness to a legal document regarding the estate of his father, William, in 1892. A descendant of William Buss wrote that Alvin died a year later, in 1893, at the age of 40. 3. Amelia Buss was born in 1855, as shown in the 1860 census. It is possible that she was the “Amelia Buss” shown in the 1870 census at age 12, who was working as a domestic servant for a Frankenfield family in Lower Nazareth Township. The age given in the census, 12, does not quite match the earlier census report, which indicated she would have been 15 in 1870, but that could have been an error. The possibility is that, having lost his first wife and needing income, William secured employment for Amelia outside the home. Sixty-five years later, the obituary of James Martin Buss in 1935 said that “Amelia Bender” of Bethlehem was his only surviving sibling, which indicated she had been married. (The obituary thus indicated that Alvin, Charles, Ellen and Ida had all died earlier than 1935.) Amelia apparently was married twice, the first time when she was 20, in 1875. In the 1880 census, “Emelia Hay,” 24, was married to Edwin Hay, an innkeeper in Bethlehem Township. The 1900 census showed that Amelia Hay, 44, had been married to Edwin for 25 years. Apparently, Edwin died before 1910, for the census for that year showed that “Amelia Hay,” 54, was a widow, head of household, a laundress, and mother of eight children, living in Bethlehem with two sons, William Hay and Ariel Hay. Between 1910 and 1920, she apparently married a man named Bender, for the 1920 census showed “Amelia Bender,” 64, living with her son William Hay, 31, and his wife Blanche. However, Amelia was listed as “single,” suggesting that the second husband also had died. In the 1930 census, “Amelia Bender,” 73, was still living in Bethlehem with William Hay, 41, and she was still alive, at age 78, when her brother James died in 1935. 4. James Martin Buss was born in October 1857 and was the grandfather of Dorothy Buss Boyer. He appeared in the census of 1860 at the age of 2, but there is no information on where he was when he was 12, when the 1870 census reported that two of his siblings were living with his father. He appeared in the 1880 census, at age 21, living in a boarding house in Easton and working in “beef factory.” He did not appear on any other document until the 1900 census, when he was 42. James married Mary Jane Royer of Cherryville, and they had four children. More information on James is below. 5. Ida Buss was born in 1862, apparently the first child of William’s second wife, Sarah A. Buss. Ida appeared in the 1870 census when she was 8 and in the 1880 census, when she was shown as 17. In both cases she was living with her parents, William and Sarah Buss. It was understood in the family that Ida lived with her parents in the family house along William Penn Highway, close to what became the new athletic field of Easton High School and to 25th Street. Family history holds that at some point Ida was courted in a horse and carriage by a George Hoff (sometimes written Huff) of Warren County, New Jersey, and that they were married. It appears from the census that Ida must have married when she was 22. The reports asking "age at first marriage" showed 24 for George and 22 for Ida. The reports also said that he had been born in July 1860 and thus indicated that he was married in 1884, and that she was born in June 1862 and thus was married in 1884. So, presumably when they were first married, in 1884, it was to each other. This would have been seven years before Ida’s father died, in 1891. It is not known whether Ida and George lived with Ida’s parents in Northampton County or in New Jersey in the period 1884-1900. However, the 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 census reports showed George and Ida living in Warren County, New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Easton, Pennsylvania. In 1900 and 1910, in Franklin Township, with them was Ida’s mother, the widow Sarah A. Buss. George was a farmer in 1900 and 1910. (In 1900, the next door neighbor was “Mary Hoff,” 71, presumably George’s mother.) The 1920 census suggested that Ida and George had moved to Greenwich Township, New Jersey, outside of Phillipsburg. George, 59, was a foreman in a cement mill. Sarah was not mentioned and presumably had died. The 1930 census for “Stewartsville Town” showed, on the "Morris Turnpike," George J. Huff, 69, born in New Jersey, truck farmer, and his wife Ida, age 67, born in Pennsylvania. In the 1930s, Buss and Boyer family members who went to visit the home of “Aunt Ida” recalled George as a big man with a long scruffy beard. George, without Ida, came to Thanksgiving dinners of the Boyer and Buss families. Ida is believed to have died between 1930, when she appeared in the census, and 1935, when she was not listed among the survivors of her brother James. 6. Charles W. Buss was born in 1875, interestingly 13 years after the birth of his sister Ida. Charles was shown at age 5 in the 1880 census, living with his parents William and Sarah. He was also living with them at age 15 when it appears they moved to 20th Street in what is now Wilson Borough but then was Palmer Township, just west of Easton. He would have been only 16 when his father died. Charles was married to “Ellen,” and they had two children, Raymond and Howard. The 1900 census showed Charles, 25, and Ellen, 21 (born in July 1878), living at 629 Walnut Street in Easton. Charles was a day laborer. They lived with their son Raymond, 2, born in October 1897 (the date, according to the Social Security Death Index was October 18, 1897.) Howard had not yet been born. By the time of the 1910 census, Charles was gone, and Ellen, 32, was living at 441 Washington Street, with only her sons, Raymond, 12, and Howard Buss, 9. The 1910 census said that Ellen was married and that the number of years of her “present marriage” was 15, and so it is not clear whether Charles was dead or traveling somewhere. Ellen was listed as head of household but not as widow. The record also said that Ellen had had three children, of which two were living. By 1920, Ellen Buss, the wife of Charles, had remarried. At 1130 Lehigh Street, Ellen E. Warman, wife, lived with Howard Warman, both age 35. The age of Ellen is odd, because Ellen the wife of Charles would have been 42, but this was possibly a census taker’s mistake. Nevertheless, it is clear that this was Ellen Buss, for living with them were her children, Raymond Buss, 22, born in 1898, and Howard J. Buss, 19, born in 1901, both described as stepsons to Howard Warman. Raymond and Howard Buss were recorded as pallbearers at the funeral of James Martin Buss, who was their uncle. This would seem to confirm that James, born to the first wife of William in 1857, and Charles, born to Sarah in 1875, were brothers (or at least half-brothers). The Social Security Death Index reported that Raymond died in Easton in August 1972, at the age of 74. No report has been located regarding the death of Charles or Howard Buss or Ellen or Howard Warman. NOTE:
Raymond and Howard Buss
apparently represented the end of the male line of descendants of
William Buss (1825-1891). Of William’s three male
children,
nothing is known of any children of Alvin, or of Alvin
himself.
Charles had only Raymond and Howard, and it is not known if they had
children. James had only one son, William T. Buss
(1888-1970). William in turn had three daughters, but no
sons,
and so the Buss name in this line of the family appeared to die out
with the death of Raymond and Howard.
James Martin Buss (1857-1935) The fourth child of William Buss was James Martin Buss, born in October 1857. In his early years, he appeared in the 1860 census at the age of two, living with his father and two siblings, his mother apparently having died, possibly in childbirth when James was born. James did not appear in the 1870 census, when he was 12, although his father and some of his siblings could be identified. He did appear, however, in the 1880 census, living in a boarding house at 337 Northampton Street in Easton, and working in a “beef factory.” The census showed him as 21 when he was really 22.  In 1883, three years after the 1880 census, when he was 25, James married Mary Jane Royer, born November 21, 1859, in Cherryville, Pennsylvania, in Northampton County, about ten miles north of Allentown. The date of their marriage is known from the 1900 census, which said they had been married 17 years. How did they meet when their origins were so far apart? The answer seems to be in the 1880 census, which showed that they were living close to each other in Easton. Mary Royer, age 20, was working as a domestic servant and living in a hotel run by John Fry at 359 Northampton Street, two doors away from the house where James Buss was living. Boarders at the hotel included a number of other domestic servants, as well as veterinary surgeon, clerk in a store, medical student, retired carpenter, photographer and others. See more information on the Royer family of Cherryville. The 300-block of Northampton Street, among other things, contained an opera house owned by Edward Able; the theater began performances in 1873 and so apparently was there when James Buss lived on that block. The building that the opera house occupied was later purchased by Arthur Sigal, owner of a women's clothing business. In 2010, that building -- at 342 Northampton Street -- became the new home of the Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society and was known as the Sigal Museum. In August 2011, the Express-Times ran an article on the history of the building. There are few details on the early years of the marriage between James Buss and Mary Jane Royer. Although there is no record of the Pennsylvania census in 1890 due to fire, one directory of city residents showed James and Mary Jane, and children Nina and William, living at 50 North 7th Street in Easton. In the 1900 census, James, 42, a slater, and Mary, 40, lived at 695 Pearl Street, Easton, and had been married for 17 years. With them were their daughter Nina, 14, son William T., 12, daughter Lillian R., 7, and daughter Anna, 5. In the 1910 census, James, 52, a slater, was living at 56 North 7th Street in Easton, with his wife Mary, 50, and daughters Lillian, 17, and Anna E., 15. Their son, William T. Buss, who was then 22, had left the family home, gotten married, and was living elsewhere. William would become the father of Dorothy Buss Boyer.  In
the 1920 census, James, 62, was living at 712 Pearl
Street in Easton. His wife, Mary Jane Royer Buss, had died on
December 31, 1914, at the age of 55, and James was living with his
daughter Lillian, 26, single, and his daughter Anna Buss Carey and her
husband Milford Carey. By the time of the 1930 census, James
and
his daughter
Lillian had moved to 1220 Spruce Street, and they were
living with his daughter Nina Buss Purdy. Apparently, he
moved
again before he died, judging by his obituary.James was known as a roofer and slater. When he died on November 11, 1935, the Easton Express ran this obituary: James M. Buss, 78, of 314 High
Street, a well-known retired slater, died from a heart attack in his
sleep at an early hour this morning. He was a native of
Farmersville, this county, a son of the late Mr. and Mrs. William Buss.
Early in his life, he learned the slate roofing trade and was for many
years in the employ of the late Frank and John N. Linden. His wife died
22 years ago.
Mr. Buss is survived by one son, William T. Buss, and three daughters, Mrs. Nina Purdy, wife of R. R. Purdy; Mrs. Milford Carey, Jr. and Miss Lillian Buss, all of Easton. He also leaves one sister, Mrs. Amelia Bender, of Bethlehem. He attended the Moravian Church and was a member of Excelsior Council, No. 26, Junior Order of American Mechanics. Children of James Martin Buss. James and Mary Jane Buss had four children: Nina A. Buss
Purdy (1885-1975)
William Thomas Buss (1888-1970) Lillian Royer Buss (1893-1941) Anna E. Buss Carey (1895-after 1935) Details are as follows: 1. Nina A. Buss was born on August 4, 1885, the first child of James and Mary Jane Buss. She married Raymond R. Purdy, who was born on July 25, 1885, and died in 1957, at the age of 72. Nina lived to be 89, dying in Easton on February 18, 1975, at the age of 89. Among other things, she was remembered as having Boston terriers. See more information on the Purdy family. 2. William Thomas Buss, the father of Dorothy Buss Boyer, was born in Easton on April 14, 1888. He married Mary Catherine Smith and had three daughters. He died in Easton on November 20, 1970, at the age of 82. More information on William is provided below. 3. Lillian Royer Buss, given her mother’s maiden name for her middle name, was born in 1893. She was listed in the 1910 census, at age 17, as a warper in a silk mill, and she was living at home with her father in 1920 after her mother died. In 1930, Lillian and her father were living with her sister, Nina Purdy. Lillian remained single. She lived in the Easton area and was a member of the First Moravian Church. She died on September 17, 1941, at the age of 48. Pallbearers at her funeral were nephews: two sons and a son-in-law of Nina Buss Purdy, two sons of Anna Buss Carey, and David Boyer, son-in-law of William Buss. 4. Anna E. Buss was born in 1895, and she married Milford Carey, Jr. The 1910 census showed that Milford, 21, born in 1889 in Illinois, was living with his parents in Philadelphia and was a draftsman at a steel company. At the time of the 1920 census, Anna and Milford were living on Pearl Street in Easton, with her father, James Buss. Milford was a sales estimator for an engineering plant, and said he’d been born in Delaware, not Illinois. In 1930, Milford was an estimator at a steel mill, and they were living at 621 Monroe Street on College Hill in Easton. The census showed Milford, 41, born in Delaware in 1889. Also present were Anna, 35, and three children, Richard 8 [thus born about 1922], James 4 [1926], and Helen Carey, 2 [1928]. About 1933, they had a fourth child, John F. Carey, who died on August 31, 2006, in Santa Rosa, California. John's siblings were still alive at the time of his death. Richard Carey lived in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. James Carey lived in Pittsboro, North Carolina. Helen Carey Sassaman, whose husband was a dentist, lived in Hellertown, Pennsylvania. Anna Buss Carey was still living when her father, James Carey, died in 1935. A Social Security record said that Milford Carey had been born on May 4, 1888, and died in New Jersey in March 1964. William Thomas Buss (1888-1970) The second child and only son of James Martin Buss was William Thomas Buss, born on April 14, 1888, in Easton. At age 12, in 1900, he was living with his parents at 695 Pearl Street in Easton. He was not with his parents at the time of the 1910 census, having struck out on his own and gotten married in 1908 at age 20. On November 29, 1908, William Buss married Mary Catherine Smith, in Jersey City, New Jersey. Mary had been born on April 22, 1889. She was the youngest of nine children of John Schmidt, who had been born about 1838 in Alsace, Germany. He moved to America and joined the U.S. Army as “John Schmidt” but took the name “John Smith” when he was released. He served in Company K, 16th Regiment, Kansas Cavalry, in the Civil War in 1864, and did “duty against the Indians” along the Platte River, to Fort Laramie, Wyoming. He reported that he had marched 2,850 miles during his time of service. John Smith had married Mary Ann Lee, in Polk County, Iowa on May 9, 1868. It is not clear where Mary Ann was born, possibly in Illinois, possibly in Massachusetts, possibly elsewhere. She was born in either 1850 or 1851 (see the separate section on this question). When they married, John was about 30 or 33 and she was 16 or 17. They moved at some point to Phillipsburg, New Jersey, and then across the Delaware River to Easton. John died in 1890, when he was 53 or 55, and Mary Lee Smith, having delivered Mary Catherine only 11 months earlier, was left a widow at age 38 or 39 with nine children. Mary Lee Smith lived 41 more years, dying in Easton on January 29, 1931, at the age of about 80. Both John and Mary Smith were buried in Easton Cemetery. Members of the Buss family were later buried nearby. See more about the Smith and Lee families. William Buss and his wife Mary Catherine Smith Buss were shown in the 1910 census living at 33 Fulton Street in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, with their daughter, Mildred Elizabeth Buss, seven months old. They had been married two years. William was a railroad machinist. In the 1920 census, they were shown renting a property at 251 Kleinhans Avenue in Easton. He was recorded as a laborer in a shipping yard. The household consisted of William, 31, Mary, 30, and their three daughters, Mildred, 11 (it should have said 9), Dorothy, 5, and Geraldine 2. Among the possessions of William T. Buss was a wheelbarrow, made for him by his maternal grandfather, Thomas Royer, a wheelwright who lived in Cherryville, Pennsylvania. William Buss, in turn, passed the wheelbarrow to his own grandson, David T. Boyer, who lived in rural Bath, Pennsylvania, and it was still in his possession in early 2007.  By 1930, William had moved to 2102 Freemansburg Avenue in Wilson Borough, west of Easton. The family, according to the census (with some ages wrong) consisted of William, 41, Mary, 40, Mildred, 20, Dorothy, 15 and Geraldine, 12. William Buss was listed as a shipping clerk in a steel mill, owning a home valued at $7,000. William (known as PopPop to his grandchildren) continued to live in the house on Freemansburg Avenue for 40 more years, for the rest of his life. His daughters grew up and got married, and his wife Mary Catherine died in June 1949 at the age of 60. William died in Easton on November 25, 1970, at the age of 82, 21 years after Mary died. He was a major sports fan, and made an annual pilgrimage to Pasadena to watch the Rose Bowl game and the Tournament of the Roses. William and Mary Buss were buried in Easton Cemetery, not far from the graves of her parents, John and Mary Ann Smith. Their daughters Dorothy and Geraldine, with their husbands, were also buried nearby. Children of William T. Buss. There were three children of William Buss: 1. Mildred Elizabeth Buss was born on September 7, 1910, in Easton. The 1930 census showed her, at age 20, as a stenographer in an office. She married Raymond E. Bauder in St. John’s Church in Easton on November 20, 1954, and they lived in Bethlehem. She was known to the family as “Aunt Mil.” Raymond Bauder had been born on September 25, 1898, and he died in Bethlehem on November 8, 1992, at the age of 94. Mildred died at a convalescent home near Easton in January 1998, at the age of 87. They had no children. Mildred did substantial genealogical research on the branches of her family, including Smith, Lee, Royer and Buss, and much of it was passed to her niece, Mildred Boyer Harris. 2. Dorothy Irene Buss was born on December 26, 1914, in Easton. She married S. David Boyer (1911-2006) and had three children, Mildred, Nancy and David. She died on December 27, 1987, at the age of 73. More information about her and her children is provided in the section on S. David Boyer. 3. Geraldine Frances (Gerry) Buss was born on November 16, 1917, in Easton. She married Chester (Chet) M. Walters, who had been born on May 23, 1916, in Easton. He died on June 24, 1998, in Allentown, at the age of 82. Geraldine died on June 25, 1989, at the age of 71. They had two children: A.
Richard Chester Walters
was
born on June 28, 1947, in Easton. He was married on September
9,
1972, to Melissa Jean
Phillis, who had been born December 7,
1948. They had two daughters: Allison
Louise Walters,
born
February 28, 1979, and Jessica
Laura Walters, born September 18,
1980. In 2006 the family lived near Reading, Pennsylvania.
B.
Jean Frances Walters was
born on April 29, 1950, in Easton. She graduated from Wilson
High
School in 1968 and got a B.S. degree in rehabilitation education from
Penn State in 1972. She received a master's degree in
rehabilitation counseling from the University of Arizona in 1975, and
worked as a vocational evaluator and employment and training specialist
for various agencies and colleges. Jeannie was married on
July 7,
1973, to Peter Donald
Barrell, who had been born in Syracuse, New York,
on February 15, 1951. Peter obtained a master's degree in
reliability engineering from the University of Arizona in 1976, and
began working for Lockheed Martin in 1983. Jeannie and Peter
Barrell moved to New Hope, Pennsylvania, in 1978.
They had
one son, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey
Peter Barrell was born
on August 3, 1982, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. He graduated
from
Gettysburg College in 2004. In 2006, he was pursuing a Ph.D.
degree in oceanography at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.
LINKS Family of S. David Boyer John Smith and Mary Ann Lee of Easton, Pennsylvania Royer Family of Cherryville Boyer Family of Easton, Pennsylvania Boyer Family of Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania Neil Boyer’s Family History Page Back to the Top of This Page |