>>What brought your family here?
In celebration of St. Louis’ 250th birthday, Town & Style is compiling and sharing tales from readers about family histories in St. Louis. To share your story, email us at tellus@townandstyle.com.
Our father, John Martin Dressel, thrived for 100 years in our Sappington family home, where he could be seen farming and selling peaches at a roadside stand in front of the house. The Dressel home, a classic example of 19th century architecture, was built circa 1804 and eventually was moved log by log to Defiance for preservation. Our father also founded Gravois Bank and served for 30 years on the local school board. The Dressel School still bears our name. The six of us siblings grew up working the farm and then branched out to become, variously, president of Gravois Bank, a grade school teacher in Kirkwood, an employee of Gulf Oil in Texas, a vice president of General American Life Insurance, a World War II veteran who personally captured 100 Germans and a Monsanto engineer. Four siblings eventually took up residence at Friendship Village Sunset Hills.
—Roy and Oliver Dressel
My family ties to St. Louis go back to 1767, when Clemente Delor de Treget came here from Cahors, France. He founded Carondolet, which was originally known as ‘Delor’s Village,’ and later was called ‘Louisbourg’ in honor of King Louis XVI. Shortly after St. Louis passed from French to Spanish hands, Treget wished to have his commission as captain of the militia renewed. To flatter Baron de Carondolet, the governor general of Louisiana who was in Spanish service, he named the village for him and received his commission. My father’s mother, Sophie Delor Young, was named after her aunt Sophie Delor, an entrepreneur buggy whip manufacturer. She married John Kiburz, who founded Kiburz Pattern Works in 1898 at 1616 Pine St. The company produced wood and metal patterns, as well as brass, bronze and aluminum casings. The company closed in 1961, and the Plaza Square Apartments were constructed in the space. My mother’s father, William J. Kiely, came from Ireland in 1892. He was an initial investor in the Fox Theatre and attended the grand opening with his family in 1927. John Kiburz’s family was also invited. It was there that my mother, Julia Kiely, and father, John Kiburz, met. They married a year later and built one of the first homes in Claverach Park in Clayton. I married Joan Zupez 54 years ago. We have three children and for 36 years we lived in Claverach Park, just down the street from where I was born 81 years ago.
—William J. Kiburz
My great-grandfather was the third son of a gristmill owner in Ohio. After the Civil War ended, his older brother came home to take over the business, so in 1864 he moved at the age of 16 to St. Louis. He started as a blacksmith and then became a millwright. In 1875 he started the Williams Patent Crusher & Pulverizer Company, one of the oldest continually operating businesses in St. Louis.
—Robert M. Williams
The Nicholses are one of the old American families of Scotch lineage found in the New World prior to the Revolutionary War. My fourth great-grandfather, Jesse Nichols, was a lieutenant in the Virginia militia, and he and his mother provided beef to the Continental Army. After independence was won, Jesse brought his family west to Smith County, Tenn. Jesse’s son William continued the family’s westward migration through Clinton County, Ill., eventually settling in St. Louis County in the 1820s. William’s son Thomas was a shopkeeper in Manchester and acquired and farmed land in Bonhomme Township. His oldest son, my great-grandfather George Washington Nichols, became a doctor. He and his wife Mary Monnier were buried in the cemetery at the Old Meeting House on Geyer Road in Frontenac. My grandfather, Eugene Jaccard Nichols, was their only child. He was a real estate developer and a graduate of Washington University, as was my father, Willard Nichols.
—Steven Nichols
Compiled by Stephanie Zeilenga