Blair County PA Archives Biographies.....Bramell, Charles J. April 16, 1868 - ???? ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Judy Banja http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00004.html#0000757 January 9, 2025, 4:13 pm Source: Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Blair Co, PA: Philadelphia, 1892. Author: Samuel T. Wiley CHARLES J. BRAMELL, one of the active young business men of the Mountain City, is the only child of Andrew and Mary (Schenk) Bramell, and was born in the city of Altoona, Blair county, Pennsylvania, April 16, 1868. The Bramell and Schenk families are of German lineage, and have been resident of Germany for several centuries. Andrew Bramell, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1846, in one of the provinces of the present German empire, where he was reared and received his education. At twenty years of age he left the Fatherland to settle in Altoona, where he engaged in the tailoring business until his death in 1869, at the early age of twenty-three years. He was a consistent member of the Catholic church, and married Mary Schenk, who two years after his death wedded A. Greissen, of Altoona and has four children by her second marriage. Mary Schenk's father was a native of Germany, who settled in Altoona, where he died in 1871. His widow (grandmother), who died in 1884, aged seventy years, was a women of energy and enterprise. She built the Schenk business block at the corner of Fourteenth street and Eleventh avenue, erected the Brant House at the corner of Twelfth street and Tenth avenue, and contributed liberally toward the erection of the present church edifice of St. Mary's Catholic congregation, of which she was a consistent and highly esteemed member. Charles J. Bramell was reared in Altoona, where he has always resided. He received his education at the well known St. Vincent's college, of near Latrobe, in Westmoreland county, which was founded by the saintly Rt. Rev. Boniface Wimmer, who revived in America the grand institutions of the Benedictine abbeys of the middle ages. Leaving college, he was engaged for several years as a mercantile clerk in the employ of Andrew Gamble, Harry Bell & Son, and J. W. Leslie, of Altoona. In 1889, he and his stepfather, A. Greissen, formed a partnership and opened a grocery store, which they conducted until 1890. When Mr. Bramell purchased his stepfather's interest. Since then he has conducted a most successful business, and has enjoyed a large and continually increasing trade. In his grocery establishment is a well selected stock of everything to be found in a first-class store. In 1891 Charles J. Bramell was united in marriage with Henrietta O'Brien, daughter of James O'Brien of Altoona. In politics, Mr. Bramell is a strong and zealous democrat, and a member of St. Mary's Catholic church. Mr. Bramell is an energetic, clear-headed young business man, honorable and fair in all of his transactions, and well-deserving of the success which he is achieving. Additional Comments: Originally submitted 2001. Transcribed by Sharon McCartney Russell This file has been created by a form at http://www.usgwarchives.net/pafiles/ File size: 3.4 Kb