My Genealogy Hound

JOHN GEORGE KLAUSS, retired, Pittsburgh, was born in Bavaria, Germany, Nov. 16, 1829. His father, Leonard Klauss, was a shoemaker; his mother’s maiden name was Wideman. He learned his father’s trade, and came to Pittsburgh when of age. For about thirty-two years he engaged in the shoe business on Fifth avenue. He is a member of the firm of Whitmyre & Co., proprietors of the Iron City Flour-mills; a director in the German-American Insurance company, and stockholder in the Fifth Avenue Bank. He is an elder in the Pride Street G. L. Church, and is a republican. In his native land Mr. Klauss married Barbara Maurer, of Bavaria, who died in 1872, aged forty-one. He afterward married Elizabeth Whitmyre, who bore him one child, George H., who is with his parents. The children by the first wife are John G., who died in 1885, aged thirty-two; Leonard and George and Frederick William, who died in infancy; Louis G.; Mary C. (Mrs. F. L. Fisher), who died in 1885, aged twenty-four; Matilda M., wife of Jacob J. Kinzer, Pittsburgh; Edward A., at home; Amelia, who died in 1886, aged seventeen. Louis G. Klauss finished his education at Pittsburgh high-school, and was employed for some time in his father’s store. He was engaged as bookkeeper at Braddock, and afterward became assistant cashier of the First National Bank there. In 1886 he was elected cashier of the Fifth Avenue Bank of Pittsburgh. In 1881 he married Ida H., daughter of T. H. Lapsly (see his sketch). They lost an infant son, Thomas Lapsly, who died in 1884, aged one year and ten months, and have two children living: William Lawson and Margaret Amelia.