By Pauline Masson –
Andrew Bruns, son of Tom and Michelle Bruns, has taken the helm at R H Bruns Monument Company, one of the oldest companies continually operated by the same family in the city.
The Bruns family’s saga in Pacific began in 1866 when Robert Bruns emigrated here from Germany. He married Pauline Drietchen and built a home and greenhouse at 220 South Third Street, which local lore says was the source of vegetables and flowers, which were offered to the public. There is no indication that Robert participated in the burial business other than providing flowers, but his descendants would be synomous with the burials and the two city cemeteries for 107 years.
Following Robert’s death, his son August Bruns founded the Bruns Monument company and was named Pacific City Sexton, a position he held until his death 1974.
August married Pearl Colter, great-granddaughter of John Colter, credited as the first Mountain Man for his exploits during and following the 1804 Lewis and Clark expedition. Colter settled in New Haven, Missouri in about 1808 died there in 1812.
August and Pearl Bruns had three children, August Jr, Virginia, and Raymond.
August, known locally as August Sr, dutifully recorded a hand written account of his activites as sexton in a large ledger book that listed transactions when cemetery lots were bought and sold, as well as all burials in the two city-owned cemeteries – City Cemetery and Resurrection Hill Cemetery, originally the cemetery for African Americans.
August’s original ledger book survived a legal battle over ownership and is now housed at City Hall as an archive. Cemetery records were transferred to computer and are now on line.
August Sr, an active member of the business community throughout his adult life, was prominent for much more than his record keeping and graveyard management.
He continued to operate Robert’s greenhouse next to the family home and supplied vegetables and flowers to the community for several decades.
In the 1930’s during the great depression he and a partner created a unique stone and concrete building block that was used as cladding over frame stuctures to give the impression of a stone building and greatly reduced the cost of construction. Today half a dozen structures built with this unique construction material still stand, one is the former Whitlock Service Station, later Miller Sandwich Shop at 428 East Osage, now Amerian Family Insurance.
In his lifetime, August Sr. would see his son and namesake August Jr, manage a business owned by another family allied with the burial business in Pacific. In the 1950s August Jr, managed the John Thiebes Furiture Store at 125 North First Street, now Little Ireland Coffee Shop. The first John had Thiebes, a casket builder, operated a funeral parlor in an annex of the furniture store. That business survives as the Nieburg Vitt Thiebes Funeral Parlor 231 East Union Street.
Like his father a multi-tasker, August Junior ran for and was elected to the school board of what was at that time, the Reorganized R-6 school district. He campaigned for a sucessful bond issue to construct a new Catawissa School and expanded Pacific High School.
On the death of August Sr, in 1974, his son Raymond H. Bruns took over the monument business, and was simultneously named City Sexton, a position he held until 1988. During those years, Raymond’s son Alan learned the business.
“I walked the cemetery rows with my father and he showed me how to mark the grave sites” Alan said.
On his father’s death in 1988, Alan Bruns, took the helm of R H Bruns Monument and was named Sexton, a position he has held for 32 years, except for the years 2014-2018.
Alan Bruns, was not reappointed to the post of sexton in May 2014 following the election of Mayor Jeff Palmore.
In an attempt to return Bruns to the position of sexton, aldermen passed an ordinance placing the authority to appoint a sexton in the office of city administrator. City Administrator Steve Roth did not appoint a sexton. Instead he became the de facto sexton and used city crews to open graves.
When Steve Myers was elected mayor in 2018, one of his first acts was to reappoint Alan Bruns as Sexton and the city returned to R H Bruns Monument to open and close graves.
Alan would become the first member of the family to leave the business in his active years. In March, 2022, after much nudging from his young cousin, he relinquished ownershiip of the business and retired.
Andrew Bruns, grandson of August Bruns Jr and fifth generation from Robert, took the helm of R H Bruns Monument Company.
Andrew, as it turns out, may be better prepared to operate a 21st Century grave stone buiness than any of his illustrious relatives were when they first entered the business.
A graduate of Pachific High School and St. Louis Community College, Andrew worked from 2010 to 2016 for Monumental Finisher, a historic monuments and memorials firm in St. Louis that was known for the artistic flair of its memorial stones.
It was there Andrew mastered the unique craft of design and letterming for grave stones.
The ancient art of hand carving and engraving on granite had entered the computer age. The beautiful artwork – crosses, flowers, angels, church windows and family crests – that are carved on the stone with the names and dates of the deceased, were still drawn by hand on paper, then transferred into a computer graphic arts program where laser etching would carve the images into the stone.
With no background in graphic arts, Andrew bought a computer and trained himself to transfer the artistic designs that were to be carved onto the stones, on to a computer program where it could be carved onto a a marble stone.
“I don’t remember a paticular one that I did, but I really liked doing it,” he said, “And I knew that I wanted to have my own monument business.”
After leaving Monumental Finishers, Andrew worked for severl years with Pfizer Corporation as a quality inspector, but could never let go of the idea that he wanted to be in the monument business.
As luck would have there was one in the family. Andrew began to hang out in his spare time at his cousin Alan Bruns’s monument shop on South Fourth Street.
“At first all I did was answer the phone,” he said. “But then I started pestering him to retire and sell the business to me,” .
In March 2022 Alan was willing to turn the family business over to Andrew.
It was a lifestyle change that both Andrew and his wife Megan Goss welcomed.
“She says this is the happiest I have ever been,” Andrew said. “And it is.”
At age 36, Andrew Bruns took the helm of a 106 year old family business, that was slightly older than the historic firm where he learned the trade.
A fine article indeed. A family that stayed together and built a reputation of dignity and respect for the deceased. Thank You.