Joseph B. Basgall

JOSEPH B. BASGALL has been the leading grocery merchant at Hays for the last twenty years, is also an influential member of the community and has attained his present position by hard work and by integrity of character, having started life as a poor boy. He was born in Russia, but was brought to the United States in early childhood. The Basgall family during their residence in Kansas has reflected many of the stanch virtues of the Russian nationality.

Joseph B. Basgall was born at Saratov, Russia, October 22, 1871. His father, Joseph Basgall, who still lives at Hays, was born in 1843 in the same section of Southeastern Russia and was a peasant farmer there. In August, 1876, he brought his family to America and settled on a farm, near Topeka but in 1881 moved out to Hays, where he took an eighty-acre homestead. He sold his relinquishment later, but still owns a farm of 160 acres two miles southwest of Hays. He is a democrat in politics and a member of the Catholic Church. He married in Russia Elizabeth Weingart. She was born in Saratov in 1845 and died at Hays in 1903. They had seven children: Jacob, who died at Ellis, Kansas; Joseph B., the merchant; John, cashier of the Citizens State Bank of Hays; Clara, wife of Anton Jacobs, a contractor and builder at Hays; George, a drayman at Hays; Mary, wife of Fred Dreiling, county treasurer of Ellis County living at Hays; and Peter, now in the service of the United States army.

Joseph B. Basgall attended the public and parochial schools of Hays. Since fifteen years old he has been hard at work and achieving his own success. His first employment was in a store, and after getting experience and carefully safeguarding his savings he bought out his employer, A. A. Hoover, in 1899, and for the past twenty years has conducted the main merchandise center for grocery supplies in the town. The store is located at the corner of Main and Chestnut streets.

Mr. Basgall served as a member of the ctiy[sic] council several years and is now on the School Board of Hays. He is a democrat, is affiliated with the Catholic Church and a member of Hays Council Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Knights.

In 1895, at Hays, Mr. Basgall married Miss Anna Voltz, daughter of Joseph and Sabina (Eckstein) Voltz, her mother still living in Hays. Her deceased father was a farmer. Mr. and Mrs. Basgall take pride in their family of nine children, and particularly of the two sons who are now in the uniform of the United States army. Albert, the oldest, is a graduate of the Hays Catholic College, and is in the army; Clara is a graduate of the parochial schools and assists her father in the store; Joseph is also a graduate of Hays College and is with the colors; Zeta is a student in the Hays High School; Linus, Vera, Irene, Virgil and Anna are the younger children and in the parochial schools.

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