Joseph and Melanie Reppel

Berbieten, Alsace, France

My great-grandfather Francois Joseph Reppel was born October 10, 1857 in Bergbieten, Alsace. He was the son of Catherine Baetsch and Franz Josef Reppel. 

His father like many in the village was a winemaker. The village is situated along the Alsatian wine route 21 kilometers north west of Strasbourg. Vineyards cover the hills surrounding the town. Joseph, the father, died in 1861 at the age of 45 when his son Joseph was only 3.

According to his grandson Rene, sometime before the War of 1870, Joseph joined a flourishing Alsatian community in Paris. He worked in a bakery; likely as an apprentice based on his age. He learned the trade that his descendants would follow for generations. In May 1871, France was defeated by the Prussians; and Joseph’s birthplace Bergbieten, along with all of Alsace was annexed into the new German empire. 

While working in the bakery, Joseph fell in love with a young Alsatian woman named Melanie Breitel who was working as a cook at the same establishment. Melanie was born April, 17, 1858 in Saint-Hippolyte, Alsace.

The couple were married Oct. 4, 1882 in Sannois, Val-d'Oise, Île-de-France, France a community located in the northwestern suburbs of Paris. Two sons were born to the couple while they were living in Paris, Rene born in 1885 and Maurice Xavier born in 1888.

In 1895, the Reppel family decided to return to Alsace (then part of Germany). On July 21, 1895, the Mussig City Council received a petition from Joseph Reppel, a master baker from Paris, of Alsatian birth. The request was granted. 

The Reppel's were given a bakery that was free in the village, a little house across from the Church. 

Sometime before the turn on the century, a fire in the village destroyed much of the village. Joseph built a new bakery just down the street on property that he had acquired where successive generations of Reppel lads would ply their trade from more than 100 years.

Soon Joseph and his sons were baking bread in a little house across from the Church. Within a short period of time, Joseph acquired his own property including fields just down the street where the family would ply their trade for more than 100 years. On March 3, 1900, the couple was blessed with a another son, my grandfather Robert, who was born in the new house.

In 1901, Rene was sent to Rheims to learn the bakery trade. When he completed his studies, he returned to Mussig to assist his father in the bakery. As the eldest, the bakery was his birth right. As the second son, economic prospects for Maurice were slim. In 1911 Maurice left Alsace behind as he immigrated to Canada and later to the United States. He would never return to Alsace.

On Oct. 18, 1913, Rene, married Elise Schwartz. The couple settled in Mussig where Rene assisted his father with the bakery and the field work before assuming full control of the bakery. As the family grew, the grandparents Joseph and Melanie moved into the little house at the side of the bakery and Rene and his family lived in the rooms over the bakery. 

August 3rd, 1914, saw the beginning of World War I. Alsace was then part of the German empire. Rene (then 28) was conscripted on April 28, 1916 and released on October 1, 1916.

When Rene's younger brother Robert turned 16, he was conscripted into Kaiser's army as a gunner where he reluctantly served until the end of the war. At the end of WWI, Alsace was annexed to France. 

Prospects for Robert were poor, in the fall of 1919 he would emigrate to Canada where he joined his brother Maurice. In December 1920, the brothers along with Maurice's wife and 3 children would immigrate to Peoria, Illinois where Robert would work as a trained baker.

Following the end of WWI, Alsace would again be annexed by France.  Rene the sole remaining brother in France continued to run the bakery in the small village of Mussig.  He would train his six sons in art of baking bread as well. In the early 1900's baking the bread was hard work, mixing and kneading the dough. It was young man's work, soon Rene assumed full control of the bakery. 

On Feb. 13, 1930, Joseph died at the age of 72. He was buried in the grave yard adjacent to the Catholic Church at the center of Mussig. Melanie continued to live in Mussig with or near her eldest son and his family.  She would help with the grandchildren and chores as best she could.

In August 1939, the threat of war was clear. Men were recalled to the army; Including Melanie's grandsons Maurice, Marcel and Julien. The stress of war proved to be too much for 82 years old Melanie, she died April 9, 1940 and was buried in the Family plot with her beloved Joseph.