Bio: Willems, Joseph (1882 – 19??)

Contact: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Willems, Haesle, Berens, Gilham, Rich

----Source: History of Marathon County Wisconsin and Representative Citizens, by Louis Marchetti, 1913.

Willems, Joseph (1 March 1882 – 19??)

JOSEPH WILLEMS, junior member of the well known firm of Haesle & Willems, meat dealers, at No. 524 Forest Street, Wausau, is one of the enterprising native born sons of this city, in which he has spent his life and secured a very creditable position as a business man and citizen. He was born March 1, 1882, and is a son of John and Agnes (Berens) Willems, the latter of whom survives. The father died in 1902, a well known man in this county and for years a police officer and also street commissioner at Wausau.

Joseph Willems was reared at Wausau and was educated in the St. Mary's Parochial School, and was a student in the city High School until his junior year, when he began to learn the meat business. He worked for the old firm of Gilham & Rich for about ten years and in 1905 associated himself with John Haesle, another employee, in the purchase of the business and since then the firm of Haesle & Willems has been a prosperous one here, handling the bulk of the trade in their section of the city. Mr. Willems is a member of St. Mary's Catholic Church.