In July of 1911, 24 members of the Spartan Club gathered for the last time to pay their respects to the first of their body to pass away. The club had formed in 1903 as a social club and had rented a room on North Center street, where they had a piano and pool table. They held dances, participated in bowling, etc. until going their separate ways in 1909.
But in 1911, one well-loved former member, Oscar Steineck, whose father John had started Steineck Hardware in Bremen in 1886, suffered a tragic death at the Lake of the Woods.
Steineck, 29, and Howard Anderson, 25, were invited onto the little sailboat of Fred Hoople, 24, and Oscar Keller (39) on west side of the lake. But the little boat was overloaded and soon began to sink while still near shore. Steineck and Anderson were not good swimmers and had to be helped back to the overturned boat. Hoople and Keller swam for help, but–even tho other boaters were close by–when they returned with rescuers, Steineck and Anderson had both lost their hold and gone under. After hours of dragging the lake with a makeshift hook, the two men’s bodies were recovered.
In memorium, 24 of the remaining 29 members of the old Spartan Club were able to come to the Steineck funeral. They wore black armbands and posed for a photograph to remember their lost friend and reminisce about happier times.
Known members of the Spartan Club are…
- Oscar Steineck
- Monroe Schlosser
- Grove Walter
- George Sauter
- George Ewald
- George Laser
- Gravis Jenson
- Fred Kirkpatrick
- Harry Kirkpatrick
- Ernest Schilt
- Arthur Huff
- Otto Knoepfle
- Oliver Fries
- Alfred Brechtel
- Will Ponader
Spartan Club album on our Flickr account…
Steineck Hardware album…
Historic Bremen 
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