BIOGRAPHY: Joseph BENGELE, Cambria County, PA 

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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 433-4
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JOSEPH BENGELE, a man of education and taste, and one of the leading business 
men of Gallitzin, is a son of Florian and Frances (Haid) Bengele, and was born 
at Loretto, Cambria county, Pennsylvania, September 23, 1857. Florian Bengele 
was a native of Gottenburg, Germany, and in 1849 came to Hollidaysburg, Blair 
county, which he soon left to make his residence for a short time in the city of 
Altoona, where he made the first beer that was ever manufactured in that place. 
From Altoona, in 1852, he came to this county, where he was engaged in the 
manufacture of beer and whiskey and the hotel business until his death, which 
occurred in August, 1891, when he was in the eighty-second year of his age. He 
conducted the Mountain House at Loretto for many years, during which time he 
became favorably and widely known to the traveling public. He was a man of 
remarkable strength and good health, and prospered well in all of his varied 
business undertakings. He was a member of the Catholic church, and wedded 
Frances Haid, who is a native of Imnau, Germany, and came to the United States 
in 1852. They were wedded at Loretto in 1855, and Mrs. Bengele still conducts 
the Mountain House in a very acceptable manner to the public. She has always 
been a member of the Catholic church, and is now in the seventy-third year of 
her age.
     Joseph Bengele was reared at Loretto, and his parents fully appreciating 
the advantages of a good education, sent him successively to St. Francis college 
at Loretto, and the celebrated St. Vincent college, near Latrobe, Westmoreland 
county. Leaving college, he had charge of his father's hotel for eighteen 
months, and at the end of that time, in 1882, he came to Gallitzin as a 
favorable point for establishing a permanent and paying business. He opened a 
general mercantile establishment, which he has conducted successfully ever 
since, alike through good times and periods of depression. He has enlarged his 
stock of goods from time to time, and made such needed improvements to his 
premises that he now has the largest establishment and the heaviest and best-
assorted stock of goods of any general mercantile house of Gallitzin. Mr. 
Bengele, during his residence in the borough, has closely studied its 
development, and in that line has been active, useful and successful. Soon after 
opening his early store he engaged in the real-estate business, and by judicious 
inducements and properly placing lots has sold quite a quantity of land. He also 
did considerable contracting, and has built over forty houses in the borough, 
thus inducing and securing property-buyers and permanent residents. Much of the 
prosperity and growth of Gallitzin in the last fifteen years is largely due to 
the energetic and persistent efforts of Mr. Bengele, who has worked in season 
and out of season for the material advancement of his borough; neglectful of no 
interest, prompt and punctual in the discharge of every duty, he has earned 
commendable success, alike by deserving it and by winning it in every field 
where he has labored. He has been identified with all the local enterprises of 
Gallitzin. He is treasurer of the Gallitzin Building and Loan association, the 
Gallitzin Water company, and of the borough council, an office that attests the 
confidence and trust placed in him by his fellow-citizens, who estimate him by 
his good character as well as by his business success. He is a member of the 
Catholic church, and has always been active and useful in religious work.
     In 1882 Joseph Bengele was united in marriage to Mary A. Buck, a daughter 
of W. J. Buck, of Loretto. They have four children, one son and three daughters: 
William, Hilda, Edna and Marie.