The son and oldest surviving child of Johann Gerhard Meiners and his first wife Maria Elizabeth Heuer Meiners, Herman Heinrich Meiners was born in Ankum, Landkreis Osnabrück, Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany on May 3, 1821, the second-born of four children. He also had four younger half-siblings. His stepmother was Elizabeth Dunker Meiners. Herman was a stone mason from Ankum, Germany, who worked on both Music Hall and the Suspension Bridge, as well as the mansions of the wealthy, in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio. Herman's grandson, William Uhl, remembers a photo of Herman at work on Music Hall. (William Uhl is the youngest child of Herman's youngest child.)

Until he immigrated to America, Herman's ancestors had lived in Ankum since at least 1653. Orphaned at age 13, he and his two siblings were hired out to a nearby farmer. This may also have been the time Herman was apprenticed to a stone mason. The children were all unhappy, and Herman ran away as soon as he was old enough. He came alone to America at age 19 or 20 in 1841 traveling by ship in steerage to New Orleans, Louisiana and then to Cincinnati where many people from his area of Germany immigrated.

Herman's granddaughter, Lucy Gertrude "Gert" Burdick Jasper, tells how in New Orleans he wandered the streets alone, without money, unable to speak English. A stranger, probably a German, talked to him a while, and asked where he was going. Herman told him Cincinnati. The stranger offered to pay his way to Cincinnati by river packet. Herman worked for six years to raise enough money to bring his two siblings, Johann Gerhard "Georg" Meiners (buried in Saint John Cemetery in Saint Bernard, Hamilton County, Ohio) and Maria Gertrude Meiners Teipel (buried in Mother of God Cemetery in Covington, Kenton County, Kentucky), to America. They traveled by ship from Germany to Baltimore, Maryland and then on to Cincinnati.

By all his wives, 18 children were born. His first wife, whom he married on July 7, 1846 at Old Saint Mary Roman Catholic Church in Cincinnati, was Maria Caroline Bergmann Meiners, and she (and the baby) died in her first childbirth. Family oral history has it that both his first wife, Maria Caroline Bergmann Meiners, and his second wife, Maria Agnes Kramer Meiners, picked out their successor on their deathbeds. Whether or not this is true, Caroline and Agnes both came from Haverbek and were close in age. So they were likely friends and would have frequented each other's homes in Cincinnati.

Herman's second wife, whom he married at Saint Philomena Roman Catholic Church in Cincinnati on November 25, 1848, was Maria Agnes Kramer Meiners, and before her death (and the baby's) during her eighth childbirth, they had seven surviving children: Mary Meiners (who may have died young), Edmund B. Meiners (a stone mason like his father), Herman Meiners (a Catholic priest), Mary Gertrude Meiners Burdick (the wife of a farrier), Elizabeth Meiners (who died as an infant), Peter Meiners (who died as an infant), and Henry G. Meiners (a pharmacist).

By his third wife, Elizabeth Kreke Meiners, whom he married on May 13, 1869 at Saint Francis Seraph Catholic Church in Cincinnati, he had nine children: George Gerard Meiners (on the Board of Directors of the Kroger Company), Rose Elizabeth Meiners Helmers (the wife of a vice president of a grocery business), John H. Meiners (a bank clerk), William Gerhard Meiners (president of his own chemical company), Mary Agnes Meiners Schinner (the wife of a machinist), Bernhard F. Meiners (a bookkeeper), Joseph Peter Meiners (a manufacturer and salesman of machinery for the oil industry), Leo Lawrence Meiners (a bank clerk), and Gertrude Elizabeth Meiners Uhl (the wife of an owner of an insurance company). Several of his sons began their working careers as bookkeepers.

Herman became a contractor and is shown in the 1850 census, when he was 29 years old, as worth $3,000 (equivalent of $100,000+ today). By 1870 he was worth $20,500 (equivalent of $400,000+ today). He was a member of the German Pioneers of Cincinnati. From at least 1880 until his death, Herman and his family lived at 513 Betts Street in the West End neighborhood (near Linn Street) of Cincinnati. He died at age 82 on March 3, 1904 in Cincinnati and is buried among his three wives at Saint Joseph Catholic Cemetery in Cincinnati. His obituary appeared in the German-language newspaper, the Cincinnatier Freie Presse.

Thanks so much to descendant Mary Donnelly Minges for so much of this information. Special thanks to Elizabeth Kramer Stagg for detailed information on Herman and his wives. Any errors, however, are mine alone. Please go to the "edit" link on this site with any corrections or additions.