Clemens Vonnegut

Vonnegut was born in Münster, Westphalia, to a tax collector father who was an official for the Duke of Westphalia. Instead of continuing his university education to Ph.D. level, he decided to work as a salesman for a textile firm in Amsterdam. In 1848, at the age of 24, he emigrated to the United States, and arrived in Indianapolis in 1850.[1] Another source states that he arrived in New York City in mid-1851.[2]

In Indiana he formed Vollmer & Vonnegut retail hardware and sundry merchandise store with a German immigrant named Charles Vollmer (who left for the Wild West in 1852). After 1852, the firm was renamed Vonnegut Hardware Company, and remained under his family's control after his death.[1]

Vonnegut's 1886 naturalization order

He married Katarina Blank in 1852 and moved to a modest house on West Market Street, Indianapolis. He had four sons: Clemens Jr., Franklin, Bernard, and George. He was the sometime chairman and chief administrative officer of the Board of School Commissioners of the City of Indianapolis. A city school was named for him. "He greatly admired Benjamin Franklin, whom he called an American saint, and named his third son after him...." He died aged 82 on December 13, 1906, in Indianapolis.[1] He was buried March 29, 1907 at Crown Hill Cemetery in the Vonnegut family plot.[2]

The family name is derived "from a distant forebear who had an estate, "ein Gut," on the river Funne, hence the surname FunneGut." Subsequently, Funnegut was changed to Vonnegut; "Funnegut sounded too much like "funny gut" in English."[1]