The Bichmiller name reaches the modern American branch of this family through one Austrian-born baby. Frank Bichmiller crossed the Atlantic in the 1850s as an infant; the village name behind the surname is Sierning, in Upper Austria. The surname did not arrive in America in fixed form. Family documents preserve it in transition — Bichlmiller, Bichelmiller, Bichelmueller — before settling, by the early twentieth century, as Bichmiller.³

Frank's American life was short. He died in 1903, leaving behind his wife Susan Kissinger Bichmiller and at least one son, Willard Frank Bichmiller (b. May 28, 1903 — Susan was widowed within the year), who would in time become Virginia's father.³

Frank's widow Susan is the figure the family-history notes preserve most vividly. Skip's 2005 compilation records her this way:

Three husbands, in succession: Bichmiller, then Spohn (with whom she had a son, Harold — a half-brother to Willard who had no children of his own), then Lockridge. The basement chickens, in a Cincinnati neighborhood. And the funeral detail — passed down through family memory rather than any document — that her hair could not be combed and had to be shaved off.

Per Skip's notes, Frank Bichmiller had three siblings who were all born in the United States — the next generation already American-born:³

Willard Frank Bichmiller (5/28/1903 – 12/24/1950) was Frank and Susan's son and Virginia's father. His half-brother Harold (from Susan's marriage to Spohn) had no children. The Bichmiller line in this family therefore runs through Willard alone.³