Today’s story begins with twin daughters being born on June 2, 1848, but we have to backtrack a little to set the scene.  Below is the marriage record of Juliane Kuehnert and Johann Christian Friedrich Saalfeld on August 5, 1845 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg.

As near as I can tell, this was the second marriage to take place in the 1845 church building that was dedicated in May of 1845.  The father of the bride, Johann Christlieb Kuehnert is listed in Zion on the Mississippi as being a mason.  Even though he is not listed as being a member of the building committee for this church, I like to think that his skills as a mason may have been used to construct the building.

In December of 1846, Juliane gave birth to twin sons, but one of them was born dead.  This fact is recorded in the baptism record for Johann Gottlob Saalfeld, the surviving child.

That finally leads us to June 2, 1848, when we find that Juliane once again gave birth to twins, this time a pair of girls.  Their names were Christiane Sarah and Maria Rosine Saalfeld.  They were both baptized four days later on June 6th.  However, Maria Rosine only managed to live for two weeks.  She died on June 16th.  So in both cases of twins being born to the Saalfelds, one lived and one died.  Here is the baptism record of the twin girls.

Here is the death record of Maria Rosine on June 16, 1848.

Sarah would later marry Friedrich Gotthilf Schuessler and that couple would have eleven children.  There was one set of twins born to this couple also, and there again we see that one of the twins lived and one died right away.

Sarah lived to be 80 years old and died in Wittenberg.  Her death record can be found in the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church books.

An interesting note:  Sarah Saalfeld was the niece of my great grandparents, Georg Joachim and and Maria (Saalfeld) Schmidt.  Both Joachim and Sarah’s father, Johann Christian Friedrich, were listed as locksmiths in Zion on the Mississippi.  I like to think that Joachim may have taught his younger brother-in-law that trade.  I also like to joke that Altenburg to this day doesn’t need a locksmith.  Both of these men became farmers after they got here.

Another interesting note:  All of the above church records from Trinity in Altenburg were done in the handwriting of Rev. Gotthold Loeber.  Rev. Loeber would die in 1849.