On this day 125 years ago, a baby boy was born in Frohna. George Karl Robert Fiehler was born on August 26, 1898, the firstborn child of Charles and Clothilde (Boehme) Fiehler. A post was written back in 2018 about George’s parents titled, Charles and Tillie. George was baptized at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna. His baptism record is pictured here.

George is found in the 1900 census at the age of 1. His father was a farm laborer. Right above the Charles Fiehler family is that of Magdalena Fiehler. Magdalena was Charles’s mother, therefore George’s grandmother.

Next, we find George in the 1910 census. Several other children had been added to this Fiehler family. Even though his father is always called a farmer in census entries, he also operated a sawmill just outside of Frohna.

Charles Fiehler’s sawmill is shown in the photo below.

George completed his World War I draft registration in 1918. His address is still given as Frohna, but it also says that his employer was C.G. Gemeinhardt in Potter, Nebraska. There were several Fiehler’s and Gemeinhardt’s who moved to that area of Nebraska near Potter.

George was one of the young men who moved away from Perry County back in those days to find work. As I said in yesterday’s post, some of those young men came back to this area later. That is the case with George. We find him in the 1920 census living with his parents and working on his father’s farm. Perhaps he also helped at the sawmill.

Now, we will take a look at the woman who would become George’s bride. Her name was Onida Martha Marie Mangels, who was born on May 12, 1903. Onida was the daughter of Martin and Emilie (Vogel) Mangels. A post was also already written about her parents in the story, Montana Martin Mangels. Like George, Onida was baptized at Concordia, Frohna. We can take a look at her baptism record here.

Onida’s parents moved their family a couple of times during the next decade. A few of Onida’s siblings were baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New Wells. Then, when the 1910 census was taken, the Mangels household is found living in the Plum Creek Township in Nebraska.

Onida’s family did not remain in Nebraska for very long. In 1914, her mother died, so Martin brought his children back to Frohna. He made the decision to farm out his children to some Perry County families. Onida and her brother, Martin, ended up being raised by their aunt and uncle, Theodore and Flora Mangels. We find her in that household when the 1920 census was compiled at the age of 16. She had been confirmed at Concordia, Frohna in 1917.

On April 29, 1923, George Fiehler married Onida Mangels at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna. The digital records we have in our museum for Concordia’s marriages only go up through 1922, so I cannot display their church marriage record. What I can show you is their Missouri marriage license below.

The wedding photo of George and Onida is shown here.

George Fiehler became the operator of an automobile garage located in Wittenberg for a while. The photos below of his garage in Wittenberg were taken during the flood of 1927.

Three of the 6 children listed in the German Family Tree for this couple were baptized at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Wittenberg. Those children were born between 1927 and 1932. The 1930 census shows the Fiehler household with 4 children. George’s younger brother, Robert, was living with them. It says George and Robert were proprietors of an automobile garage.

When this couple’s last son was born in 1936, he was baptized at Concordia so this family had moved back to the Frohna area. The 1940 census shows the Fiehler’s with all 6 of their children living with George’s parents. George was helping his father on his farm.

The last census we can view is the one taken in 1950. At the age of 51, George was a truck driver for a lumber company. That must have been the East Perry Lumber Company that is still found in Frohna. One of the Fiehler sons, Raymond, was working in a garage.

George Fiehler died in 1986 at the age of 88; Onida Fiehler died in 1989 at the age of 86. Both George and Onida are buried in the Concordia Lutheran Cemetery in Frohna.

My buddy, Gerard Fiehler, before he began working at our museum, operated the Fiehler Garage in Altenburg. That garage had been operated by his father and his grandfather before him. I guess you could call them the Altenburg Fiehler’s. The branch of the Fiehler family tree that includes George is what I would call the Frohna Fiehler’s. Today, we wish the Frohna Fiehler, George, a happy 125th birthday. He and his wife, Onida, both made early trips to Nebraska and back, eventually ending up back in their hometown of Frohna.