The story today begins with the birth of Adolph Gustav Gaebler on June 20, 1881. That certainly sounds like a typical German name, but what attracted me even more to this story is his mother’s maiden name…..Zwickelhuber. How can you not write a story about a Zwickelhuber?
The Zwickelhuber story is not without its scandal, but I choose not to focus on that aspect. Maybe I will write about that someday in the future. Theresia (Kranawetter) Zwickelhuber came to America with her husband, Paulus Zwickelhuber, but he died in 1853, not long after they arrived, leaving behind his wife and several children.
One of these children, another Theresia, married Johann Gottlob Gaebler in 1870 at Immanuel Lutheran Church. This marriage, like the one we wrote about yesterday, was performed by Rev. Theo. Koeberle. Johann’s father was one of the original immigrants.
Gustav Adolph Gaebler was born to this couple, their fifth child. The Gaebler family gets lost in the census records, partly due to the fact that there are no 1890 census records available anywhere. We finally find them in St. Louis and apparently living in a boarding house of some sort in the 1910 census.
Gottlob is listed as a janitor and his 28 year old son is listed as still being single and working as a carpenter. Theresia died four years later in 1914, and Gottlob died in 1927. They are both buried in the Concordia Cemetery in St. Louis.
The Gaebler and Zwickelhuber names have pretty much disappeared from this area.
One thought on “Zwickelhuber”