A while back, we posted a story about some Hemmanns from Uniontown who later settled in Amherst, Nebraska….A Family Moves to the Prairie. Today’s story is a continuation of that one.
Today is the birthday of Frieda Karoline Czenkusch. At first, I thought Czenkusch may have been a name from a country other than Germany, but I think that is wrong. It apparently is a German name. Frieda was born in Amherst, Nebraska in 1890, and later married Eugene Ernst Hemmann. Eugene was a son of the Ernst and Christiana (Bergt) Hemmann that were the subjects of the previous blog.
In the process of looking into the Hemmanns in Amherst, I ran across a short history of Immanuel Lutheran Church in rural Amherst. The Hemmanns are buried in the Immanuel Cemetery, but the church no longer exists. In this history, you can find the following list of some of the early members of that church when it started in the 1880’s. That is about the time when the Hemmanns were moving to Nebraska.
In that list, not only do you find the name, Ernest Hemmann, but the name Gustave A. Bergt caught my eye. Gustave was Christiana (Bergt) Hemmann’s sister. When I looked into Gustave’s history, I found that he spent most of his life in Amherst, Nebraska, but he is buried in Terra Bella, California. I just had to find out why. As it turns out, Gustave and his wife, who happened to be a Hartmann, had a child by the name of Adolph Bergt. Adolph must have moved to California before 1926, because he was married there and later buried there. Adolph’s parents must have joined their son in California after he moved there. They are both buried in the Zion Lutheran Cemetery in Terra Bella.
The history of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Amherst, Nebraska is an interesting one. If you are interested in that, you can find the story HERE.
Also, an interesting account told by a pastor’s wife that lived in the above parsonage can be found HERE. In the 1930 census for Amherst, there was a pastor by the name of Inselman at this church, and a teacher named Geiksler was living in the parsonage with the pastor’s family.
So we can find both Bergts and Hemmanns from Perry County near the small prairie town of Amherst, Nebraska. In addition, we find some Bergts in an agricultural area of California. Perry County has very broad tentacles.