When I got married in 1989, I immediately became the step-father of three girls.  Then as they got married and started having children, our first four grandchildren were girls.  Then we finally had a boy enter the family.  Today, we found out that we have been blessed with another granddaughter who was born this morning.  Those who know me, know that I sometimes jokingly complain about all the women in my life.

After I learned about the Joseph Weinhold family, I found out that I can take comfort in how few females are in my life compared to his.  Here is a photo that was taken in 1913 on the occasion of Joseph and Maria (Bretscher) Weinhold’s 50th Anniversary.

The Trinity, Altenburg church books include eleven baptism records for Weinhold children.  Only one of them was a boy, and one year after he was born he is not included in the census. He must have died.  Two other girls apparently died at an early age also.  This explains the eight women included in the photograph.

The people included are as follows, starting with front row (left to right):

• Adele (Weinhold) Lehner – married Rudolph Lehner, a machinist.  They lived most of their lives in St. Louis in the vicinity of Holy Cross Lutheran Church where Concordia Seminary was first located there.  Adele is also the youngest one in the photo.
• Emilie (Weinhold) Estel – married Martin Estel, a miller.  Joseph Weinhold ran the mill in Wittenberg.  The mill would become the Estel-Weinhold mill.  Emilie is the oldest of Joseph’s daughters.
• Joseph Weinhold – the father.
• Maria (Bretscher) Weinhold – the mother.
• Martha (Weinhold) Keyl – married Rev. Theodore Keyl of New York.  They spent much of their lives on the east coast of the United States.
• Dora (Weinhold) Kaeppel – married Albert Kaeppel, a professor at Concordia Teachers College, Addison and River Forest, Illinois.

Then in the second row (left to right).

• Josephine (Weinhold) Boese – married Rev. Wilhelm Boese, a Lutheran pastor in Canada.
• Concordia (Weinhold) Bundenthal – married Rev. Theodore Bundenthal, a Lutheran pastor in Atchison, Kansas.
• Agnes (Weinhold) Friertag – married Heinrich Friertag, a Lutheran teacher in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.
• Lydia (Weinhold) Lueders – married Otto Lueders, a merchant in Wittenberg.

The youngest of the Weinhold children, Adele, was born on this day, December 18th in 1886.

A while back, we posted an article about Concordia Weinhold that was titled, Concordia Student Meets Concordia?  In that article, it was told that Joseph Weinhold was known for inviting students from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis to Wittenberg if they could not go home for holidays.  From this list, you can see that several of his daughters ended up marrying full-time church workers.  Some must have met during those holiday visits.

I cannot help but think that Joseph may have been very happy to see his daughters marry so many young men who were involved in the important work of spreading the Gospel, but I also cannot help but think that Maria, his wife, may have regretted her husband’s efforts to be hospitable after seeing so many of her daughters move so far away from home.  And that meant that many grandchildren would be so far away from home.