For twelve years, Trinity Lutheran School in Altenburg, Missouri had a teacher on their staff by the name of Richard Popp. Like several other teachers around here over the years, Teacher Popp went off to get his teacher’s training and returned home to serve in Perry County. Teacher Popp’s dad was born on this day, September 16, 1880 in Frohna, Missouri. His name was Paul Bernhard Popp, and he was baptized at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna. Here is his baptism record.
I’ll take a brief timeout from this story to once again give a little Perry County pronunciation lesson. Around here, the name Popp is pronounced more like pup.
When Paul was 19 years old, we find him living in Wright City, Missouri with a Nieburg family and shown as a wagon maker.
I think this is the right Paul Popp because ten years later in the 1910 census, he is shown as a wagon maker in Longtown.
In 1905, Paul married Emma Mueller of Altenburg. They were married at Trinity Lutheran Church. Here is an image of their marriage license.
Emma was the daughter of Christian and Magdalena (Buenger) Mueller. Their story was told in the post, Mueller Millers. Here is the wedding photo of Paul and Emma.
On the back of this photo, you can find this information.
This photo was provided by Bernice (Popp) Loebs who is quite the historian for people in this family. I would love to see information like this on the back of every photo I run across.
As said before, after this wedding, this couple was living in Longtown and he had his own wagon making shop.
In 1918, Paul filled out a World War I draft registration form, and shows himself as living in Altenburg and working at his father-in-law’s flour mill as an engineer.
By the time of the 1920 census, Paul and Emma had eight little Popps. Another set of political records state that Paul was an alderman in Altenburg in 1919-1920.
The 1930 and 1940 censuses have the Popps back in the Frohna area with him shown as a farmer. Paul’s obituary states that he was a judge in this area for ten years and held several other posts on boards in the community as well. Here are the obituaries of Emma and Paul Popp (also provided by Bernice Loebs).
As stated on these obits, Paul died in 1960 and Emma in 1967. They are both buried in the Concordia Lutheran Cemetery in Frohna. Here are images of their gravestones.
As noted earlier, one of the sons of this Popp family was Richard Popp. Here is a photo of Teacher Popp.
We have an extensive pencil collection of his at our museum. I may have to do a story on him someday, but today the story has to focus on our birthday boy, Teacher Popp’s Pop.
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