Normally you do not think that getting mangled as a good thing, but when William Kaempfe got “Mangeled”, I’m sure that he thought it was a wonderful thing.  William was “Mangeled” when he married Anna Mangels in 1891.  More on that later.

William Kaempfe was born on November 7, 1868.  Although William’s father was born in Perry County in 1840, he would later move to Millstadt, Illinois, get married, and start raising a family there.  So William was born in Illinois.  His parents were Traugott and Justine (Henneke) Kaempfe.  It was about when William was ten years old that his family moved back to Perry County and settled in the Farrar area.

The Kaempfe family had a photograph taken sometime around 1899 at their home.  This picture was previously shared in the post, An O-K Couple.  In that post, William’s sister, another Anna, was one of the featured characters of that story.  William is standing in the back, the fourth person from the left.

Meanwhile, Anna Mangels was born on September 22, 1872.  She was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg.  Her parents were Gerhardt and Meta (von Glahn) Mangels.  Anna was the firstborn child in that family.  Here is Anna’s baptism record from Trinity.

The first four Mangels children were baptized at Trinity, but when the fifth child was born in 1880, that son and all subsequent children were baptized at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna.

**There was another Anna Mangels born in 1879 to a different Mangels family in Farrar, Missouri.  Coincidentally, that Anna Mangels shared William Kaempfe’s birthday and would have been celebrating her birthday today also.

On October 29, 1891, William married Anna at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna.  Here is the marriage record from the Concordia church books.  Rev. Zschoche performed the ceremony.

We also have their wedding photo.

This photo is a combination of a jacket worn by William that is only buttoned at the top, and a black dress with a white veil worn by Anna.

The Kaempfes had four children, three boys and a girl.  Their children each married people with surnames that could be classified as typical Salem, Farrar names……two Versemanns, an Eggers, and a Koenig.  Their daughter, Ella, married Martin Eggers, who, if I have this figured correctly, our guest blogger, Fred Eggers must have called Uncle Martin.

William was a farmer in the Farrar area.  He died rather early.  He succumbed to cancer of the chin at the age of 53.  He died in 1922.  Here is his death certificate.

Anna died at the age of 66 in 1939.  Here is her death certificate.

William and Anna are both buried in the Salem Lutheran Cemetery in Farrar.  Here are images of their gravestones.

It seems to me that whenever I have done a story on either a Mangels or a Kaempfe, we  get several responses either here in comments on our website or on our Facebook page.  When I post a story like this one that contains both these names, I wonder what kind of feedback we will get.  We always love to hear from our readers.