December 11, 1836 was the birthday of Carl Gemeinhardt.  As near as I can tell, he was the first of the Gemeinhardts to show up in the church books of East Perry County, Missouri.  A buddy of mine from Memphis, Tennessee is Charlie Gemeinhardt, and he would call Carl his great grandfather.

There is some evidence that Carl and his wife, Ernestine (Roth) Gemeinhardt, both came to America sometime in the mid-1860’s.  The first evidence in church records in the German Family Tree comes in 1866 when their first child was baptized at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna.  I cannot really tell if they were married in Germany or if they were married here in America.  Ernestine Roth is not connected to any of the other Roths from Perry County that I could tell.

One reason that I decided to do this story today is that Carl and Ernestine were the parents of Martha who married Otto Kaempfe, and that story was told yesterday.  Martha died in the 1925 Tri-State Tornado.

Carl was a teamster and lived in the Frohna area.  Here is the 1870 census showing the Gemeinhardt family.

I have the sneaking suspicion that Carl did most of his teamster work for the flour mill located in that village.  As was shown in yesterday’s post, the Gemeinhardts lived near the mill.

The Gemeinhardts had six children who lived to adulthood.  Martha, who died in the tornado, was the youngest.  I will attempt to give a brief description of what happened to the others.

• Martin Gemeinhardt (born 1868):  Martin married Dorothea Fiehler in 1892.  He worked for the flour mill in Wittenberg for quite a while.  Both the flour mill in Frohna and the one in Wittenberg were owned by Weinholds who were related to each other.
• William Gemeinhardt (born in 1870):  He remains a mystery to me.  There is a William J. Gemeinhardt who was born in 1870 and lived in Cole County, Missouri, but his birthday is not the same, and his parents are identified as other people.
• Maria Gemeinhardt (born in 1872):  Maria married Paul Schuessler in 1894.  Paul was a farmer in Shawnee Township in North Cape Girardeau County.  They are both buried in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in New Wells.
• Gotthilf Gemeinhardt (born in 1874):  Gotthilf married Juliane Fiehler in 1899.  Juliane was a cousin to the Dorothea Fiehler who married Martin.  Gotthilf moved his family to Cheyenne County, Nebraska and they remained there .  I have this photo of the Gotthilf Gemeinhardt family.

If you look closely at this photo, you will see that they had a daughter named Meta who also married a Fiehler, who I am sure is some sort of distant relative of her mother, because he had roots in Perry County.

• Robert Gemeinhardt (born in 1877):  Robert married Louise Wachter in 1914.  Robert started out working at the Frohna Mill, but later went to work for the Frohna Creamery.  The creamery was owned and operated by William Mueller.  If you look at the 1870 census shown earlier, you will see William Mueller’s family listed next to the Gemeinhardts.  Also, on the Frohna map you will see the William Mueller family and the creamery located right next to the Gemeinhardt lot.  Here is a photo of the Frohna Creamery with William’s son, Stephan, standing in the middle and his wife, Emma, elevated in the background. 

I suppose it is possible that the unidentified man standing to the left could be Robert Gemeinhardt.

Robert’s son, Otto Gemeinhardt, was Charlie Gemeinhardt’s father.  I have a few photos of Otto and his first wife, Loyette, which were taken when Otto and Loyette were serving their country during World War II.

The way I have it figured, Charlie and our own Gerard Fiehler need to have a chat about these Gemeinhardt/Fiehler connections.

I will probably get myself in trouble for posting this photo, but here is one of Charlie and his wife, Carol.  I think Charlie looks an awful lot like his father, Otto.