A double wedding took place on May 4, 1854 at Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. Brothers and sisters were part of this double marriage. In other words, both marriages involved a Lorenz and a Franke. Unfortunately, I am not in Altenburg today and cannot show you an image of the Grace, Uniontown record of these two marriages. However, I was able to find the civil marriage record for this double wedding.
I will start by looking at the immigration of these two families. This Lorenz family came to America as part of the Gruber Group that arrived in Perry County in December of 1839. The ship they came on, the Johann Georg, arrived in New Orleans in November. Here we see the Lorenz family on the passenger list.
The two members of this family who were married on May 4th were Friedrich August, who was 10 years old at the time, and Christine Theresa, who was 5 years old.
The Franke family came a little later. They arrived in America in 1841 aboard the ship, Charlotte, which landed in New York City. Here is an image of the passenger list showing this family.
The two from this family who were married on May 4th were Henry, who was 8 years old at the time, and Wilhelmine, who was 4 years old.
The two couples getting married, just to be clear, were Henry August Franke marrying Christine Theresa Lorenz and Friedrich August Lorenz marrying Justine Wilhelmine Franke.
Sadly, the life of Theresa Franke was a very short one. In 1855, 1856, 1857, and 1858 she gave birth to children, none of which lived longer than 4 months. Then in September of 1858, Theresa died of tuberculosis. Henry August Franke was born on October 27, 1833. There is another August Franke in our German Family Tree who was born on October 20, 1833. The two, however, seem to be different men. I do not know what happened to Henry August after Theresa died. His death is not in the GFT. Plenty of Frankes can still be found in Perry County, but it appears they came from the other August Franke who married Theresa Koening in 1859.
August and Wilhelmine Lorenz were much more successful in having children. The German Family Tree shows 11 children born to this family. However, four of them died very young. We have this image of this couple.
Justine Wilhelmine Lorenz died on March 29, 1910. Her death certificate says she died as a result of a fall.
Later in 1910, a census was taken which shows August listed as a widower. The census is from Farrar, Missouri, where August and his wife lived most of their lives.
You can see that August was living with his son, John, and he must have been living very near another son, Emanuel. It was later in that same year, 1910, that August died. Here is his death certificate.
August and Wilhelmine are buried together in the Salem Lutheran Cemetery in Farrar. Here is their gravestone.
I must admit that one of the reasons I chose this story today is that I wanted to promote another event that is taking place in Perry County right now, and several grandsons of August and Wilhelmine are shown in this photo of the Farrar Reds baseball team. A previous post was written about this team titled, Building a Baseball Team.
The Perry County Historical Society, headquartered in Perryville, is sponsoring a special Smithsonian exhibit right now that is worth the visit. The exhibit is titled, “Hometown Teams” and tells the story of sports from long ago. If you are interested in this exhibit you can read about it in this article.
As part of this event, a vintage 1860s baseball game reenactment will be played on May 5 at the Perryville Higher Education Center, beginning at 11 a.m. The St. Louis Brown Stockings and the Murphysboro Clarkes will play a pair of games by 1860 rules and will teach how the game was different than it is today.
I wish I could attend, but I have been called out of town. I hope you get to see this throwback event.
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