Last year, on this date, I wrote a post titled, Unraveling the Palisch/Fischer Connections.  That post focused mostly on the marriage of Henry Palisch and Martha Fischer that took place on July 10th in 1887.  Today, I will focus on the other marriage that was just briefly mentioned in that article.  It was another marriage that had taken place prior to the Palisch/Fischer wedding, and it was the wedding of Martha Fischer’s parents, Friedrich Ferdinand Fischer and Martha Weinhold.  That marriage also took place on July 10th, only it took place in 1859.  So when Martha was married to Henry, it also took place on her parents’ 28th wedding anniversary.

Friedrich Ferdinand Fischer was born on July 11, 1832 in Germany.  That also means that he was married one day before his 27th birthday.  He was also one of the original immigrants who was part of the Gesellschaft.  He was only six years old when his family came to America aboard the Republik.  Here is the passenger list for that ship which shows the Fischer family.

Friedrich Ferdinand’s parents were Johann Friedrich and Maria Dorothea (Bode) Fischer.  This family settled in the Altenburg area of Perry County.

Meanwhile, Martha Weinhold’s family also came to America as part of the Gesallschaft, but Martha had not yet been born.  Her parents were Heinrich and Christiane (Walther) Weinhold.  This family settled in the Frohna area.  Martha was born on November 18, 1841 and baptized at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna.  Here is an image of her baptism record.

Martha was the sister of three other Weinhold brothers that have been the subjects of some other blog posts which told the story of their efforts at running grain mills in both Frohna and Wittenberg.  Heinrich and Gotthilf Weinhold ran the mill in Frohna, and Joseph Weinhold ran the mill in Wittenberg.

When Martha was just 17 years old and Ferdinand was 26, they were married.  One of the puzzling things about this story is that this marriage took place at Old Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Louis.  Here is their marriage record.

Here are photos of both Ferdinand and Martha.

Before his marriage, Ferdinand was living with his parents in Altenburg.  Here is the 1850 census record showing his family.

After getting married in St. Louis, we find Ferdinand and Martha back in Perry County in the 1860 census.  He was once again living with his parents.

Ferdinand is shown as being a wagon maker.  He and Martha also had a young daughter named Anna by this time.  By the 1870 census, we find this family living in Frohna.  They may have moved there to be closer to Martha’s family.  Now we find Frederick working as a merchant in a dry goods store.

I did not include the next page of this record.  Three more children were shown there.  Altogether, there were 8 children in this family, the last one being born in 1874.

Sadly, it was the same year when their last child was born that Frederick died at the age of 41.  Interestingly, that last child carried the same name, Friedrich Ferdinand Fischer.  Now Martha Fischer was a widow.  She was still living in Frohna when the 1880 census was taken.

Martha died in 1890 at 48 years of age.  The death record in the Concordia church books says she died of a stroke.  However, this burial certificate from St. Louis indicates that she died in the Lutheran hospital of diarrhea.

Both Ferdinand and Martha are buried in the Concordia Lutheran Cemetery in Frohna.  Here are their gravestones.

When their daughter, Martha, was married on her parents’ anniversary in 1887, her father had already died, and it would only be three years later that her mother would die.  Several of the children of the Ferdinand and Martha Fischer family also died at relatively young ages.

A little over a week ago, three ladies visited our museum in Altenburg.  They said they were all descendants from this Fischer/Weinhold family.  We also had a rather large Weinhold reunion here in Perry County not long ago.  All of those original Weinholds and Fischers had rather large number of children, so there are plenty of descendants that can trace their family histories back to their Fischer and Weinhold roots.