Today, I am going to start the story with a death certificate. The individual who died was Julius Gerhardt. He was 83 years old at the time of his death. His death took place in Kennett, Missouri in 1943. The death was a result of a automobile accident.
This form says that Julius was “struck by auto” about 1/2 mile east of the intersection of Highways 25 and 84 in Kennett. Here is a map of that general vicinity as you would find it today.
I am telling the story of Julius Gerhardt today because he was married on July 13, 1885 in Perry County. Julius and his family also have plenty of records which can be found in our German Family Tree. The first of these records is the baptism record of a girl by the name of Delaware Selma Gerhardt which took place in November of 1854 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. Here is an image of that record.
The parents of this girl were Johann Franz Julius and Amalie (Leine) Gerhardt. We find the marriage record for this couple in Loitzschutz, Germany. That wedding took place on June 29, 1852. Here is an image of that marriage record.
After another child was born into this family in 1858, it was on June 26, 1860 that Johann Franz Julius Gerhardt, Jr. was born. He was also baptized at Trinity, but he would be the last of the Gerhardt children to be baptized there. Here is the baptism record for Julius, Jr.
There were four more children born into this family, but they were all baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Altenburg. Two of those last four died at an early age.
In this 1870 census for Brazeau Township in Perry County, we see that Julius, Jr. was 10 years old (only his name was given on this form as Frank). His father was a shoemaker.
Sometime before the 1880 census, Julius, Sr. died, and we find this family now living in Union Township. Julius, Jr. is shown to be a farmer.
With the family living in Union Township, we now start seeing church records for them showing up in the Grace Lutheran Church books in Uniontown, Missouri. That gets us to the wedding that took place on this day in 1885. Julius Gerhardt and Anna Heins were married by a Justice of the Peace. Here is their marriage record.
When Julius and Anna started having children, they were all baptized at Grace Lutheran Church. The first of these children was Julius Wilhelm. Here is his baptism record from Grace.
The 1900 census from Apple Creek Township in Cape Girardeau County (just across the Apple Creek from Uniontown) is the first census that shows Julius having the occupation of carpenter.
A city directory for Cape Girardeau from 1928 shows several Gerhardt families, including that of Julius and Anna, living in that city and involved in the construction business.
Anna died in 1931. In a 1930 census, we find G.W. Gerhardt, another son of Julius, living in Kennett, Missouri.
I am thinking that at the time of his death, Julius was living with his son in Kennett. After his death, his body was taken to Fairmount Cemetery in Cape Girardeau where he was buried with his wife, Anna. Here is their gravestone.
Julius’s son, Julius Wilhelm, built quite a large construction company in Cape Girardeau. Here is an advertisement for the Gerhardt Construction Company as it appeared in a directory in 1930.
Here is a photo of him.
In 2015, the Southeast Missourian re-published an article first written in 1967 which highlighted the long career of J.W. Gerhardt and his construction business. You can read that article at this link:
http://www.semissourian.com/blogs/flynch/entry/64103/
The article mentions the fact that several of J.W.’s sons were also involved in the construction business. There were indeed many Gerhardts involved in constructing buildings in southeast Missouri, beginning with the son of a shoemaker from Altenburg.