We are celebrating a 175th birthday today.  Sarah Noennig was born on December 16, 1843 in Altenburg, Missouri.  She was the daughter of Gottfried and Johanna (Poppitz) Noennig.  Both of her parents made the voyage to America aboard the Copernicus.  They were married not long after arriving.  One previous child had been born to the Noennigs, but that child died right away.  So Sarah became the oldest child in that family.  She was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg, although Trinity did not have a permanent church sanctuary at that point in time.  Sarah’s father was a farmer.

When Sarah was ten years old, her future husband was making the trip to America from Germany.  His name was Andreas Telle.  There are three Telle men who traveled aboard  the ship, Hermann, in 1853.  Below is the passenger list for the Hermann.

Andreas was described as a 15 year old farmer on this form.  There is a matter of debate here.  Andreas’s brother, Herman, is said to have come to America in 1849, and the Herman on this passenger list has an age that does not match with the Herman Telle we find in our German Family Tree.  Our friend, Clayton Erdmann, wrote a post about Herman a while back that can be found in the link below.

Two Huge Families Unite

Another mystery is the fact that I cannot find any of the Telles in the 1860 census.  I would like to know where Andreas was living after he arrived in the United States.  I did find this Civil War document showing Andreas’s service in the 64th Regiment from Perry County.

On April 21, 1864, Andreas and Sarah were married.  It appears that they were married in the time between the two periods of active service in the military record shown above.  Here we have another mystery.  First, I will show the Perry County marriage record for this wedding.

There is no record for this marriage at any of the local Lutheran churches.  The most likely location for the wedding was Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg, because that is where the Noennigs were members.  However, in 1864, Trinity was getting a new pastor, Rev. J.F. Koestering.  The above record does not appear to have Rev. Koestering’s name in it.  I looked at which other pastors were in the area in 1864.  I had not noticed this before, but in 1864, not only was Trinity getting a new pastor, but so was Concordia in Frohna and Grace in Uniontown.  Add to that the fact that Trinity in Friedheim and Salem in Farrar were also getting new pastors during that year.  It must have been a difficult year for the churches around here to find someone to conduct their services.

We do know that there are several Telles, including Andreas, living in the area around Uniontown in the 1870 census.  It must have been around this time that this town had its name changed from Paitzdorf to Uniontown.  Here is the Andreas Telle family in that census.  It shows Andreas as a carpenter and the couple having one living child.

There was an older child born in 1865, but that child died in 1870 at the age of five. Herman Telle’s family was also in Cinque Homme Township in 1870.

This census shows a Michael Telle living with Herman who is one year older than Herman.  Could this be the Christian Telle that was on the passenger list shown before? 

We have this photo of Sarah and Andreas which must have been taken later in their lives.

Altogether, Andreas and Sarah had nine children according to our German Family Tree.  Four of those died at very young ages.  The oldest living son, Martin Michael Telle, became a Lutheran pastor.  The image below shows him serving the Lutheran church in Beck, Missouri which became St. John’s Lutheran in Arnold.  That is the same congregation where Rev. Voigt was the pastor when he came to this area to marry a Kasten.  That story was told on this blog recently.

Rev. Telle was at that congregation from 1907-1920.  Three years before he began serving there, his mother died in Uniontown.  Sara Telle died on December 28, 1904 at the age of 61.  Below is her death record from the Grace Lutheran church books.

The 1910 census shows Andreas living with his son, Reinhold G. Telle, as a widower.  He was 72 years old.

The map below shows some land that was owned by R.G. Telle.  That is no doubt the Reinhold G. Telle shown in the above census.  They must have lived quite close to the Uniontown church.

Andreas died on October 11, 1912.  His death record in the Grace Lutheran church books says he died from a fall. 

Both Sarah and Andreas are said to be buried in the Grace Lutheran Cemetery in Uniontown, but there are no photos of their gravestones.

The Telle surname was not part of the original immigration, but as time went on, it took a very prominent place among the names that we refer to as “Uniontown Names”.