Lina Koenig was born on January 15, 1887 in New Wells, Missouri. She is today’s birthday girl. Her parents were Edward Wilhelm and Juliana (Reuschel) Koenig. We have these photos of Lina’s parents.
Lina was baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New Wells. Below is her baptism record.
When Lina was 19 years old, she married Theodor Kaempfe of Frohna, Missouri. Theodor was the son of Traugott and Justine (Henneke) Kaempfe. Here is a photo of Theodor’s parents.
I have posted a photo of the Kaempfe family in previous posts, but today I will post a different one that is actually a better quality picture.
As the caption notes, Theodor is standing at the far right. He is one of the youngest siblings in this family. Several previous posts have been written about Theodor’s brothers and sisters.
Theodore and Lina were married on November 8, 1906 at Immanuel, New Wells. This is the record in their church books.
Here is a wedding photo of Theodor and Lina.
I think this photo of Theodor was taken at the same time as the wedding.
Theodor and Lina had eight children, two of which died at an early age. Not long after they were married, they were able to obtain a farm near Frohna. We can see that property on this 1915 plat map.
This photo was taken later in Theodor and Lina’s life, at the occasion of their 40th wedding anniversary.
Lina died in 1955. Here is her death certificate.
Theodore died in 1963. Below is his death certificate.
Both Theodore and Lina are buried in the Concordia Lutheran Cemetery in Frohna.
The gift shop at our museum has a whole book about the history of the Kaempfe-Koenig family. It is titled, “A Farm Near Frohna: The Story Behind a Missouri Century Farm”.
The cover features Theodor standing in front of a tractor that he reportedly called his “Dear John” tractor. This book is full of photographs of people involved in this family’s story. Many of the photos show family members doing very ordinary things on the farm. I am tempted to fill this blog post with those photos, but then we would probably not sell many of these books. Mary Linda Miller, the author of this book, has done a wonderful job of telling this family’s story. My effort to tell their story just gives a little glimpse.
Two people who are very special to our museum are descendants from this family. One is Imogene (Meyer) Unger, one of our docents. The other is Pearline (Meyer) Degenhardt, who is one of our most frequent visitors from St. Louis. Both of these ladies can call Theodor and Lina their grandparents.
