Several posts have been published about Perry County people moving to Nebraska.  Some have been about those who settled in the western part of that state around Potter and Sydney.  Others, like the ones in this story, settled in the northeastern part of Nebraska in the area shown by the map below.

However, we have to start this story back in Perry County with the birth of Henry Rauss on January 25, 1883.  Recently, a post was published about Henry’s parents which was titled, 1852 – An Eventful Year for Hugo.  If you check out that post, you would  discover how the Rauss name became connected with the Bergt family.  Henry’s parents were Hugo and Catherine (Ruhkopf) Rauss.  Henry was baptized at Salem Lutheran Church in Farrar, Missouri.

Emma Aurich was born on December 2, 1887.  Her parents were Adolph and Josephine (Antonier) Aurich, and she, too, was baptized at Salem Lutheran Church.  In the case of the Aurich family, we also find other cases of Aurich’s resettling in Nebraska.  Two other posts refer to those cases.  They can be found by clicking the following links.

Martha and Arthur

Farrar Off to the Potter’s Field

On November 28, 1907, Henry married Emma at Salem Lutheran Church.  Here is their marriage license.  I had to look it up.  This couple was indeed married on Thanksgiving Day.

Henry was not the first Rauss to marry an Aurich.  His brother, Adolph, had married Susanna Aurich one year earlier in 1906.  In the first census after their marriage, we find them living in the Salem Township in Perry County, and Henry was a blacksmith.  No children had been born yet, but their first child would be born in July of 1910.

The Rauss family had eight children, all born and baptized in Farrar.  The last one was born in 1931.  The 1930 census shows this family with five of their children.  Henry was a farmer.

The 1940 census found the Rauss family in Nebraska, but it also said their residence in 1935 was Perry County, Missouri.  The census was from the Brenna Township in Wayne County, Nebraska.

Now you might wonder why Henry would move to Wayne County, Nebraska as a farmer already in his 50’s.  I have an answer to that question.  First, let’s look at a township map for Wayne County.

You can see that the Brenna and Plum Creek Townships are adjacent to one another in Wayne County.  They are near the communities of Wayne and Altona, Nebraska.  In another previous post about a Perry County person in Nebraska titled, Go Find the West, Young Man, it was said that Gerth Stueve found his bride in Plum Creek Township.  When looking at the Plum Creek Township census for 1910 while researching for that post, I ran across this entry.

At the top of this image, you see the name, Manual Stueve.  Christina, his wife, had the maiden name, Rauss, and was Henry’s sister.  You also see Gottfried Lorenz farther down the list.  Gottfried’s wife, Martha, was another Rauss sister.  And if that is not enough, farther down the image you see J.G. Bergt who could for all practical purposes be called Henry’s cousin because his father, Hugo Rauss, had been raised in the Bergt family as an orphan.  It was almost as if Henry Rauss wanted to join the Nebraska Rauss/Bergt family reunion.

When Henry and Emma were older, they managed to get their large family together for a photo.  Based on how old the children look, I am guessing it was taken in the early ’40’s.

Henry and Emma are buried in the Greenwood Cemetery in Wayne, Nebraska, and that cemetery records that Henry died in 1956, and Emma died in 1964.  However, Findagrave.com does not have photos of their gravestones.

Between the two names, Rauss and Bergt, there are 14 graves in Wayne County, Nebraska according to Findagrave.com.  They are divided between the Greenwood Cemetery in Wayne and the First Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Altona, Nebraska.  First Trinity is part of a tri-parish served by one pastor made up of congregations in Pilger, Altona, and Stanton.

St. John’s, Pilger made the news several years ago when their church was destroyed by a tornado.  I am guessing that one might find several Perry County names in the records of all three of these churches, as well as some other ones in that vicinity.

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Today’s excerpt from the Teacher Winter journal continues in the middle of a sentence which was begun yesterday.

“….and on the 25th some mud-covered ice floes drifted our way, our boat working its way through them.  When we went ashore today to take on wood (this was done several times a day), we found a tree stump standing about a yard above the ground, which measured eight yards in circumference.  As a rule, such sturdy trees are tulip trees, which bear pretty yellow tulips and the timber of which is used for planks.”