Today would mark the 130 anniversary of Adoph Joseph (A.J.) Doering and Anna Richter.  They were married on February 28, 1889 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg.  Several factors contributed to my selection of this story today.  One was their special anniversary.  Another factor was the amount of photographs I located of that family and their descendants, several of which were not the typical studio photographs, but ones showing folks in their day-to-day surroundings.  Finally, Adolph died in 1910.  After yesterday’s story about a death certificate from 1911, I was anxious to find out which of Altenburg’s three doctors signed off on his death certificate, Dr. Kluegel, Dr. Estel, or Dr. Neumueller.  You will find out later as you read on.

Adolph Doering was born on April 10, 1864.  His parents were George and Theresia (Schlimpert) Doering.  We do not have a photo of Adolph’s father, but we do have one of his mother, Theresia.

I think it is interesting to note that I was unable to find a baptism record for Adolph in any of our church record books.  First of all, Adolph’s older siblings were baptized at Concordia, Frohna, and his younger siblings were baptized at Trinty, Altenburg.  His next younger brother was baptized at Trinity in 1866.  It appears that the Doering family must have moved between 1859 when his older brother had been baptized in Frohna and 1866 when his younger brother was baptized in Altenburg.  In the case of Adolph, a baptism record can be found in neither Frohna or Altenburg.  There may be an explanation for that.  In 1863, Rev. J.P. Beyer was serving both Concordia and Trinity when he took a call to Chicago.  It was not until the spring of 1864 when Rev. J.F. Koestering accepted a call to serve both those congregations.  I am almost certain that Adolph was baptized, but he may have been baptized by another pastor in the area, and that baptism may have never been recorded.

There is a little problem with that theory.  It just so happens that Adoph’s future wife, Anna, had a brother named Gottlob who was born two days before Adolph, and his baptism record is included in the Trinity church books.  Adolph should have been baptized at about the same time.  Here is Gottlob’s baptism record.

Two years after her brother, Gottlob, and her future husband were born, Anna Richter was born on May 19, 1866.  Her parents were Ehregott and Elizabeth (Hartung) Richter.  We have a photo of Anna’s parents.

Both Adolph and Anna can be found in the 1870 census living with their parents.  First, here is the Doering family.

Next, here is the Richter family.

I would point out here that Anna’s older brother, Gottlob, is not shown in this census, so he likely died at a young age.  That made Anna the oldest child in her family.  Adolph, on the other hand, was one of the younger siblings in his family.

The 1880 census has Adolph living in the Otto Wilson household as a farm laborer.  He was 16 years old at the time.

That leads us up to the wedding that is the focal point of today’s post.  On February 28, 1889, Adolph married Anna.  Here is their marriage license.

We have this photo which was taken of Adoph and Anna.

Our German Family Tree has 11 children listed for Adolph and Anna.  I would argue that there were just 10.  More on that later.

A family photo was taken of the Adolph Doering family not long after 1900.  The baby on his father’s lap in this photo is Rudolf Doering.  He was born in April of 1900.

That baby, Rudolf, would die at the age of 7.  Another child, Edna Doering, was born in 1905 and died nine months later in 1906.  Rudolf and Edna share a gravestone in the St. Paul’s Lutheran Cemetery in Wittenberg.

Another son was born in 1909 and died after just one day.  There is no record that this child was baptized, nor was a name given to him.  He has the gravestone in the St. Paul’s Cemetery shown in the photo below.

Below is an image of the 1910 census showing the Doering family.  There were 6 living children in their household.  The youngest was a boy named Hugo.

Later that year, on November 22, 1910, Adolph died at the age of 46.  Below is his death certificate.  It says he died of typhoid fever.

Now you know that it was Dr. Theodore Estel who signed this death certificate.  There is also a record of his death in the St. Paul’s church books.

I place this record here mainly because I would like some help.  There is a cause of death written here that likely is a German term for typhoid fever, but I cannot read it.  It looks like it has the term for “fever” at the end, but I do not know what the front end of the word says.  I have gotten a lot of help lately by asking questions on this blog.  Maybe someone out there can help me again with this one.

I also located a will for Adolph.  It is a rather simply written will, and it was signed by Adolph on  November 21, 1910, just one day before he died.  Also, Dr. Estel was one of the witnesses for this will.  They apparently were well aware that Adolph was on his death bed.   Below is a portion of that will.

A land atlas was produced in 1915 for Perry County.  In that atlas, it shows a piece of property that belonged to Anna Doering.  Looking at that parcel of land, you can see that several neighbors were also Doering’s.

Anna also died at a relatively young age.  She died on April 4, 1921 at the age of 54.  Her death certificate indicates that she died at Lutheran Hospital in St. Louis.

Anna is buried in the St. Paul’s Cemetery in Wittenberg.  Adolph is supposed to be buried there also, but his gravestone is not found on Findagrave.com.  I thought about going down to Wittenberg this morning to see if I could locate it, but we are having an icy day here and didn’t want to take the risk.  Here is Anna’s gravestone.

We have another puzzle.  Take a look at the 1930 census which includes four brothers in the Doering family.  They are called Ernst, Elmer, Edgar, and John.

This census record is why we have an 11th child named John in our German Family Tree.  I think it is a mistake.  I think the John in this census is actually Hugo, the youngest son in that Adolph Doering family.  The age is not quite right, but that could be a mistake.  I was unable to find Hugo Doering in any other place in the 1930 census.

I would also like to share some other photographs I located which show some of the children and grandchildren of Adolph and Anna.  I will place them in a thumbnail gallery.  You can click to enlarge them.

I am going to end this story with another photo from this family.   One of the sons, Ernst, and his wife, Esther (Mueller) had a stillborn daughter in 1930.  That baby was buried in the St. Paul’s Cemetery.  The gravestone is shown below.

They used the same word, “Darling”, to describe this baby that Adolph and Anna had used in 1909.  I like that these Doering’s, whose departed little ones who were never given a name, were both called Darling.

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Just a few end notes today:

• I asked a question yesterday about Fordyce, Illinois.  A few folks have now informed me that the town of Gorham in Jackson County, Illinois was once called Fordyce.
• For those of you who might be interested, the dartball tournament ended last week and the village of Altenburg swept first and second place.  Immanuel, Altenburg finished in first place and Trinity, Altenburg finished second.  I want to congratulate my fellow Altenburgers for this accomplishment.
• Today’s story is the 1000th post published on this blog since we began in January of 2016.  There will be a celebration at the Saxony Hills Brewery tomorrow evening, Friday, March 1, beginning at 6 pm.  We would love to have you join us.