Another common East Perry County name is Weber. And like several other common names, such as Schmidt or Mueller, there are several clans of Weber’s. Today’s story comes from the group of Weber’s that are called “The Ridge Weber’s”.
I guess you could argue that the marriage record from Ossig, Germany shown below marks the beginning of The Ridge Weber’s.
Gottfried Weber married Johanne Seidel (Seydel) on January 10, 1813. This couple had several children, and then in 1852, when they were both in their 60’s, they brought their family to America and settled in Perry County. They can be seen as passengers on the ship, Bremerhaven, which landed at New Orleans on October 27, 1852.
This family must have quickly made their way up the Mississippi River to Perry County because on November 25, Carl Wilhelm Weber married Emilie Guebner. In fact, it may be that the Emilie below Carl on the passenger list above may have been Emilie Guebner. Their marriage record from Perry County is available.
This document was not recorded until early 1853, but the marriage did take place in late 1852. It took me a while to decipher the pastor’s name on this document, but eventually I determined it to be Rev. Ch. Henry Loeber. You can see his name after the year 1853 three lines up from the bottom. Rev. Loeber was a relatively new pastor at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna, having graduated from the Log Cabin College. Below is the church record for the Weber/Guebner marriage.
This record is not on the pages where you find most marriage records in the Concordia books. The heading at the top of this page says “Amtsverrichtungen bai(?) Fremden”. This phrase can be translated as “official acts for foreigners (strangers)”. I assume strangers would have been people who were not members of the congregation.
In 1855, the first child was born into this new family. His name was Fuerchtegott Weber. I think Fuerchtegott means “seek the Lord”. He is today’s birthday boy. He was born on March 10, 1855. Our German Family Tree does not indicate that there is a baptism record for this child. However, I happened to find some extra hand-written pages in our research library that showed a list of transcriptions on the pages came from old Concordia church records. It also said these official acts were performed by “others”. I think we received this list from our friend, Edgar Dreyer, who has done much translation of local church records. Included in that list is the following record.
Katherine Boehme was born on April 3, 1866. She was the daughter of Friederich and Caroline (Eichhorn) Boehme. Katherine was baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Altenburg. This Boehme surname was another one that matched a name that was part of the original immigration in 1839, yet this is a different Boehme family that arrived later.
Fuerchtegott and Katherine were married on May 27, 1886 at Immanuel, Altenburg. Below is their marriage record in the Immanuel church books (two images).
We have this photo of Fuerchtegott and Katharine that may have been their wedding photo.
After 13 years of marriage and having no children, the Weber’s had the opportunity to adopt two young children. Their names were Carl Paul (age 4) and Ida Belle (age 2), and they took on the surname, Weber. These two were likely siblings to one another. One of the first things Fuerchtegott and Katherine did was get these two children baptized. Below is that record from Immanuel in two images.
We see this family in the 1900 census for Brazeau Township.
We do not know much about Paul and Ida’s previous life, but we do see on census records that they were born somewhere in Missouri. I suspect that Paul may have died sometime between 1900 and 1910 because he is not included in this 1910 census.
Ida should not be called a step daughter on this form. The two 0’s after Katharine’s name indicate that she had 0 children born and there were 0 of her children living.
The person who submitted this census form dated it as April 28, 1910. It was on April 29th that Fuerchtegott died. Here is his death certificate.
Fuerchtegott was just 54 years old when he died of tuberculosis. He was buried in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Altenburg.
In 1912, Katharine married George Boxdorfer. George had 10 children by his first wife, Theresia Maisel. Almost all ten were still alive when Katharine married their father. This is one of those rare occurrences where George is not remarrying because he was a widower. I am guessing he was divorced. Theresia, his first wife, did not die until 1934. We have this photograph which is said to be George Boxdorfer and Katherine (Boehme)(Weber).
Even though Katherine had already remarried in 1912, this land map of 1915 showed pieces of property with her name attached. Her property was the location of The Ridge School and would also later be the location of the Weber Store.
George and Katherine are nliving in a household with no children living with them in the 1920 census. The 1930 census shows just Katherine. George had died in 1925. Katherine died in 1931. Here is her death certificate.
Katherine was buried in the Zion Lutheran Cemetery in Longtown.
If you would like to know about the life of Ida Belle Weber, the adopted daughter, her story was included in a post titled, The Burroughs Famil-EEEEEHE.
Today’s post is another one that I consider an interesting story, but also one where the search for information was just as interesting.
