I have not written a Poppitz story in a while.  I found one today.  A Poppitz girl was born on this day in Perry County.  She would later be married and buried in this county.  However, most of her life was spent elsewhere.  So today I will tell the tale of Marie Poppitz.

Marie Clara Poppitz was the daughter of Ehregott and Clara (Mueller) Poppitz.  She was born on May 23, 1886 and baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg.  Below is her baptism record.

Since we cannot see an 1890 census, we have to go to the one taken in 1900 to find her in her first census.  I find it amazing that, at the age of only 14, we do not find her living with her parents, but with another family as a servant.  She was living in the Charles Grebing household.

Even more amazing in this census is the fact that there is an Otto Goehring who is also living in this family as a farm laborer, and he is only 8 years old.

In the 1910 and 1920 censuses, we find Marie in similar circumstances.  In both, she was a servant for a private family in St. Louis.  First, here is the one for 1910.

The 1920 census is next.

Now, we will turn to the man she would marry.  His name was Martin Rubin.  Martin was born on February 20, 1880 in St. Paul, Illinois.  As near as I can tell, the name of the village of St. Paul was named after the church located there, St. Paul Lutheran Church.  I am pretty sure that the church records of that congregation would contain the baptism record for Martin Rubin.  That church is now said to be located in Shobonier, Illinois, another nearby town.

Martin was the son of August and Dorothea (Yund) Rubin.  St. Paul Lutheran Church recently celebrated their 150th anniversary, and I found this photograph on their Facebook page.  It is a collage of historic pictures of that congregation, and it shows a few photos of the Yund Store and family.  I suspect Martin’s mother was connected to this store and family.

It is not until Martin was 20 years old before we find him in a census.  He was living in the South Wheatland Township in Macon County, Illinois near Decatur.  He was a farm employee.

I did find a Rubin family photo that includes Martin.  He is standing in the back on the right.

On August 18, 1907, Martin married his first wife, Emma Schubert.  Below is the marriage license for this couple.

It must not have been long after this marriage that Martin and Emma moved to Oklahoma.  We find them in the 1910 census in Lincoln County, Oklahoma.  They had no children on the census, but one is said to have been born in 1908 and died in 1909.

Martin’s World War I draft registration says he was living in Fairland, Oklahoma.

The 1920 census shows this family living in Afton, Oklahoma.  There were four children.

One more child would be born in 1923, but then Emma died in 1926.  Their last child was born in Illinois, so they must have moved back near Martin’s birthplace before then.   Emma is buried in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Augsburg, Illinois, which is not far from St. Paul’s Lutheran Church near Shobonier.

Here is a photo of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Augsburg.

I have no idea how Martin Rubin, a recent widower from Illinois, found Marie Poppitz, a servant girl from St. Louis, but in 1928, these two were married in Perryville, Missouri.  Here is their Missouri marriage license.

The church record for this wedding can be found in the books of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Perryville.   It says Martin was from Shobonier, Illinois.

We have this photo of Marie and Martin.  It may have even been their wedding photo.

When Marie got married, she also gained an instant family.  The three youngest children of Martin were 5, 10, and 13 years old when this marriage took place.  We find this family living in the Kaskaskia Township in Fayette County in 1930.  That is where Shobonier was located.

The 1940 census shows Martin and Marie in the same place, but Martin is shown to be a merchant.  His 1942 World War II draft card shows that occupation also.

I wonder whether he was involved in the Yund Store that was mentioned earlier.  Martin died in 1948 at the age of 67.  He is buried in the same cemetery as his first wife, Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Augsburg, Illinois.  He shares his gravestone with one of his daughters, Edna.

I am thinking that the spot next to Martin was intended to be for Marie, but as we will soon discover, she was not buried there, so when Edna died, it must have been decided that she would be buried there.

Sometime after her husband’s death, Marie moved back to Altenburg, Missouri.  At this point, let me remind you of two previous posts.  In both of these posts, I wrote about more Poppitz girls who happened to be Marie Rubin’s sisters.  The first was the story titled, As For Me and My House…..  Later, I wrote the story, Another Pair of Poppitz Partners.  It is likely that Marie’s siblings who were still living in East Perry County may have been the magnet to draw her back to this area.

Marie died in 1980 at the age of 93 and was buried in the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Altenburg.

It is not often that you find a story in which someone is born, married, and buried in Perry County, but spent so little of their life here.