If my cousin, Myrtle Kuehnert, could see the title of this post, it would certainly pique her interest.  However, she is not likely to have anything to do with a computer or the internet, so the likelihood of her seeing it is rather slim.  I know that Cousin Myrtle is moving past her 9th decade of life, but I am not likely to ask her how many years past the 90 mark she is.

Emma Schmidt gets the story started today.  She was born on June 27, 1860 and was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg.  She was the daughter of Johann and Rosine (Noennig) Schmidt.  Emma was the tenth and last child born into her Schmidt family, but only she and one other sister lived longer than 11 years old.  As was the case yesterday, I will not be able to display any records found in our research library.  I can show you a photo of Emma’s parents.

You might think that since there were only two girls in this Schmidt family there would be no more Schmidt’s to come out of this branch, but Emma’s older sister married a Schmidt, so the couple shown above did manage to have grandchildren who carried the surname Schmidt.

As said before, Emma was born on this day in 1860.  The 1860 census I found for her parents says that it was recorded in July of that year, but despite that, Emma was not included in this document.

The 11 year old Ernst Schmidt shown in this census died in August of that same year of a high fever.  We also find Emma in this census taken ten years later in 1870.  By 1870, Emma’s older sister, Wilhelmine, had married Jacob Schmidt, and their family was living in the same household as the Johann Schmidt family.  Emma was 9 years old and only 4 years older than her nephew, Martin.

There is no death record for Emma’s father, but he must have died before the 1880 census because he does not show up there.  Rosine and Emma were living in the Jacob Schmidt household at that time.  Rosine was a widow.

You can see that Jacob’s family was full of little Schmidt’s.

It was 2 years after this census that Emma got married.  Her groom was Julius Kuehnert.  They were married on April 25, 1882 at Trinity Lutheran, Altenburg.  Julius was the son of Johann and Anna (Leim) Kuehnert.  He was born on April 1, 1858, and he was baptized at Trinity.  We have their wedding photo.

It would be 18 years before this married couple would show up in the 1900 census.  By then, they had four children, and Theodore, their oldest child, was already not living in their household.  All of the Kuehnert children were boys.

It must have been around the time of the 1900 census that a photo of the Julius Kuehnert family was taken.  The children in this photo look to be about the ages of the children in that census.  Also, as is the case with both the census and the photo, Julius’s father, Johann, was included.

When the 1910 census was taken, another one of the Kuehnert sons was no longer listed.  By that time, Arthur had gone off to Concordia Seminary to study for the ministry.  His story was told in the post titled, Church Builders.  Here is that 1910 census.

The 1915 land map shown below indicates where Julius Kuehnert had property in the Seelitz area.

The 1920 census shows Ernst Kuehnert as the head of the family with Julius listed as father and Emma listed as his wife.

Julius died in 1931 at the age of 73.  Below is his death certificate.

Emma died in 1948 when she was 88 years old.  We also have her death certificate.

Julius and Emma are both buried in the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Altenburg.

Julius and Emma Kuehnert could both trace their families back to the German immigration to Perry County that occurred in 1839.  They lived fairly normal lives when compared to other folks in Perry County.  Because one of their children became a Lutheran church worker involved in the mission work of our synod, his influence was felt in areas all over the world.  Also, since all of their children were boys, there were plenty of Kuehnert’s to go on to the next generation.

Going back to where I started, I must also say that Cousin Myrtle married a man who could say that Julius and Emma were his grandparents.