Karl August Alwin Frentzel was born on August 11, 1890, so he is our birthday boy today. In almost all the records for this person he is called Charles, so I will use that name. He was the son of Alwin and Elizabeth (Ruhkopf) Frentzel and baptized at Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. Here is his baptism record.
Nine-year-old Charles can be found in the 1900 census for Union Township, Missouri. You can see that this Frentzel household was quite full of children, all about two years apart from each other in age.
Charles can be found in the same household in the 1910 census where he was the oldest child still living with his parents.
In 1917, Charles had his World War I draft registration form completed.
This form says that Charles was the owner of a garage in Uniontown. I cannot imagine that a village the size of Uniontown would have had more than one garage in 1917, and we do have a photograph of the Uniontown Garage. Although the men in the photo are unidentified, it is possible that one of them might have been Charles.
When the plat book was produced for Perry County in 1915, a map of Uniontown was included. The image below includes some Frentzel names, and it also shows a garage right on what is now US Highway 61.
In the case of Charles Frentzel, he was called to serve his country as a soldier. The record shown below indicates that he was inducted into the military on July 26, 1918. It does not appear, however, that he got any active duty overseas.
The BGL on the above document can be explained by looking at another document. After he died, a military headstone application was completed.
This form says Charles was a bugler. It makes me wonder if Charles was ever a member of a Uniontown town band. We have this photo of a group of Perry County boys who were leaving for Camp Funston in Kansas on July 26, 1918, the day of Charles’s induction. I am guessing that Charles is one of these boys, but I have no idea which one.
The draft registration stated that Charles was single when he filled out that form. In the 1920 census, he was married yet still living in the same household with his parents.
His wife was named Dorothy on this form. Let’s backtrack to look at the early history of his wife, Dorothea Bock. Dorothea was born on August 19, 1900, so Charles and she had birthdays rather near one another. She was the daughter of Michael and Lydia (Hopfer)(Bultmann) Bock and baptized at Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. Here is her baptism record.
We have a photograph that includes a very young Dorothy. She is indicated by a red arrow, and her parents are identified by the blue arrows. The photo has the Amschler Hardware Store and the Michael Bock Harness Shop in the background.
We also have a school photograph which includes an identified Dorothy Bock (red arrow). That teacher looks like he has more than a handful of students.
Even though both Charles and Dorothea appear to have been members of Grace, Uniontown from their beginnings, there is no marriage record to be found in the church books. I also could not locate a Missouri marriage license for them, but it does look like they were married sometime after Charles’s military service and 1920.
Between 1920 and 1930, this couple moved to Jackson, Missouri. We find them there in the 1930 census in which Charles is shown to be an automobile salesman. This entry states that Charles was married when he was 29 years old. That would mean these two were married around 1919.
The last visible census was the one taken in 1940. This time, it says Charles was working for the county government as a welfare agent. It also says that Dorothy was working as a “finisher” at a shoe factory. Not only that, their son, another Charles, at age 14, was a paper boy for a daily newspaper.
1940 was also the year that Charles died. He died rather young, only a matter of days before his 50th birthday. Here is his death certificate.
Dorothea died in 1972 at the age of 71. She and Charles are buried together in the Russell Heights Cemetery in Jackson, Missouri.
Charles didn’t live very long, but he certainly had a variety of occupations….bugler, garage mechanic, auto salesman, and welfare agent. This couple was a joining of the surnames, Frentzel and Bock. Those have certainly been prominent Uniontown names over the years.
