This past Sunday, I wrote a story about the marriage of William Sandler and Anna Boxdorfer. In that story, it mentioned that another marriage between Peter Sandler and Eva Boxdorfer had taken place involving two brothers marrying two sisters. Also, in that story, I mentioned that the Boxdorfer family lived in Cincinnati, Ohio for a couple years before eventually ending up in Perry County. Anna was one of two babies born in Cincinnati. The other one is a major character in the story I write today. His name was John Boxdorfer.
John Boxdorfer was born on February 17, 1849, the son of Gottlieb and Barbara (Muench) Boxdorfer. Because he was born in Ohio, I am unable to display his baptism record. I also assume that the Boxdorfer family was either in the Cincinnati area or in the process of moving to Missouri when the 1850 census was taken. Regardless, I was unable to find them in that census. The first census in which I could find John was the one taken in 1860 for the Bois Brule Township in Perry County. I have to display it in two images. He was probably just a little too young to be considered as a possible soldier in the Civil War later during this decade.
John was in one more census before he was married. That was the census taken in 1870. He was 21 years old. If you recall, this was the year that his younger sister, Anna, had married William Sandler.
We will now turn our attention to John Boxdorfer’s first wife. Her name was Flora Klemp. She was born on August 11, 1855, the daughter of Wilhelm and Margaret (Schneider) Klemp. It is likely that she was baptized at Peace Lutheran Church in Friedenberg. We find Flora in the 1860 and 1870 censuses.
On August 22, 1876, John Boxdorfer married Flora Klemp. There is a record of that marriage in the books of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Perryville. I will show that record later. Here is a civil marriage certificate for that marriage.
Here is another civil record for this marriage.
Wilhelm Gottlieb Boxdorfer (probably named after both of his grandfathers) was born on December 8, 1877. Ten days later, Flora died on December 18th. That left John as a widower with a very young baby.
We now come to the event that precipitated this story. A very special event took place on May 14, 1878. Not only did John Boxdorfer get married again, but so did his brother, George Boxdorfer. Not only that, but John married Catherine Maisel, and George married Theresa Maisel. Catherine and Theresa were sisters. They were the daughters of Wilhelm and Eleonore (Weber) Maisel. Catherine was born on October 10, 1854. We find Catherine in both the 1860 and 1870 censuses for Cinque Hommes Township. In fact, we find both Catherine and her sister, Theresa, in both these entries.
We have Perry County marriage certificates for both of these Boxdorfer/Maisel marriages.
Here are some Boxdorfer marriage records found in the books of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Perryville where these weddings took place. This is where we also see the Boxdorfer/Klemp church marriage record.
According to our German Family Tree, John and Catherine would have 11 children. The 1880 census shows this family just beginning to grow. One child had been born to Flora and one to Catherine. John was a farmer all his life.
A lot of years pass, ones in which all of the rest of the Boxdorfer children were born, before we come to the 1900 census.
The 1910 census shows quite a collection of Boxdorfers apparently living near one another because they show up next to one another on this census entry.
John Boxdorfer died later during the year of that census. He died on December 7, 1910 at the age of 61. This was just about the time that Missouri started using state death certificates, but none is found for John. Catherine would die in 1917 at the age of 62. We can take a look at her death certificate.
John and both of his wives are buried in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Perryville, Missouri.
When we take a look at the information found in the Peace Lutheran, Friedenberg book, we notice another very interesting fact. Four of John’s children married four children of John V. Hoehn.
So, we have two Boxdorfer brothers marrying two Maisel sisters. In that same Boxdorfer family we have two Boxdorfer sisters marrying two Sandler brothers. And from the John Boxdorfer family, we have four Boxdorfer siblings marrying four Hoehn siblings. How are family researchers supposed to keep this all straight?
