I know that there have been times in my life when I have been given the “brush off”. You probably have experienced that feeling yourself. Today, I will be giving you the Tuschoff. It is a surname that takes up very little space in our German Family Tree, but it leads us once again to the church that once existed in the area known as Arnsberg. This story also leads us to another surname that was included in an Arnsberg story that was published not long ago. That surname was Richter. It was discussed in the post, The Richter/Dambach’s from Arnsberg.

I found a marriage that occurred on this day, October 6th, in 1845 in our German Family Tree. It was the marriage between a Tuschoff and a Richter. Once I found that marriage record, it did not take long to discover that there was another Tuschoff/Richter marriage included in the GFT that took place on December 15, 1844. These two marriages were the marriages of two Tuschoff brothers and two Richter sisters. Both of those marriage records are found in the books of Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown, Missouri. Not only that, there was yet another Tuschoff marriage in the Uniontown records which involved a Tuschoff bride and a Dickmann husband that took place on February 11, 1844.

What interests me about these marriages is that they give an indication that the pastor in Uniontown, Rev. Charles Gruber, was traveling to nearby communities which might be called preaching stations during those early days. Pastor Gruber could have been called a circuit rider. The region across the Apple Creek in north Cape Girardeau County around Arnsberg and Friedheim (then called Dissen) was one such area that he visited on occasion. In his travels, he likely was asked to perform baptisms, weddings, and funerals. Let’s take a look at the Tuschoff marriage records which have to be shown in two images each. The first two of these indicate that the weddings took place on farms in Cape Girardeau County. I will display them in the order that they occurred, beginning with the wedding of Heinrich Dickmann and Henrietta Tuschoff.

Next, we will look at the record for the wedding of Heinrich Tuschoff and Marie Richter.

Finally, I will display the marriage record for the couple I will highlight in today’s story. It was the wedding of Christian Tuschoff and Philipine Richter. It was the marriage that took place on this day 175 years ago today.

I managed to locate a Perry County marriage record for this couple also. When Pastor Gruber recorded this marriage, he also included the marriage of a Mueller marrying another Mueller that took place in September of 1845. That marriage is also included in our GFT. If you look at all these records, the surname is spelled Duschoff.

I have no documentation for it, but I think the two Richter sisters were also sisters of the Henry Richter who was discussed in the previous post about the Richter’s and Dambach’s. In that post, it was stated that Henry Richter was a stone mason who helped build the Trinity, Friedheim church. Henry had a birth year (1822) that would make it very possible for him to be a sibling of the Richter sisters who married Tuschoff’s.

Another interesting fact is that when Franz Julius Biltz graduated from Concordia Seminary in Altenburg in 1848, his first call was to Trinity Lutheran Church in Dissen (Friedheim). When he was ordained, both Rev. Gruber from Uniontown and Rev. Loeber from Altenburg participated in that ordination.

Christian Tuschoff was born on March 8, 1808. Like many other folks in the Arnsberg/Friedheim area, he was from Waldeck, Germany. According to a family history on Ancestry, Christian was first married to Elizabeth Clemens in 1842. That family history states that they were married at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Appleton. You can see where St. Joseph’s is located in relation to other communities in this area on the map below.

There was a son named Charles Tuschoff born to that couple later in 1842. Then in 1845, another child was born and died, and it is reported that Elizabeth died in that year also. It has all the appearances of a woman dying in childbirth. After that, Christian would marry Philipine Richter. Philipine was born on July 22, 1819.

I was unable to find Christian and Philipine Tuschoff in the 1850 census. The five children born to this couple, along with Charles, are to be found in this entry from the 1860 census. Christian was a farmer.

It was about the time of the 1860 census that the Arnsberg Lutheran Church was established. We find the Christian Tuschoff family described in the Arnsberg binder that we have in our research library. Below is a page giving information on that family.

In a later plat map produced in 1901, we find several parcels of land belonging to Tuschoff’s. The black arrow shows the location of the Arnsberg church.

We next find this Tuschoff household in the 1870 census.

The last census in which we find Christian Tuschoff was the one taken in 1880.

Christian Tuschoff died in 1882 at the age of 74. Philipine lived to experience a few years in the 20th century. She is found in the 1900 census at the age of 82. She was living in the household of her son, Daniel Tuschoff.

I am guessing that it might have been about this time that the photograph of Philipine shown below was taken. It is one of several photos to be found in the Arnsberg binder that I will display here.

Here is a photograph of the son of Christian and his first wife, Elizabeth, Charles Tuschoff, along with his wife, Louise.

Charles and Louise had several children shown in the next photo. They would have been grandchildren of Christian Tuschoff.

One more photo from the Arnsberg binder shows the family of Daniel Tuschoff, the youngest son of Daniel and Philipine Tuschoff.

Philipine Tuschoff died in 1902 at the age of 83. Both Christian and Philipine are buried in the Arnsberg Cemetery. Only Christian’s gravestone is pictured on Findagrave. The Arnsberg binder says Philipine’s gravestone is in fair condition, but it did not get photographed for Findagrave for some reason. Here is the one for Christian.

The Arnsberg church is said to have closed its doors sometime around 1890. I am guessing that many of that congregation’s members became part of Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim. Perhaps when we get the Friedheim books indexed and placed in our German Family Tree, we will find more descendants of the Tuschoff and Richter families.