Martin Mueller and Meta Galnore were married on November 11, 1916, making today their 104th anniversary. The surname, Mueller, is found in many, many posts on this blog, but the surname, Galnore, according to a quick search, has only shown up in one previous post, and even that Galnore was not a significant character in that post. Let’s start by looking at the early life of Martin Mueller.

Martin was born on February 22, 1894, the son of Wilhelm and Adelheid (Tiedemann) Mueller. Just to avoid confusion, this Martin Mueller is not the same one who owned a hardware store in Altenburg. Martin was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. Here is his baptism record.

Martin is found in the 1900 census at the age of 6.

Martin was listed as being 15 years old when the 1910 census was compiled. His father was a laborer at odd jobs, but Martin was working out as a farm laborer.

Now we will turn our attention to the early life of Martin’s bride, Meta Galnore. In fact, I would like us to start by discussing her parents first. Her father was George Galnore, and her mother was Nona Griffaw. On March 19, 1892, these two were married in Perry County. On the marriage license shown below, it says that Nona had the permission of her father to get married. That is because she was quite young. This couple was married by a justice of the peace.

Nona’s death certificate (which will be displayed later) states that she was born on September 11, 1878, so when her marriage took place in 1892, she had not yet reached her 14th birthday.

Meta Galnore was born on August 13, but there is a little debate about the year in which she was born. Her baptism record says she was born in 1900, but her death certificate says she was born in 1899. One reason we may have to question her baptism record is the fact that Meta was not baptized until 1905 when she would have been about 5 years old. Perhaps the pastor got the birth year wrong. Here is her baptism record from the books of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Wittenberg, Missouri.

Later that year, two other Galnore children were baptized at St. Paul’s.

Yet another Galnore child, Virtue Galnore, was baptized in 1906. This child was baptized shortly after birth, not like the others.

I find it interesting that some sponsors shown on these records, Otto Lueders, Adele Weinhold, and Marie (Birner) Mayhew, are folks that show up in my books Wittenberg ’03 and Wittenberg ’04.

I think it must have been about the time of these baptisms that a photograph was taken of the Galnore family.

From left to right: Mrs. Frampe, John, Esther, George, Nona, and Meta. I find it interesting that each of the children in this photograph are holding some sort of toy or gift. I did not take the time to figure out who Mrs. Frampe was.

Meta Galnore is found in the 1910 census at the age of 10. Her father is called a ferryman on the Mississippi River.

That leads us up to the marriage of Martin Mueller and Meta Galnore which took place on this day in 1916. Even if Meta was born in 1899, she would have been only 17 years old when she married. Here is this couple’s marriage license. It’s another license which states the bride had the consent of the father to get married.

This pair was married at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, so we can also view their church record. It was the only marriage that took place in 1916 at that church.

In 1917, Martin had his World War I draft registration completed. It said Martin was employed by the railroad.

I want to take a moment to discuss the death of Nona Galnore, which took place on January 30, 1920. Her death record from St. Paul’s says she died of consumption, which is another name for tuberculosis. I included some other nearby records because I would use this to later attempt to find her burial site using this information. It also shows what I consider to be one of the most interesting death records I have seen. It is the death record of another character from my books, Mary Weinhold, which states that she died of a broken heart.

We can also take a look at Nona’s death certificate. This is the document that provides us with her birth date.

Findagrave.com doesn’t have a gravestone photo for Nona, even though they say she is buried at St. Paul’s Cemetery. So, off to the cemetery I went to see what I could find. On the photo below, the gravestone on the right is that of Joseph and Mary Weinhold. Joseph had died at the end of 1919. The other earlier death record in the church books was that of a child, so that child would not have been buried here. The gravestone on the left is that of Joe and Mathilda Mueller. Joe died in December of 1920. Perhaps Nona is buried between these two gravestones of prominent Wittenberg characters who are also included in my books.

1920 was also the year that St. Paul’s dedicated a new church building. That building was dedicated in November of 1920. Let’s take a look now at the 1920 census showing Martin and Meta Mueller, who were living in Wittenberg, where Martin was employed at the swing factory. This couple had one child at the time.

That one child shown above, Lester, died on Christmas Eve later that year. Then, in the 1920’s one or two children were born to this couple. Only one is found in the St. Paul’s books, but another shows up in a later census. Before we look at that census, we must discuss the death of Meta Mueller. She died in 1927 at the age of 27. Her death certificate says she died in St. Louis of tuberculosis. This document also states that she was to be buried in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. This would possibly point to the fact that Martin and Meta had moved to Cape Girardeau before this death took place, and that last child may have been born there. That would explain why that baptism would not be found in our German Family Tree.

The 1930 census shows Martin living in Cape Girardeau as a widower. He was listed as a baker on this entry. This form also says there is a son by the name of Elroy Delbert who was 3 years old. He must have been born not long before his mother’s death.

The last census that we can view is the one taken in 1940. Although I did not display it, Martin was a laborer at a lumber mill.

Martin’s World War II draft card was completed in 1942. It says he was employed by Lemming Lumber Company.

Martin Mueller died in 1971 at the age of 77. We cannot view his death certificate. Martin is said to be buried in the Fairmount Cemetery in Cape Girardeau, but there is no gravestone photo. Findagrave does not list Meta as being buried in that cemetery. That site does include a transcription of Martin’s obituary.

This story gave me the opportunity to write about the Galnore family. I had seen the Galnore family photo quite a while ago and always wondered what the story was behind that photo. George Galnore was born in Illinois somewhere, but a census says his parents were from France. This is one of those families that doesn’t fit the mold of most families that are discussed on this blog.