The post today will tell the tale of two Heinrich Kasten’s, a father/son combo. I came across this story today as a result of Heinrich Johann Hermann Kasten being born on December 7, 1867, the son of Heinrich Johann Christoph and Theresia (Lueders) Kasten. We have this photo of Henry’s parents.

Some Ancestry families call him Henry Jr., but technically, he did not have the entire same name as his father. Henry was the 4th child in his family, but he was also the first son. The Kasten/Lueders couple had 15 children altogether according to our German Family Tree. Henry was born about a month after the new church sanctuary was dedicated at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg, and if his parents would have been members of that church, Henry would have been the first one to be baptized in that building. However, that is not where Henry was baptized. His parents were members of Immanuel Lutheran Church in New Wells, and it is in that church’s records that we find Henry’s baptism record. This record says he was born on December 17th, but there are so many other documents that give a December 7th birthday that I have to go with that one.

Henry appears in his first census in 1870 at the age of 2.

The last census in which we find Henry as a single man was the one taken in 1880. He was 12 years old.

In 1881, Henry was confirmed at Immanuel, New Wells. He is #5 on this list of his fellow confirmands. This time you see his birthday given as December 7th.

Let’s now turn our attention to Henry’s future bride Her name was Maria Pauline Boren, the daughter of Berhard and Anna (Sander) Boren. She was born on January 20, 1872 and baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New Wells. Here is her baptism record.

The only census record in which we find Maria as a single girl was the one taken in 1880 when she was 8 years old. She was living in the household of Emil Danz because both of her parents had died in 1874 when she was just 2 years old. If I read this census correctly, it says Maria was a visitor in that household. That’s somewhat curious.

On June 14, 1891, Henry Kasten married Maria Boren at Immanuel, New Wells. We can take a look at the church record for that wedding.

According to our German Family Tree, this couple came close to matching the 15 children born to Henry’s parents. Henry and Maria had 13 children. When the 1900 census was taken, we find the household shown in this entry. This time, this family is living in the Shawnee Township. Their family spills over onto two pages.

When this couple’s 11th child was born in 1909, he was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Shawneetown, which is just down the road from the church in New Wells. We find the Kasten household in the 1910 census. As you can see, their family had grown considerably.

Two more children were born in the 1910’s bringing the total to 13. By the time of the 1920 census, we see some of the Kasten children had moved out of their household.

The last census in which we find Henry and Maria was the one taken in 1930. Only their youngest son, Walter, was living in their household.

Maria Kasten died in 1934 at the age of 62. Below is her death certificate.

Henry Kasten died in early 1940, so he does not show up in the census for that year. Henry was 72 years old when he died. Here is his death certificate.

Henry and Maria Kasten are both buried in the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Shawneetown. Their gravestones shared the same Bible verse.

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The two Henry Kasten’s certainly can be placed in a list of prolific fathers to have lived in this area over the years. What makes these two even more interesting is found in their wives. Very often, fathers that sire many children accomplish that task by having several wives. Not so with these two Henry’s. Each one had just one wife that bore all those children. That’s an incredible feat for those two amazing women. It isn’t often that you find a mother and a mother-in-law who give birth to a total of 28 children.