Almost a year ago, I wrote a post, A Pair of Oehlert-Huber Pairs, in which I made the following statement:

“When I researched today’s story, it was like playing 5-card draw poker.  I originally had one pair, but when I was dealt some more cards, I ended up with two-pair.”

As I researched today’s story, I discovered that I need to add a third pair to that story. I know that there is no such thing as a poker hand with three-pair, but when it comes to the Oehlert (pronounced Ay’-lert) and Huber families, there were three pairs.

We begin this tale by looking at the birth of Emma Magdalena Oehlert. I almost skipped over this story because our German Family Tree has conflicting dates for her birth. The GFT does not contain much information about her. As you can see in the image below, there is a dispute about whether Magdalena was born on May 14 or on March 14.

Other documents in her life support the March birthday. So, Magdalena Oehlert was born on “Pi Day” 150 years ago. How special is that? For a “Math Guy” like me, that is a story that must be told. Magdalena was the daughter of Tobias and Christiane (Harnagel) Oehlert. We have these photos of Magdalena’s parents.

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Magdalena was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg, but I am still out of town, so I cannot display that church record. We find Magdalena in the 1880 census for Brazeau Township in Perry County at the age of 8. That would be the only census in which we find Magdalena as a single person.

Sometime after the 1880 census was taken, Tobias and Christiane Oehlert moved their family to Joachim Township in Jefferson County, Missouri. That move may have been made after Amalia Oehlert married Ferdinand Huber, who lived in Joachim Township, in 1885. Next, we will take a look at Magdalena’s spouse.

William Casper Huber was born on September 10, 1856, the son of Christoph and Christine (Krause) Huber. William can be found in the 1860 census for Joachim Township at the age of 5.

Next, we find William in the 1870 census.

In the 1880 census, we find an interesting entry for this Huber family. The 3 Huber children still living in this household, William, Ferdinand, and Pauline are the 3 Huber’s who married 3 Oehlert’s.

I was unable to find documentation for the marriage of William Huber and Magdalena Oehlert. The only information that helps us is in the 1900 census, in which we find William and Magdalena living in St. Louis where William worked at a cotton mill. This entry says that this couple had been married for 11 years. That would indicate that this couple had been married in 1889.

There is some evidence on Ancestry.com that William had previously been married to Anna Stock, and that couple had the daughter shown on the above entry by the name of Alice, who was 15 years old. That would explain her age being older than her parents’ years of marriage. Florence would definitely be a daughter of William and Magdalena. Next, we find this household in the 1910 census. William was still working in a cotton mill.

William Huber died in 1914 at the age of 57. His death certificate is displayed below.

Magdalena Huber can be found in 3 more census records after her husband’s death. She did not remarry. In each of these entries, she was living with her daughter, Florence, and her husband Henry Wiedemeyer. Here is the 1920 census entry.

Because of the enlarging I did of these census records, you cannot see Henry Wiedemeyer’s occupation. I can tell you that he was a worker in a shoe factory in each of these census records. Next, we can take a look at the 1930 census.

The last census in which we find Magdalena was the one taken in 1940.

Magdalena Huber died in 1947 at the age of 76. Her death certificate states that she died at the St. Louis County Hospital. This is a document that supports her “Pi Day” birthday.

If you look carefully at the two death certificates for William and Magdalena, you can see that they were to be buried in the Concordia Cemetery in St. Louis. If you go to Findagrave, you will discover that only Magdalena is listed as being buried there, and even she has no gravestone photo. The fact that they are said to have been buried in that cemetery is evidence that they continued to be Lutherans throughout their lives.

I have now looked more carefully at the Huber and Oehlert family histories, and I think I can safely say that there were no other Oehlert-Huber marriages other than the 3 pairs about which I now have written. However, I will tell you that Alice Huber, William’s daughter, did later marry Michael Muench who had roots in Perry County. I wonder how that happened.