According to my reckoning, today’s birthday boy was the 17th child born to his father and the 8th to his mother. All together, his father had 21 children. Also, if I have it figured correctly, the father was almost 60 years old when today’s main character was born. That prolific father was Johann Gottfried Hemmann, and it will be his son, August Hemmann’s, story I will tell today.

August Hemmann was born on May 15, 1853, making today his 168th birthday. He was born to J.G. Hemmann’s second wife, Maria Rosina Hoffmann. August was baptized at Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. His baptism record is displayed below. I find it very interesting that the next baptism record in those church books is that of Ernst Hemmann, who would be August’s nephew, the son of his older half-brother, Wilhelm Hemmann. I don’t suppose you find too many cases of an uncle and his nephew being born within weeks of one another.

August is found in the 1860 census at the age of 7. His 67 year-old father was a farmer. Several older brothers were laborers on that farm.

Next, we find August in the 1870 census as a teenager. His father had died in 1864, so his widowed mother is the head of the household. August was working on his family’s farm.

Now we will take a look at August’s future bride. Her name was Pauline Fiehler, who was born on October 8, 1853. She was the youngest child in the family of Johann Gottlob and Justine Ernestine (Bock) Fiehler. Like August Hemmann, Pauline was baptized at Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. Her baptism record is displayed here. Her record is found on the same page of the Uniontown baptism records as August Hemmann. August was baptism #2; Pauline was baptism #5.

Pauline is found in the 1860 census at the age of 6. Her father was also a farmer.

August and Pauline were in the same Grace, Uniontown confirmation class in 1867. August’s nephew, Ernest, was also in that class.

Next, we find Pauline in the 1870 census as a teenager.

Both of Pauline’s parents died in the 1870’s, and when the 1876 Missouri state census was taken, she was living in the Gottlieb Rudert household. Pauline’s older sister, Ernestine, had married Gottlieb Rudert. The entry shown below which is very difficult to read, shows Pauline at the bottom.

On May 6, 1877, August Hemmann married Pauline Fiehler at Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. The church record for that wedding is shown below. This record which does not contain much information about this wedding is one of 49 records on the same page in that congregation’s marriage records. It is #38 on that list.

We can also view a civil record of that marriage from Perry County.

This couple had 3 children, two girls and a boy. We have to look in the long-lost pages of the Union Township 1880 census to find the Hemmann family. At that point in time, they had their first child, a boy named Gottfried.

The next census we can view is the one taken in 1900. All 3 of their children are included in their household. August was a farmer all his life.

A photograph was taken of the August Hemmann family that included all 3 children.

Their daughter, Rosine, married Joseph Hecht in 1908, so she is no longer in the Hemmann household in the 1910 census.

The 1915 plat maps for Perry County show a parcel of land owned by August Hemmann not far from Uniontown.

The above map shows a school located on their land. That school was called the Fiehler School, and the story behind the name of that school must have something to do with this Hemmann/Fiehler couple.

Another photo was taken of just August and Pauline Hemmann.

The last census in which we find August Hemmann was the one taken in 1920. Both August and Pauline were living in the household of their son, Gottfried, who had married Emma Kanke.

August Hemmann died in 1924 at the age of 71. His death certificate says he died as a result of injuries from a fall.

Pauline was still living in the household of Gottfried Hemmann when the 1930 census was taken.

Pauline Hemmann died in 1932 at the age of 79. Her death certificate gives pneumonia as the cause of death.

Both August and Pauline Hemmann were buried in the Grace Lutheran Cemetery in Uniontown.

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The Hemmann and Fiehler marriage was a combination of two prominent surnames in the early history of Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. In the case of this pair, most of their church records are found on the same page of that congregation’s books. The only exception is that of their death records. I will include them as another example of a man and woman were both born, baptized, confirmed, married, and buried while members of only one congregation.