Lydia Emily Lungwitz was born on August 1, 1882, so she is today’s birthday girl. Lydia was the daughter of Herman and Mathilde (Meyr) Lungwitz. It’s a bit of a mystery about where Lydia was baptized. No such record is included in the German Family Tree. However, she had an older brother, born in 1880, and a younger brother, born in 1884, who were both baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg, Missouri. We do not find Lydia in a census until we look at the one taken in 1900. At that time, she was 17 years old, and her father was a farmer.

Lydia’s husband was going to be Ernst Jacob Boehme, who was born on January 10, 1874. Ernst was from a very interesting family. His parents were Ludwig and Sarah (Hartung) Boehme. When Ernst was born in 1874, he had a twin sister by the name of Clara. Then, just two years later, another set of twins was born to this Boehme couple. Both sets of twins were made up of a boy and a girl. A story was written back in 2016 on this blog titled, Twin Twins. Ernst Boehme was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. The baptism records of the Boehme twins, Ernst and Clara, are displayed below.

Ernst is found in the 1880 census living in the Brazeau Township. Both sets of twins are included in this entry. Ernst and Clara were 6 years old.

The next census we can view including Ernst was the one taken in 1900.

Several events took place in 1903 that pertain to this story. On May 3rd, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Wittenberg held its first service as an official congregation. At the end of May, Ernst’s twin sister, Clara, got married at another St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. That was the one located in Jackson, Missouri. Then, on November 8, 1903, Ernst Boehme married Lydia Lungwitz. The church record for that wedding is found in the books of Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg.

We can also take a look at the marriage license for this pair.

Our German Family Tree lists 8 children born into this Boehme family. Three of them were born by the time of the 1910 census. Another one would be born later that year. All of Ernst and Lydia’s children were baptized at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Wittenberg.

The 1915 plat maps for Perry County show the Ernst Boehme farm not far from the Mississippi River and the town of Wittenberg.

Ernst had his World War I draft registration completed in 1918. It gives his address as Wittenberg, Missouri.

We find the Boehme household in the 1920 census. Ernst was a farmer all his life.

The last child in this Boehme family was born in 1921. That child would be the only Boehme child to be baptized in St. Paul’s new church sanctuary that was dedicated in 1920. Next, we find the Boehme family in the 1930 census.

Finally, we can take a look at the Ernst Boehme household in the 1940 census. Only their youngest daughter remained living with them.

Ernst Boehme died in 1944 at the age of 70. His death certificate states that his cause of death was cancer of the stomach.

Lydia Boehme did not die until 1975 at the age of 92. She died on the Fourth of July in 1975, exactly one year before our country celebrated its Bicentennial Birthday. She died too recently for us to view her death certificate. Later in their lives, the Boehme’s must have become members of Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. It is that congregation’s cemetery in which Ernst and Lydia are buried.

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Ernst and Lydia Boehme were married toward the end of 1903. According to the communion records shown below from St. Paul’s, Wittenberg, Ernst was a communicant member of that congregation during that year.

If that couple’s wedding would have taken place at St. Paul’s, I think that event would have been included in my book, Wittenberg ’03, especially since that would have been the first marriage to take place in that congregation. As it turned out, it was the wedding of Otto Lueders and Lydia Weinhold that became the first marriage in that congregation’s books, and it is that couple that became main characters in my Wittenberg books. I’m thinking that the Boehme/Lungwitz wedding took place in Altenburg because Lydia’s family were members of that congregation.

I may have to write the story of Ernst’s twin sister, Clara, someday. I have a tendency to be attracted to stories about twins. Perhaps that’s because I have twin granddaughters. Last week, those twins visited us, and we took a trip down to the Wittenberg area and posed for this photo in front of Tower Rock.