Andreas and Anna were married on this date 143 years ago. You will read their story today. I will begin with the groom.

Georg Andreas Dietrich Hilpert was born on December 7, 1852, the son of George and Anna (Popp) Hilpert. He was the 6th child in a family of 7. He was baptized at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna, Missouri. An image of his baptism record is shown below.

This child went by the name of Andreas or Andrew during his life. Andrew shows up in his first census in 1860 at the age of 7. His father was a farmer.

Andrew was a teenager when the 1870 census was taken. You can see that Andrew’s parents were both from the Bavarian region in Germany.

We will now take a look at the bride, Anna. Anna Ross was born on October 18, 1860, the daughter of John and Gertrude (Distle) Ross. She was the 4th child born into a family of 10. Like her future husband, Anna was baptized at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna. Her baptism record is displayed here.

Anna barely missed being included in the 1860 census, so the only census in which we find Anna as a single person was the one taken in 1870. She was listed as 8 years old, but I think she was at least 9, and her father was a farmer. We also see here that her parents both were from the Bavarian region of Germany.

Andrew Hilpert married Anna Ross on October 10, 1878, and, as you may have expected, they were married at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna. The church record for this wedding is pictured below.

We can also view a civil record from Perry County for this marriage. It is included with a few other weddings that took place in 1878 at Concordia.

Our German Family Tree lists 8 children born to this couple. All of their children were baptized at Concordia, Frohna. The 1880 census is the first one in which we find this married pair. They were living in the same household as Andrew’s father and his sister. Andrew and Anna had their first child, a daughter named Martha.

Between that census and the next one, the rest of the Hilpert children were added to the family. However, it was also true that Anna died in 1898, so Andrew was a widower in the 1900 census. Another interesting fact is that their oldest daughter, Martha, died in 1889, and when another daughter had been born in 1892, that daughter was also named Martha. In this census, Martha is an 8 year-old daughter.

Andrew Hilpert married again in 1902. His second wife was Josephine (Bruhl) Palisch. A post was written especially about Josephine titled, Josephine’s Frohna Fellows. The marriage license for this event is shown here.

You might find it interesting that the pastor who performed the above marriage, Rev. William Zschoche, had a daughter who married Rev. George Hilpert, Andrew’s nephew. We can also take a look at the church record for this wedding.

When the 1910 census was taken, we see the following Hilpert household. It included one of the sons from Josephine’s first husband.

The plat maps for Perry County produced in 1915 show the Andrew Hilpert farm located not far from Frohna.

Josephine Hilpert died in 1918 at the age of 52, leaving Andrew once again as a widower.

Both of Andrew’s wives were buried in the Concordia Lutheran Cemetery in Frohna.

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It looks as if Andrew was living in the Wittenberg area by the time the 1920 census was taken. One of his daughters, Emma, had married Joseph Jacob, who had a garage and auto dealership in Wittenberg, so Andrew may have moved closer to her. In the 1920 census, we find Andrew living with his daughter, Martha (the second one). At the age of 67, Andrew had no occupation listed.

Andrew Hilpert died in 1924 at the age of 71, although his death certificate does not give his age at death for some reason. He almost made it to his 72nd birthday. Cancer of the stomach is given as the cause of death.

The death record for Andrew is found in the books of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Wittenberg, and it is in their cemetery in which we find Andrew’s gravestone.

Andrew Hilpert spent most of his life living near Frohna and worshiping at Concordia Lutheran Church. Only later in his life do we find him in Wittenberg. Andrew is the only person buried in the St. Paul’s Lutheran Cemetery in Wittenberg with the surname, Hilpert, according to Findagrave.

On a personal note, my father sometimes talked about one of the teachers he had growing up in Wittenberg by the name of George Stohs. Teacher Stohs married Lorine Jacob, who was Andrew Hilpert’s granddaughter.