Today, I will add to the list of stories I have written about brides and grooms who had the same surname. Today, the double surname happens to be Hoehn. The result of this Hoehn/Hoehn marriage was 10 pages of descendants listed in our German Family Tree.

The two Hoehn families appear to have arrived at least 10 years apart from one another. I will begin with the bride because she was part of the first Hoehn clan to arrive here and because she may have been born on today’s date. Her name was Louisa Charlotte Hoehn, whose birthday is somewhat debatable. The Friedenberg Remembrances book says she may have been born about November 22, 1841. However, her entry on Findagrave.com says she was born on December 3, 1841. I found no documents to back either of these dates. Even though she has an entry on Findagrave, there is no gravestone photo to view that might give a clue. Louisa was the firstborn child of George Michael and Margaret (Bergmann) Hoehn. There is even reason to doubt the year of Louisa’s birth. A marriage record for her parents says they were married in October of 1841. If this was the case, Louisa would have been born about a month after that wedding. I think that is why some family histories on Ancestry.com say that Louisa was born in November or December of 1842.

The information about Louisa in the Freidenberg Remembrances book is shown here.

Louisa shows up in her first census in 1850 at the age of 9. That age would seem to support an 1841 birth year. Her father was a farmer.

Louisa was married before the next census, so let’s take a look at the Hoehn groom. His name was Adam Hoehn, who is another person with a debatable birthday. The Friedenberg Remembrances book says he was born on June 18, 1832, while his entry on Findagrave.com says he was born on August 18, 1832. Once again, I did not find any documents that could solve this issue. Adam was not born in America. He was born in the Alsace-Lorraine region in Europe, which is located right on the border between France and Germany. When we later see Adam in census entries, he is said to have been born in France. Adam was the son of Adam and Anna Marie (Wolff) Hoehn. Adam came to America with one of his brothers in 1854. We see these two on a passenger list for the ship, Sonter Johnny, which arrived in the New York in 1854. Adam was 22 years old at the time.

We never see Adam in a US census as a single man because he got married in 1859. The information about Adam in the Friedenberg Remembrances book is displayed below.

Adam Hoehn married Louisa Hoehn on January 13, 1859 at Peace Lutheran Church in Friedenberg. We can take a look at the civil marriage record for this couple.

The German Family Tree lists 11 children born to Adam and Louisa. Not all of them lived to adulthood. In fact, when we see the 1860 census that includes this pair, they had their first child, Frederick, but that child died later that year in September.

When the Civil War broke out, Adam spent some time serving in the Union Army. Below are two documents showing his military service during that war.

The only other census in which we find Adam Hoehn was the one taken in 1870.

Sometime along the way, Adam and Louisa had this photograph taken. It actually looks more like a piece of art.

Five more children would be born to this pair in the 1870’s. The last one was born on July 30, 1879. Then on December 29, 1879, a few days after Christmas, Adam died at the age of 47. Louisa must have attended her husband’s funeral accompanied by several very young children. Adam was buried in Peace Lutheran Cemetery in Friedenberg, and in his case, we do have a gravestone photo on Findagrave.

Louisa is still found in the 1880 census as a widow. This time, her family was said to be living in the Central Township. Louisa is called a farmer on this entry. Fortunately, she had two teenage sons who were working on the farm.

Louisa Hoehn died in 1888 at the age of 46, so neither she nor her husband made it to the age of 50. In Louisa’s case, she died at a time when Perry County kept death records. We can take a look at Louisa’s death record in two images. For some reason, she was said to be 48 years old on this form when she died.

As said before, there is no gravestone photo on Findagrave.com for Louise. However, the Friedenberg information shown earlier says she was called Lucy on her tombstone.

Because of the deaths of Adam and Louisa at relatively young ages, some of the younger children in their family had to spend part of their lives being raised by people other than their parents.

I am going to beg your forgiveness because I am going to close this post with the type of thing that used to get moans and groans from my students back in the days when I was a teacher. So, here goes:

If I was to call today’s couple the HOehn/HOehn HOokup, then I guess I would be sending you the Christmas greeting…..HO HO HO!