We begin today with the birth of Paul Gotthilf Hemmann, who was born on January 15, 1860. Gotthilf was the second-to-the-last child born to Johann Gottfried Hemmann, who fathered 21 children with two wives. Gotthilf was a son of the second wife, Rosina Hoffmann. One might be amazed to know that J.G. Hemmann was about 67 years old when Gotthilf was born, except for the fact that J.G. fathered another child in 1864 when he was over 70 years old. Gotthilf was baptized at Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. His baptism record from that congregation’s books is displayed below.

Gotthilf was born early enough in the year to be included in the 1860 census. He was listed as 5/12 years old. As you can see, he would grow up in a rather large household.

The next census taken in 1870 shows Gotthilf at the age of 10. By that time, J.G. Hemmann had died, so Rosina is the head of the household.

The last census in which we find Gotthilf as a single man is the one taken in 1880. In this case, we find him in the long-lost pages of the Union Township census. Gotthilf was living in the Charles Frentzel household and was called a laborer.

Now, we need to take a look at the woman who would become Gotthilf’s bride. Her name was Ellen Strehlein. I do not know when Ellen was born, but it must have been about 1865. We find her in the 1870 census for Cape Girardeau, Missouri at the age of 5. Ellen and another girl by the name of Amelia Tinapple were living in the household of William Woeleke.

When the 1880 census was taken, we find Ellen still living with the Woeleke’s. This time there was an 8 year-old girl named Christina Langheim living in the household. Ellen and Christina were called adopted daughters.

Here is another fact associated with this story. In 1876, Amelia Tinapple married Rev. W.G. Polack, Jr., who would become the pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown from 1880-1886. Rev. Polack’s father, Rev. W.G. Polack, Sr., was the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Cape Girardeau at about this time. Here’s what I think happened. The pastor’s wife, Amelia Polack introduced her younger “orphan-sister” to a young bachelor in Uniontown, and those two would get married. The matchmaking was successful.

On November 18, 1883, Gotthilf Hemmann married Ellen Strehlein at Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. We can take a look at the church record for that wedding.

This form says that Ellen was a W. Woeleke pflegedochter. That word has been translated as stepdaughter in our German Family Tree. Google Translate says this word means foster daughter. I lean toward saying that Ellen was an adopted orphan.

No children are listed in our German Family Tree for Gotthilf and Ellen. That doesn’t mean they didn’t have any. When we look at the next census containing this family, we find them living in St. Louis. Gotthilf is mistakenly called Gustav, and there were two children, one born in 1887 and another in 1896. Gotthild was a day laborer.

I questioned whether this was the right family, but then I found this World War I draft registration for a William Ulysses Hemmann. He was living in San Diego, California, but it says he was born in St. Louis on April 28, 1896.

Since Gotthilf is called a widower in the next census, one must assume that Ellen had died sometime after 1900 and before 1910. I could not find evidence of her death, which likely occurred in St. Louis. It is the next census in which we find Gotthilf that I find especially interesting. At the age of 50, Gotthilf is called a carpenter at a “home farm”. If you look at the following entries, you find a cook, a few nurses, a teacher, and a shoemaker. Then, following those entries, you find numerous names of children that are called orphans. That list goes on for several census pages.

That “home farm” was the Lutheran Orphans Home that was located in the suburb of St. Louis called Des Peres. Here is a drawing of that institution that is now in the collections of the Concordia Historical Institute in St. Louis.

I think you would find this video produced by a PBS station in St. Louis interesting. It gives a shout-out to Rev. J.F. Buenger, one of the builders of the Log Cabin College in 1839, and also the man credited for establishing this orphanage. It also gives a very nice history of this institution. It’s only 9 minutes long, and I think it is well worth watching.

I must admit that the thought crossed my mind that the children living in the Woeleke family may have previously been housed at the Lutheran orphanage in St. Louis.

Gotthilf disappears at this point. I was unable to find him in a 1920 census, although, as said before, his son was living in San Diego in 1917. It is in San Diego that we find Gotthilf in the 1930 census. The census entry was for National City, which is located in San Diego. Gotthilf was a gardener for a private family at the age of 70.

A few family trees on Ancestry.com state that Gotthilf died in 1933 in Cheyenne, Colorado, but no documentation is given to confirm this. I also was unable to find Gotthilf on Findagrave.

I find Gotthilf’s story quite fascinating. He grew up in a house full of other children. He would marry a woman who was likely an orphan, married by a pastor whose wife was likely an orphan. Then, after his wife died, he ends up working at an orphanage. That’s a storyline that you don’t see very often.

I’m thinking that I might have to write the story of Rev. Polack marrying Amelia Tinapple someday.