A marriage took place on this date 150 years ago. Just yesterday, I composed a post that had connections to a recently-published story titled, Pocahontas Mueller’s. The couple celebrating a special anniversary today once again is connected to that story…from two different directions. It is another story which links together a couple in which the bride had origins in Frohna and the groom was from New Wells. Finally, it is a post in which the highlighted couple does not remain in Missouri.
I will begin with the bride. Her name was Pauline Amalie Schuppan, who was born on October 13, 1848. Amalie, often called Mollie, was the daughter of Adolph and Amelia (Vogel) Schuppan. For some reason, Amalie’s gravestone would be inscribed with a birth year of 1850, and several family trees on Ancestry.com state that she was born in 1850, but her baptism record is included amongst other baptisms that took place in 1848. She was baptized at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna. We can take a look at her baptism record from that congregation’s books.
Amalie is found in her first census in 1850 at the age of 2 (which gives even more credence to an 1848 year of birth). Her father was a cabinet maker in the Brazeau Township.
Next, we find Amalie in the 1860 census. Her family was still living in the Brazeau Township. A potential problem in identifying Schuppan daughters comes from the fact that one was called Amalie (today’s character) and another was called Amelia. Both are in this entry.
I was unable to find Amalie in the 1870 census. However, her older brother, Louis Schuppan, was living in the Shawnee Township when that census was taken. Amalie’s father had died in 1867, and her mother was living with Louis’s family in New Wells.
The man who Amalie would marry lived in the Shawnee Township. His name was Joseph Kieninger, who was born on November 6, 1850 in Gosau, Austria. Joseph was the son of another Joseph Kieninger and his wife, whose maiden name was Eva Putz. Joseph arrived in Baltimore in 1858. On the passenger list below, he is said to be 7 years old. This passenger list was displayed in the recent post, Pocahontas Mueller’s, because Joseph was the older brother of Katherine Kieninger, who married Henry Mueller.
Joseph is found living in the Shawnee Township at the age of 10 when the 1860 census was taken . His father was a farmer.
Next, we find Joseph in the 1870 census at the age of 19. He was working on his father’s farm.
Joseph Kieninger married Amalie Schuppan on November 21, 1872, making today their 150th anniversary. These two were married at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New Wells. The church record for this wedding is pictured here.
A civil marriage record can also be viewed.
The first 2 children born to Joseph and Amalie were baptized at Immanuel, New Wells, but sometime after 1875 when the 2nd child was born, the Kieninger’s moved to Kansas. In Kansas, this couple had quite a few more children. There are several family trees on Ancestry.com for the Kieninger’s, but there is no apparent agreement on how many children were in their family. When the 1880 census was taken, we find the Kieninger’s in the Jefferson Township of Davis County, Kansas with 3 children. Davis County (named after Jefferson Davis, was later renamed Geary County). Joseph was a farmer.
At this point, I want to point out another connection between this couple and the Mueller/Kieninger couple in the “Pocahontas Mueller’s” story, one that connects the Schuppan family, not just the Kieninger family. Amalie had a sister, the one I mentioned earlier named Amelia, who married Rev. Friedrich Mueller, and Pastor Mueller was the brother of both Henry Mueller, the Pocahontas Mueller and Theodore Mueller, one of the main characters in yesterday’s post, Another Emma Thomas. Pastor Mueller and Amelia’s story was written in the post, Rev. Mueller – From Clark’s Creek to Caesar Creek. That post said those Mueller’s were living in the Jefferson Township in Kansas in 1880. It is likely that the Kieninger’s moved to that area because Amalie’s sister was there.
Geary County, Kansas became the home of several natives of the Perry/Cape Girardeau County area over the years. Several previous posts have told stories of such folks moving to Geary County. It appears that sometime later in the 1880’s, this Kieninger family relocated again. They spent the rest of their lives in Topeka, Kansas. That is where we find them in the 1900 census with 4 remaining children. Joseph is called a day laborer. We see Amalie called Mollie in this entry.
The 1910 census shows Joseph as a watchman. The household is down to 2 remaining daughters.
The last census in which we find Joseph and Mollie was the one taken in 1920. Joseph was a night watchman for a dry goods store. Just their single daughter, Cecelia, was living in their household with them.
Later in 1920, Amalie Kieninger died at the age of 69. Ten years later, in 1930, Joseph Kieninger died at the age of 79. He died before that year’s census was taken. Both Amalie and Joseph are buried in the Topeka Cemetery in Topeka, Kansas.
It just so happens that the city of Topeka is located in Shawnee County. That means the Kieninger family managed to move from the Shawnee Township in Missouri to the Shawnee County in Kansas.