The birthday boy for today’s post is Alwin Herman Valentin Leine who was born on June 19, 1882. Yesterday’s story highlighted the life of Gustav Schilling, who was born in Frohna on June 18, 1882, so Alwin was born the next day. Alwin was born in the northern part of Cape Girardeau County near New Wells. He was the last child born in the family of August and Louise (Martin) Leine. Alwin was baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New Wells. An image of his baptism record from that congregation’s books is displayed below.

Because he was born after the 1880 census, and the 1890 census cannot be viewed, the first census in which we should find Alwin was the one taken in 1900. He would have been about 18 years old at that time, but I was unsuccessful at finding him in that year’s census. His mother had died in 1897, so his father was a widower. I did find his father’s household in the 1900 census. He was living in the Shawnee Township, but Alwin was not listed in his entry. That was also the year that Alwin’s father died. That means I cannot display a census entry for Alwin until after he got married. So, let’s turn our attention to the woman who would become Alwin’s bride.

Clara Louise Dickmann was born on September 3, 1879, the daughter of William and Maria (Tuschoff) Dickmann. I strongly suspect that Clara was baptized at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Arnsberg. That congregation existed for just a short time, and their church records have been lost, so I cannot show her baptism record. We have an Arnsberg binder in our research library which contains some reconstructed facts about that congregation, and in that binder, we find this page that describes the William Dickmann family.

Since Clara was born before 1880, we are able to see her in a census as a baby girl. Her father was a farmer in the Apple Creek Township.

Next, we find Clara in the 1900 census when she was 21 years old. Her mother had died in 1883 when Clara was just 4 years old.

Alwin Leine married Clara Dickmann on October 27, 1907. This is where I ran into a problem that had a pretty amazing solution. I found a place on Ancestry.com that looked as if it was going to take me to a page that displayed this couple’s marriage license. When I opened that page, I found the license shown here. It was the marriage license for Clara L. Dickmann marrying Norbert Sewing on that date, October 27, 1907.

I immediately thought that the date of the Leine/Dickmann marriage was wrong. I left that page and went back to find the proper record. The only place that was indexed for the Leine/Dickmann marriage was the same one I had gone to before. I eventually went back to look at it again. Sure enough, this Ancestry page was listed as being the one for Alwin Leine and Clara Dickmann. Eventually, I got around to looking at the record found just below the one shown above. There it was! The correct record for the Leine/Dickmann wedding was right below the Sewing/Dickmann wedding. This became even more amazing when I noticed that, not only did these two weddings take place on October 27, 1907, but they apparently took place at the same church and the brides had the same names. The name of the pastor on each document was August Henry Gassner. Here is the license for Alwin and Clara.

These two marriage documents sent me down a few more rabbit holes. First, I wanted to know who the other Clara Dickmann was. I eventually discovered that she was Clara Elizabeth Dickmann, the daughter of Charles and Mary (Dambach) Dickmann and born in 1885. That means there is another puzzling thing about the two marriage licenses. The Sewing/Dickmann license gives the bride’s name as Clara L. Dickmann, and her name was Clara E. Dickmann. The Leine/Dickmann license just gives the bride’s name as Clara, but her actual middle initial was “L”.

The next rabbit hole I looked in involved a trip to our museum. I figured there was a good chance that both of the above marriages took place at Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim. I knew that the Arnsberg church had closed by this time, and I also knew that both Alwin and Clara had Lutheran backgrounds. We have the Trinity, Friedheim church books in our library, but they have not yet been indexed and placed in our German Family Tree. I hit pay dirt. The church marriage records for both of those weddings are found there. I was hoping that they would be right under each other so that I could display them in one image, but it just so happens that one of the records is the last one on a page, and the other is the first one on the next page. Here is the record for the Leine/Dickmann marriage. This document says that both Alwin and Clara were from Daisy, Missouri.

The Sewing/Dickmann marriage record is shown here. This document says Norbert was from Friedheim and Clara was from Arnsberg.

Alwin and Clara are found in the 1910 census living in the Apple Creek Township with Clara’s father. They had one child by that time. Alwin was helping with William Dickmann on his farm.

Alwin had a World War I draft registration completed in 1918. It gives his address as Daisy, Missouri and his occupation as a blacksmith.

The map below gives the locations of Friedheim, Arnsberg, and Daisy. They were all quite near one another.

It appears that Alwin and Clara had 3 children, one of which died right away. We find this couple still living in the Apple Creek Township in the 1920 census, and Alwin was a blacksmith.

The 1930 census has the Leine household living in Daisy. One of their sons was also in the blacksmithing business, and the other worked in a garage doing auto repair.

When the 1940 census was taken, we find Alwin still working as a blacksmith and both sons working as auto mechanics.

The last census in which we find Alwin and Clara was the one taken in 1950. Their son, Walter and his wife, Florence were living in their household.

Alwin Leine died in 1955 at the age of 73. Several causes of death are listed on his death certificate.

Clara Leine died in 1969 at the age of 89. We can also take a look at her death certificate.

Alwin and Clara both have entries on Findagrave.com for Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Friedheim, but neither one has a gravestone photo.

Now that I have written this story, I might have to publish another one later about that other Clara Dickmann who got married on the same day as the Clara Dickmann in this post. I took a little time attempting to find some sort of family relationship between the two Clara Dickmann’s, but failed. Perhaps one of our readers knows if those two were related.