For a number of years, I worked as an election official in Altenburg. On several occasions, I made the trip to Perryville after the polls closed to deliver the results. I know there was some discussion on occasion about which poll location would be the last ones to deliver the results. It was often between the Altenburg location and the one in the village of Yount. On the map below, you will see that Altenburg is in the southeast corner of the county, and Yount is in the southwest corner, and both are about as far from Perryville as you can be in Perry County. I bring this up because today’s main character spent her life living near Yount.

Before I describe the life of today’s character, let me say a few things about her surname, Yamnitz. There are not many folks included in our German Family Tree with that surname, and, as of right now, all of the Yamnitz’s are in the family of Friedrich Ernst Yamnitz, who had several children with his 2 wives. None of those children have baptism records included in our GFT. Perhaps when we add a few more church records to the GFT, like the ones from Trinity, Friedheim, we might find some of those baptism records. About the only church records that we have in the GFT are some marriage records and some death records. Several of the Yamnitz’s are found in Lutheran cemeteries, including the one I will be writing about today. One of the Yamnitz family members was discussed in the post, The Boxdorfer’s – Louis, Sophia, and Anna.

Louisa Caroline Yamnitz was born on June 22, 1871, so today would be her 152nd birthday. Louisa was the very first child born to Friedrich Ernst Yamnitz and his first wife, Caroline Bangert. Since I knew that Caroline Bangert was likely a member at Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim, I took a chance to look in the books of that congregation for Louisa’s baptism record. I succeeded, but there is a bit of a puzzle. Her baptism record does not contain the name, Louisa, which is the name she used throughout her life. It calls her Carolina Wilhelmina. I know this is the correct record because it contains her date of birth as well as the names of her father and mother.

Louisa is found in the 1880 census at the age of 9. The Yamnitz family was living in the Union Township, but not the one in Perry County. They lived in the Union Township in Bollinger County.

I already said the Yamnitz’s lived near Yount, and that village is located in Perry County. This can be explained by looking at the map below. The square shaded area shows the boundary of the Union Township in Bollinger County. You can see how close that township is to the little village of Yount.

Since we cannot view another census until 1900, twenty years of time passed in the meantime. Plenty of events would have taken place during that time in the Yamnitz family. One thing that happened was the death of Louisa’s mother in 1881. Her father then married again. His second wife was Maria Brickhaus, and several more Yamnitz children were born to that couple. Another thing that happened was the formation of another Lutheran church in the village of Lixville. Lixville can be seen on the map below that shows it not far from Yount.

That congregation’s records begin in the late 1890’s, and by then, Louisa would have been past her confirmation year. However, some of her sibling (actually half-siblings from her father’s second marriage to Maria Brickhaus) have their confirmation records in that congregation’s books. We have those books in our museum, but they have not been indexed and placed into our German Family Tree yet. We find Louisa in the 1900 census at the age of 30 (probably only 29) and still single. I will point out now that Louisa would never get married. Louisa was actually only about 6 or 7 years younger that her stepmother. She also had a younger half-sibling who was just 3 years old, who was over 25 years younger than she was. Her father was a farmer.

I found other evidence that members of this Yamnitz family were members of the Lixville Lutheran Church. We find them in the communion records, as shown in the image below. These communion records were from the years not long after the turn of the century.

The Lixville Lutheran Church only existed until 1910. After that year, there is evidence that the Yamnitz family became members of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Perryville. They still lived on the same farm located in Bollinger County, as we see in the census for 1910 and later ones. Two more daughters had been born during the previous decade, so now Louisa had a 4 year-old half-sibling who was over 35 years younger than she was.

Louisa’s father died in 1923, and he was buried in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Perryville. In his obituary, it mentions that Louisa and her single brother, George, were still living on the home place.

The 1930 census shows Louisa living with her younger brother, George, who was a farmer. Both Louisa and George were in their 50’s and single.

Next, we find Louisa in the 1940 census. In addition to Louisa and her brother George, both in their 60’s, we find a second cousin by the name of William Kelller, who was also a single man in his 50’s. George and William were doing the farming.

Louisa and George are found in one more census in 1950.

George Yamnitz died in 1955 at the age of 76. Louisa Yamnitz died in 1959 at the age of 87, so she wasn’t just a Yount youngun’ as the title of this post indicates. I guess you could say that she became an oldun’. Her death certificate is displayed below which says she was a patient at the Perry County Memorial Hospital in Perryville when she died.

Both George and Louisa Yamnitz are buried in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Perryville.

It appears to me that Louisa, despite never getting married, may have lived alone for only the 4 years after her brother George died. She was always living with members of her Yamnitz family. Despite being single all her years, plenty of her life must have been spent doing household duties that would normally be done by a wife in support of other men doing farm work in the household.