Two days ago, I published the post, A Pair of Perr’s, and in it, I said that folks around here pronounce the name, Perr, as “pair”. I will be telling the story of another Perr today, and, believe it or not, I found evidence that this name was pronounced as “pair” in this area a long time ago. This post will be about Edward Perr’s older brother, Herman, and his family. Please indulge me for displaying this image of an older pair of pears to illustrate the title of today’s post.

Herman Joseph Perr was born on August 11, 1875, the firstborn child of Joseph and Maria (Kraml) Perr. Herman was baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New Wells. An image of his baptism record from that congregation’s books is pictured here.

At this point, I would like to share with you a technique that I have only recently used to find a census entry that is particularly troubling. My problem was that I found no family trees on Ancestry.com that included the 1880 census entry for the Perr family, nor could one find it by doing a search for the surname Perr in the Ancestry 1880 census records. I tried another ploy. I entered the first name, Herman, in the search on Ancestry, and I included his year of birth. The only other entry I made for this search was the location, in this case, Cape Girardeau County. When doing this, there are not that many results that show up, and in this case, I found an entry for Herman Bear. Bingo! It was the correct Perr family. And not only that, it looks to me like the census taker heard the pronunciation of the name, Perr, as “pair” and must have thought he heard Bear. Below is the 1880 census entry for the Bear family, only now I know it is the Perr family. Herman’s father was a farmer in the Shawnee Township.

I am going to once again display this Perr family photo that I figure was taken in about 1895. I will let you decide which of the men in the photo would be the oldest son, Herman.

We cannot view another census for Herman until 1900. Herman was still single and living with his parents at the age of 25. He was working on his father’s farm.

Now, we will take a look at the woman who would become Herman’s bride, who happens to also be today’s birthday girl. Her name was Clara Marie Schneider, who was born on August 17, 1883, so today would be her 140th birthday. She was the daughter of Emil and Theresie (Meyr) Schneider. Clara was also baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New Wells. Her baptism record is shown here.

I had the same problem with finding the Schneider family in the 1900 census as I experienced with Herman Perr. No family tree exhibited that year’s census entry for the Schneider’s on Ancestry.com, and I could not find them in a regular search. So, I put in the first name, Clara, the year of birth, 1883, and the location as Cape Girardeau County This time, one of the results was Clara Schender. Indeed, this was the correct Schneider family. That census entry is pictured below. Clara’s father had died in January of that year, so Theresie was the head of the household and also called the farmer. Clara, at the age of 16, was the oldest child in her family. Two younger brothers, aged 12 and 14, were helping on the farm.

Herman Perr married Clara Schneider on December 26, 1905 at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New Wells. This looks like one of those weddings in which the bride and groom had to wait till the Advent season and Christmas were over to get married and found the earliest opportunity on the day after Christmas. The church record for this wedding is displayed below.

The marriage license for this pair of Perr’s can also be viewed.

According to our German Family Tree, this couple had 4 children, all of which were baptized at Immanuel, New Wells. When the 1910 census was taken, we find 2 children in their household. Herman was a farmer in the Shawnee Township.

Herman Perr had his World War I draft registration completed in 1917, His address is given as Neely’s Landing.

The 1920 census includes all 4 of the Perr children.

Next, we find the Perr family in the 1930 census. Just the 2 youngest sons were still living with them, and Herbert was helping Herman on his farm.

It was that year that the plat maps were produced for Cape Girardeau County. The map below shows several Perr farms, one of which is that of Herman Perr. Perhaps this would be described as a bushel of Perr farms.

The 1940 census shows Herman, Clara, and the young family of their son, Herbert, who had married Viola Hutteger.

The last census we can view is the one taken in 1950. Once again, we see the older pair of Perr’s with their son, Herbert’s family. You can also see that right below their entry is that of Margaretha Perr, the wife of Edward Perr, who we found out 2 days ago had died in 1944, so Margaretha was a widow.

Herman Perr died a year later in 1951 at the age of 75. His death certificate below says he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Clara Perr died in 1971 at the age of 87. Her death certificate can also be viewed.

Herman and Clara Perr are each buried in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in New Wells.

Herman and Clara are yet another one of those couples in which both the bride and the groom were born, baptized, confirmed, were married, raised a family, died, and were buried while being members of the same congregation, Immanuel, New Wells. I will use the pear reference one more time. I guess you could says this Older Pair of Perr’s remained in the same orchard all their lives.