In a previous post, Double Stepmother – Never a Birth Mother, the story was told of a woman who was the stepmother of William Schuessler. William was briefly mentioned in that post. Today, I will spend some time focusing on William, who is today’s birthday boy. William is the grandfather of one of our museum’s docents, Richard Schuessler. I wish I had a few minutes to sit down with Richard today to ask him some questions about William’s life.

Wilhelm Gottfried Reinhold Schuessler was born on September 29, 1886, so today would be his 137th birthday. He would go by the more Americanized name, William, during his life. He was the son of Stephanus and Linna (Weinhold) Schuessler. William was born during the time when Perry County kept birth records. His birth record is shown below in two images. It indicates that he was born in Frohna.

William was baptized at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna. We can take a look at his baptism record from that congregation’s books below.

William had a sister born in March of 1890. Then, in May of that year, his mother died, leaving Stephanus as a widower with 4 year-old William and his baby sister, Alma. In November of 1890, Alma died. Both Linna and Alma were buried in Concordia Lutheran Cemetery in Frohna, but they each have no regular stone to mark their graves. They are found with some markers that Concordia placed later in their cemetery to mark the graves of people who had not been marked by their families at the time of their deaths.

Stephanus got married again in 1892. His second wife was Amalia Seibel. That marriage lasted only 6 months because Stephanus died later that same year. He died at the time when Perry County kept death records, and the one for Stephanus is shown here.

There is no death record listed in our GFT for Stephanus (at least not as of today), but I took a look for it anyway. I found it. An image of it is shown below.

Stephanus does not have an entry on Findagrave.com, nor does he have a gravestone in Trinity’s cemetery (at least I don’t think so). However, he is likely buried in this area of that cemetery where there are quite a few plots that are not marked.

This all means that William had quite a tragic childhood. And after it was all said and done, he was going to be raised by his stepmother, whose photo is shown here.

When the 1900 census was taken, we find William living with Amalia. Their household is listed right below that of Stephanus’s parents, so I think it is likely that these two were taken in by William’s grandparents. It is not shown in this image, but William was called a farm laborer in this entry.

During the same year as the above census, William was confirmed, and his confirmation record is found in the books of Trinity, Altenburg.

I am now going to switch over to talk about the woman who would become William’s wife. Her name was Agnes Mathilda Walther, who was born on June 17, 1883. She went by the name Mathilda or Tillie and was the daughter of Franz and Maria (Weseloh) Walther. She was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. Her baptism record is pictured below.

Mathilda was confirmed at Trinity, Altenburg in 1897. Her confirmation record is shown here.

The only census entry we find in which Mathilda was still single is the one taken in 1900. Like was the case with William Schuessler, Mathilda lost her father at a young age. Franz Walther died in 1898, so he is not found in the entry below. Mathilda is called Tillie. Her older brother, Heinrich, and a hired hand named Rudy Lohmann, were doing the farming.

Now, I have to point out another puzzle. It appears that William Schuessler married Mathilda Walther around 1909, but not only is there not a church marriage record to be found in any Perry County Lutheran church books, but I could not find a civil marriage license for Perry County. The year, 1909, turned out to be filled with events in the Schuessler family. Amalia Schuessler got married again in January of that year to Wilhelm Rodewald. Then, in November of 1909, the first child was born to William and Mathilda. In the 1910 census, we find this new couple with that one son who was still a baby. William was a farmer in the Union Township.

William and Mathilda have 8 children listed in our German Family Tree. One of them was stillborn and not all of them lived to adulthood. The first one born in 1909 was baptized at Zion Lutheran Church in Longtown. The 2nd child has no baptism recorded in our GFT, and the rest of the children were baptized at Zion Lutheran Church in Crosstown. When William had his World War I draft registration completed, he was given a Menfro address, and it says he had 4 children.

The 1920 census shows the Schuessler household living in the Salem Township with 5 sons.

The next census, the one taken in 1930, lists 7 children in the Schuessler family. William’s stepmother, Amalia Rodewald’s husband had died in 1924, and now she was living with her stepson.

The last census in which we find William is the one taken in 1940. This time, the Schuessler’s were living in the Bois Brule Township. Just 2 sons were still living with William and Mathilda, along with Amalia Rodewald.

William Schuessler died in 1946 at the age of 60. He died in Evansville, Illinois. An obituary for William was printed in the Perry County Republican.

The obituary says William had a home in Evansville. The widow, Mathilda Schuessler, is found in the 1950 census living with her son, Alfred Schuessler’s family in Evansville.

Mathilda Schuessler died in 1957 at the age of 74. She also died in Randolph County, Illinois, but both William and Mathilda are buried together in the Home Cemetery in Perryville.

Despite the fact that today’s couple was made up of two people with surnames that are prominently included in the church books around Perry County, this story just does not fit the mold of most of the stories I write on this blog. It has missing gravestones, a missing marriage record, a missing baptism record, and even though they spent most of their lives in Perry County, they lived in 4 different townships and are buried in another. And they are buried in a non-Lutheran cemetery. This story just gives me a feeling of being different.

One more thing. When I wrote the story about Amalia (Seibel)(Schuessler) Rodewald, I was not in Altenburg and could not visit our cemetery. But I got the chance this morning to look for her gravesite. I did not find a gravestone, but I did find the location where she must be buried. That location is in the photo below.

The gravestone on the right is marked Eva Fischer, and the one on the left is marked Louise Hellwege. As you can see on Amalia’s death record below, she would have been buried between those two.