The surname, Ochs, is one that has become quite prominent in the Perryville vicinity. I did a search on the internet for “Ochs Perryville MO” and found several present-day businesses in the results. I also know that there was once a man named Henry Ochs who was elected to serve the state of Missouri in Jefferson City. Today, I will look at the origins of the Ochs name in Perry County and follow it to the next generations. Coincidentally, I also found that the Ochs name became attached to the Stuebinger name along the way, and just a few days ago, I wrote the story of Henry Stuebinger’s bicentennial birthday. Henry will also be part of this post. It is a Stuebinger girl who inspired this post because she is today’s birthday girl. We’ll get to her later.

I begin this story by displaying the passenger list of a ship that arrived in Baltimore in December of 1839. To put this in perspective, that was about the time the Gruber Group was arriving in New Orleans during that year. It is also about the time when the Log Cabin College opened its doors on December 9, 1839. On this passenger list, you will find two Ochs families.

You will see a Conrad Ochs family and a Michael Ochs family on the above image. If you read the Stuebinger story that I wrote a few days ago, I pointed out that 2 Stuebinger men married Graf girls. You will also see that there is a Magdalene Graf on the above list between the 2 Ochs families. However, I did not find a Magdalene Graf in our German Family Tree. Now, I will share the interesting part. Michael Ochs’s wife, Christina, had the maiden name of Stuebinger. All of the Stuebinger men discussed in the post, Stuebinger Stumper, came to this country in the 1850’s. Now we see evidence that there was a Stuebinger woman already in America in 1839, and she settled in Perry County. Now, we will track the 4 year-old passenger named Johann on the above passenger list, who is also a son of Michael and Christina (Stuebinger) Ochs.

Johann Conrad, born in Germany in 1835, married Magdalena Springer in Perry County in 1858. However, it must have been fairly soon after they got married that they moved to St. Clair County, Illinois. That couple had 6 children, one of which was Johann Heinrich Ochs, who was born on August 23, 1866 in Darmstedt, Illinois, which is located in St. Clair County. That child went by the name, John. We find this Ochs family in the 1870 census living in St. Clair County where John’s father, called Frantz in this entry, was a cooper. John was 4 years old, and all of the children were born in Illinois.

Prior to 1880, this Ochs family moved back to Perry County. The 1880 census finds them living in the Bois Brule Township. John’s father, this time called Conrad, was a saw miller, and John, at the age of 13, helped him at the mill.

Now, we need to turn our attention to the woman who would become John’s wife. Her name was Anna Christine Stuebinger, who was born on December 23, 1866. That qualifies her to be called today’s birthday girl. Today would be her 157th birthday. Anna Christine was the daughter of Henry and Barbara (Kisberdt) Stuebinger, the featured couple in the Stuebinger Stumper story. Anna was probably baptized at Peace Lutheran Church in Friedenberg. She is found in her first census entry in 1870 at the age of 4. Her father was a farmer in the Cinque Hommes Township.

The only other census entry in which we find Anna Christine as a single person was the one taken in 1880. Her father had died in 1872, so her mother was the head of the Stuebinger household that was living in the Salem Township.

I must admit that I was shocked and pleasantly surprised when I found the church marriage record for John Ochs and Anna Stuebinger. That is because Ancestry.com directed me to it. It is included in the Missouri Synod church records collection that I have been mentioning lately in other posts, including the one I wrote yesterday. This one was even more shocking. I have placed records on this blog before that I have gleaned from a binder we have for the Cross Congregation that was in existence for a short time near Longtown. That binder just contains typed transcriptions of that congregation’s records. I have never seen the actual records from that congregation. It is that church’s records that can now be found on Ancestry.com. I can now display the actual marriage record for John and Anna Ochs. That wedding took place on October 26, 1890.

We can also view this couple’s Missouri marriage license.

The German Family Tree lists 7 children born to John and Anna. When the 1900 census was taken, the Ochs family was living in the Bois Brule Township with 4 children. John was a farmer, and a hired hand named Albert Rodewald was helping on his farm and included in this household.

The 1910 census for the Ochs’s has to be shown in 2 images because it spills over 2 pages. There were 6 children in this household.

When the 1915 plat maps were produced for Perry County, we find the John Ochs farm located in the river bottoms north of Menfro and close to the Mississippi River.

Next, we find John and Anna in the 1920 census. Their last 3 children, with the last one born in 1913, were baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Point Rest, which was a congregation located in the river bottoms north of Menfro.

I have this sneaking suspicion that John’s farming career in the Bois Brule Township came to an end as a result of the Flood of 1927 that impacted the Mississippi River bottoms and also caused the closing of the Point Rest church. John died in 1929, and he was buried in the Zion Lutheran Cemetery in Longtown, which indicates that he had moved to the higher ground around Longtown before his death. John died at the age of 62. His death certificate below gives stomach cancer as his cause of death.

Anna Ochs is found in the 1930 census as a widow living in the Union Township. Two sons were still living with her.

The last census in which we find Anna was the one taken in 1940. She was living by herself in Longtown.

Anna Ochs died in 1943 at the age of 76. Her death certificate is pictured here.

Both John and Anna’s church death records are found in the books of Zion Lutheran Church in Longtown, and they are buried together in that congregation’s cemetery.

John Ochs married a Stuebinger. His grandmother was a Stuebinger. I cannot say for sure if those Stuebinger’s are from the same family tree, but I do know they both came from the same vicinity in Bavaria in Germany. The Stuebinger name is not one that I have seen around here these days, but the Ochs name is. Based on this story, I would say that the Stuebinger genes might still be carried by several folks named Ochs that still live around here.