Friederick Oswald Schade was born on December 29, 1867, so he qualifies to be today’s birthday baby boy. Oswald would be celebrating his 156th birthday today. Oswald was the 4th child born to his parents, August and Elizabeth (Brandt) Schade, according to our German Family Tree. He was baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Altenburg. Like several other baptism records I have included on this blog at the end of the year, Oswald was not baptized until January of 1868. He was the first baby to be baptized in 1868 at Immanuel. Oswald’s baptism record from that congregation’s books is pictured here.

Oswald was 2 years old when the 1870 census was taken. His father was a farmer in the Brazeau Township.

Oswald’s father died in 1876, so when the 1880 census was taken, his mother was the head of the household. This entry says Oswald was going to school at the age of 12.

Oswald was confirmed at Immanuel, Altenburg in 1881. For some unknown reason, a page from the Immanuel church books is missing from our collection, so I cannot display his confirmation record. Not much can be determined about Oswald’s life in his younger years. We are unable to view his entry in the 1890 census because those records were destroyed in a fire. I was able to locate the photo shown below which must have been taken when Oswald was a younger man. He was sporting quite an impressive handlebar mustache.

I did a search on a collection of newspaper archives for local newspapers. The earliest entry that mentioned Oswald that I found was this short article found in a section called “Altenburg News”. It was published in the Perry County Republican in 1898, and it said Oswald was from Wittenberg, but apparently was riding a new bicycle in Altenburg. I get a kick out of the fact that such a seemingly insignificant activity would make the newspaper.

That made me curious. I wondered what a new bicycle might have looked like in 1898. I went to a collection of Sears Catalogs which can be found on Ancestry.com and found this advertisement for one of their lower-cost bicycles. Perhaps this is what Oswald’s bicycle might have looked like. This one was priced a $22.50.

When the 1900 census was taken, we find Oswald living in the Winter household in Wittenberg and working as a farm laborer. He was 32 years old at the time.

Oswald Schade never married. In the 1910 census, he is found living in Frohna with his elderly mother and working as a saloon keeper.

Oswald is mysteriously not found in the 1920 census. I tried all of my tricks to find him, but failed. I am speculating that Oswald’s saloon would have been impacted by the implementation of Prohibition. I found an article in the Perry County Sun that said he was going to be the new barber in Altenburg in 1921. 

The last census in which we find Oswald is the one taken in 1930. He was living in the Richter Hotel, which had previously been known as the Wagner Hotel. Oswald was called the proprietor of a barber shop.

Below is a photo of the hotel when it was called the Wagner Hotel.

The barber shop in Altenburg was located very near the hotel. A photo of the barber shop in Altenburg was displayed in a post on this blog titled, The Barbershop – A Man Cave. 

The photo below also shows this building with the tavern called Pete’s Place next to it, and the hotel was the next building in the back.

We can a view a photo of the interior of the barber shop once operated by Oswald. Our museum also has the barber pole that once adorned this building. I have placed a photo of it below as well. You can click on the thumbnails to enlarge the photos.

Later in his life, the photo below was taken of Oswald.

Oswald Schade died in 1939 at the age of 71. He died of influenza while a patient at the Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau. He is called a barber on his death certificate shown here.

Oswald is buried in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Altenburg.

The life-long bachelor, Oswald Schade, seems to me to be quite a character. He lived in several different locations in East Perry County. He was involved in several different occupations. Like so many barbers that I have known over the years, I suspect Oswald would regale the men in his barber chair with many stories about his exploits. I am guessing that the people sitting in the chair would have shared their exploits with their barber. The barber shop was likely a place where men would find out about the “local news” (also sometimes known as gossip) in and around Altenburg.