The tale for today begins with a baby girl being born on this date 125 years ago. Hetwig Susanna Groh was born on June 8, 1899 in Jacob, Illinois. Susanna was the daughter of Ernst and Anna (Schuessler) Groh. Both of Susanna’s parents grew up in East Perry County, Missouri, but then after her father had moved to Jacob, Illinois just prior to his marriage, that is where the members of this Groh family were born and raised. I am able to display this photo of Susanna’s parents.

Susanna’s parents were married in 1890, and would eventually have 8 children, 7 of which were girls. However, only 4 of these children lived to adulthood, and all of those were girls. Susanna was baptized at Christ Lutheran Church in Jacob. We can view her baptism record below in 2 images.

Susanna was just a baby when she appears in the 1900 census. Her father was a wagon maker in the Fountain Bluff Township. I will remind you that the original Groh, Charles Groh, was a carpenter who was very involved in the building of Trinity’s new sanctuary in Altenburg that was dedicated in 1867. I do not find it surprising that Ernst, his son, had an occupation that exhibited skills in construction with wood.

In 1910, Susuanna was listed as being 11 years old. She was one of only 2 girls in the household. I was unable to determine where Susanna’s older sister, Agnes was living in 1910. The father was still in the business of wagon making.

I find the 1920 census that includes Susanna Groh quite interesting. Three Groh girls, Agnes, Philippine, and Susanna, were all living in the same household in St. Louis. The head of the household was Charles Thomas, a St. Louis policeman. Agnes and Susanna were working as waitressses, and Philippine was a milliner.

Now, we will take a look at the man who would become Susanna’s husband. Louis Laufer was born on September 9, 1897, the son of Daniel and Theresa (Hammel) Laufer. Louis was born in Baldwin, Illinois. I found a census entry for the Daniel Laufer household, but Lewis is mysteriously missing. There is a girl named Dora, and I found an Ancestry.com family tree that says she was also born in September of 1897. Maybe Louis had a twin sister, and Louis was just missed in this entry. Dora supposedly died in 1910 and does not appear in the next census. Louis’s father was a farmer.

We do find Louis is in the 1910 census, and we do not see Dora. Louis was 12 years old at the time.

Louis had his World War I draft registration completed in 1918. At the age of 21, he was a divinity student at Concordia Seminary in Springfield, Illinois.

Just 2 Laufer children remained in the household in Baldwin when the 1920 census was taken. Neither Louis nor his father are given an occupation.

I located a page that is likely from the yearbook of Concordia, Springfield that highlight’s Louis’s story. I am guessing that he may have graduated in the spring of 1925. It says he had vicared in both Evansville, Illinois and Mayville, Wisconsin.

On October 4, 1925, Louis Laufer married Susanna Groh at Christ Lutheran Church in Jacob. We can take a look at this couple’s church marriage record shown here. It gives Louis the title, Kandidate (Candidate in English), and also calls him Ludwig, which perhaps was his name on his baptism record.

Rev. Louis Laufer’s first congregation was located in Morse, Saskatchewan, Canada. A record found in a listing of Canada border crossings for October 18, 1925 shows this pair.

They were not in Canada for very long because when the 1930 census was taken, this pair is found living in Campbell Hill, Illinois where Louis was a minister. There are 2 Lutheran congregations in or near Campbell Hill, and we have some histories of those churches in our library, but I found no reference to a Pastor Laufer. This is the only census entry in which we find any children in the Laufer household. There were a set of twins named Evelyn and Everett Doerr who are described as pending adoption. I attempted to find the story of this set of twins, but I failed to find anything conclusive. These 2 were listed as 4 1/2 years old at the time.

I was unsuccessful at finding the Laufer’s in the 1940 census. The next document I did locate was Louis Laufer’s World War II draft card which was completed in 1942. Louis gives his employer as the Lutheran Hospital in St. Louis. His address is found near where the Lutheran Hospital was once located. Perhaps Louis was a hospital chaplain.

The last census the public can view is the one taken in 1950. Louis is called a composer for the Regulus Publishing Company. Was Louis writing music, or was there some other occupation that used the term composer? Also included in this household were Susanna’s elderly parents, Ernst and Anna Groh.

Louis Laufer died in 1985 at the age of 87; Susanna Laufer died in 1990 at the age of 91. These two are buried in the Concordia Cemetery in St. Louis. They have entries on Findagrave.com with no gravestone photos. It is only my guess, but I think the death records for these 2 would be found in the books of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in St. Louis, but the records we have for that congregation only go up to 1983.

In a previous post about someone in the Groh family, I noted that there were no longer any folks with the surname, Groh, in our area. That has recently changed. A descendant of Charles Groh, who also happens to be named Charles and goes by the name Chuck, has moved to this area with his wife recently. They have become members of Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. Now that I have written this story and discovered that there is an indication of not only construction in the Groh family, but maybe also some music, I cannot wait to ask Chuck about either joining Trinity’s choir or helping me construct a new carport for our house that we need.