I will be highlighting the story of a Lutheran pastor today, but I only located this story because his wife would be celebrating her Bicentennial Birthday today. However, I am going to begin with the Lutheran pastor.

Emil Julius Moritz Wege was born on January 28, 1801 in Lauben, Germany. I was unable to determine the names of his parents. The only place where I found his birthday was on his gravestone. The first document I found for him was his passenger list for the ship on which he came to America. Since he most often was called Moritz, that is the name I will use in this post. He was one of the original immigrants who was part of the Gesellschaft that arrived in this country in 1839. Moritz made the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean aboard the ship, Olbers. He was privileged to make that trip in the cabin area of the ship, which were better accommodations than the steerage area of the ship where most of the passengers were found. You can see that Moritz was on the same ship as the leader of the immigration, Rev. Martin Stephan. You can also see that Moritz was called a “candidate” on this list. He was not the only candidate in the image below. Another was Theodore Julius Brohm, who was one of the builders and teachers of the Log Cabin College. A candidate was man who had the theological training to be a pastor, but had yet to receive a divine call and have a congregation. Moritz was already 38 years old when he came to this country.

In the list of immigrants found in the book, Zion on the Mississippi, we also see Moritz referred to as a candidate. The O-S refers to the fact that he arrived on the ship, Olbers and travelled up the Mississippi River aboard the steamboat, Selma.

During the first few years in Perry County, Candidate Wege was a teacher at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna. Then, in 1842, he received a call to be the first pastor of a church that would eventually be called Holy Cross Lutheran Church near Cole Camp, Missouri. The present-day church used by that congregation is pictured here. This congregation is now one of many Lutheran churches located in and around Cole Camp.

Not long after Rev. Wege arrived in Cole Camp, he must have met a girl named Meta Gefken who became his bride. Let’s take a look at her early history.

Meta Gefken was born on July 9, 1824, which means today would be her 200th birthday. Meta was the daughter of Johann and Anna (Schnakenberg) Gefken. It is also not every day that you find someone with a bicentennial birthday and also find an actual image of that person’s baptism record from Germany, but that is the case with Meta. Her baptism record from the parish in Grasdorf, Germany is displayed below. This document confirms Meta’s date of birth.

Meta came to the United States before Moritz did. She arrived with her family in November of 1838. She came aboard the ship, Sophie. Meta was 15 years old, and for some unknown reason, her mother is given her maiden name on this list.

The Gefken family settled in the Cole Camp area after their arrival. Then, on April 25, 1843, Moritz Wege married Meta Gefken. I think it is likely that their marriage record can be found in the books of Moritz’s congregation, Holy Cross Lutheran.

Several family trees on Ancestry.com list 6 children born to this Wege couple. When the 1850 census was taken, the Wege household included 3 children. Moritz was a preacher in Cole Camp.

Rev. Wege served the church outside Cole Camp until 1855, whe he received a call to a church near Jefferson City, Missouri. If you look at this short biography for Pastor Wege that appears to have been written from a Cole Camp perspective, it says he took a call to Springtown, Missouri, which is probably a misspelling of a town outside Jefferson City called Stringtown. I find it interesting that Pastor Wege went from a congregation in Cole Camp to become a pastor in Cole County, Missouri.

In a listing of early pastors from Missouri District Lutheran congregations, it says Moritz was the pastor of Zion Lutheran Church near Jefferson City from 1856-1865.

There was some controversy in some Lutheran churches near Jefferson City during those days. Our musuem’s former intern, Faron Bartens, tells me that Rev. Wege was at St. Paul’s in Lohmann, a congregation that joined the Iowa Synod, and then he went to St. John’s in Stringtown. There is a St. John’s in Lohmann, but Rev. Wege is not listed in the list of early pastors at that congregation. I am so confused.

I was unable to locate the Wege household in the 1860 census. He should have been found in an entry from the Cole County census pages, but I did not find him. In 1865, Rev. Wege took a call to become the pastor at Christ Lutheran Church in Augusta, Missouri, which is found in St. Charles County right on the Missouri River. The 1870 census shows the Wege’s living in Augusta with 6 children. One of their sons, Henry, is called a farmer.

Here is a photo of what Christ Lutheran Church in Augusta looks like today.

I am able to display 2 different images of Rev. Wege.

Rev. Wege died during the same year as the 1870 census at the age of 69. He is buried in the Christ Lutheran Cemetery in Augusta.

Meta Wege went to live with her son, Henry at some point after her husband’s death. Henry was a farmer in the Middleton Township of Lafayette County in Missouri. Henry was a farmer.

Meta was still living when the 1900 census was taken. This time, she was living with her daughter, Amelia, and her family in Cole Camp.

Meta Wege died in 1903 at the age of 79. I located some records from Trinity Lutheran Church in Cole Camp. Meta’s death record is pictured here.

Meta has entry on Findagrave.com for the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Cole Camp. Trinity is the Lutheran church located right in the city of Cole Camp. Meta has no gravestone photo for me to share, but I can show you a photo of what Trinity Lutheran Church in Cole Camp looks like today.

It turns out that Candidate Wege became Pastor Wege and spent his entire ministry in the state of Missouri. And now you know his story, mainly because his wife shows up in our German Family Tree with a birthday that took place on this day 200 years ago. And I also want to give a shout-out to Faron Bartens who assisted with the research. In my opinion, he should have written this post.