By now, you may realize that I find it hard to ignore a person’s 200th (or bicentennial) birthday. On several occasions in the past, this leads me to share an old post that has already been written about the person celebrating such a birthday. That will be the case today, and I must admit that I enjoy finding such a case because it more or less gives me a day off of doing the research necessary to write a brand new story. Today, however, the original story about our bicentennial birthday girl was published back in 2016 in the early days of this blog, and her story was a rather short one. So, I have taken a little bit of time to add a few additional details and documents to her story.

Justine Jahn was born on August 20, 1824 in Germany. She was the daughter of Gottfried and Dorothea (Schmidt) Jahn. When Justine was 14 years old, she came to America with her family as part of the Gesellschaft in 1838-1839. She and her family were passengers on the ship, Copernicus. We find their names on the passenger list for that ship shown below. Justine was the oldest of the Jahn children.

The Jahn family settled in Altenburg, Missouri, and we find that it was there that Justine was a sponsor of a Buck girl who was born in 1842.

Justine would marry a man named Carl Eduard Roschke, who was the main character in the post that I have attached to today’s article. Before I discuss this marriage, let me point out that Eduard Roschke was also part of the Gesellschaft. He made the voyage to America aboard the ship, Johann Georg. His name is displayed on that ship’s passenger list pictured here. He is called a tailor on this document.

There is an immediate difference that we see between the Jahn family and Eduard Roschke. Eduard remained in St. Louis and did not reside in Perry County like the Jahn’s. Yet, in some unknown way, Eduard must have gotten acquainted with Justine. Perhaps it was during the period when the immigrants spent time in St. Louis while arranging to find the land in Perry County where many of them settled. Maybe Eduard corresponded with Justine in the years that followed.

The date of this couple’s wedding is a matter of debate, as was pointed out in the previous post. You can see a marriage record in that post which comes from the books of Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. It says that Eduard, from St. Louis, married Justine on May 24, 1846. However, we find this record of a marriage that lists Eduard as the groom in the books of Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Louis. We know this cannot be right because it says his bride was Liddy Buenger, not Justine Jahn.

Liddy Buenger actually married Rev. Friedrich Lochner. The fascinating story of that couple’s wedding was told in the post, A Tainted Wedding Record with a Wonderful Story.

Since I wrote the previous blogs about the Roschke marriage, I have now discovered yet another marriage record that makes this wedding even more mysterious. There is a St. Louis marriage record that says Rev. C.F.W. Walther married this couple on June 26, 1846.

Now, I am even more flummoxed by this wedding. What we do know is that Eduard and Justine went on to live the rest of their lives in St. Louis and raise a rather large family of children. Early in Eduard’s life, he was asked to give up his occupation as a tailor to become a teacher at Trinity Lutheran Church’s school in St. Louis and remained in that position for the rest of his career.

Justiine’s gravestone (pictured in the attached post) is engraved with her date of birth, August 20, 1824, thus giving us the reason to wish her a Happy Bicentennial Birthday today.

Tailor to Teacher