I have already written a story on this blog about a man named Martin Eggers who was born in 1894. I am once again writing about a man named Martin Eggers today, only he is a different Martin Eggers. This Martin Eggers was born on this day, September 1st in 1874. That means today would be a very special birthday for him. He would be 150 years old.

Heinrich Wilhelm Martin Eggers was the son of Henry and Anna (Resen) Eggers. He went by the name, Martin, during his life. He was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. We can take a look at his baptism record from that church’s books here.

Martin shows up in the 1880 census at the age of 5. His father was a farmer in the Brazeau Township.

Since we cannot view the 1890 census, the next one we can look at is the one taken in 1900. Even though his parents were still living and residing in the Brazeau Township, Martin, at the age of 25, was living with his older brother, Jacob, and his family. Jacob was farming a piece of land south of Altenburg not far from the Apple Creek. Martin was a butter maker and called a boarder in this household.

Martin would have been working at the creamery in Altenburg. We have some minutes of the meetings of the organization that ran the Creamery, and in those, it says Martin Eggers was named the butter maker in 1898. The creamery was located where the fairgrounds are now located. That means it was just south of our museum, which is located next to Trinity Lutheran Church. There is a hill that goes through the fairgrounds that some around here still call Creamery Hill. The map below will help you get an idea of where it was located. This map is part of the atlas of plat maps produced in 1915.

A photo of this creamery is shown below. The men in the photo are not identified.

Someone on Ancestry.com has shared this photo of Martin workiing in the creamery. It is the only photo I located for him.

Tragedy struck this Altenburg Creamery on May 11, 1900. A fire destroyed the building that was pictured in the earlier photo. As a result, Martin was suspended from his job while a new building had to be planned and built.

In a previous post written by Cal Eggers titled, Henry Helps His Heirs, Cal said Martin’s future wife met him when she visited Altenburg from Pittsburg, Kansas. He mentions that she may have been in town visiting the Grother family. Let’s talk about Martin’s future wife for a while. Her name was Meta Marjenhoff (there is some question about the spelling of her surname), who was the daughter of Heinrich and Catherine (Gesine) Marjenhoff. I think she was born on October 21, 1882. I will give just a bit of evidence of that date later. I was not able to find out much about Meta’s early life. I did find her in an 1885 Kansas state census Her father had died in 1884 when Meta was very young. Her mother would have been a widow in this entry, and Meta was 2 years old.

Meta’s mother would then marry a man by the name of Henry Grotheer. A note on Henry’s Findagrave.com site says he married Catherine in 1885, and if that is the case, those two must have married shortly after the above census was taken. This may have been the relative of the Grother’s in Altenburg with a slighly different spelling. The gravestone for Henry and Catherine shown here displays the Grotheer spelling. It is found in the Zion Lutheran Cemetery in Pittsburg.

I failed to find Meta in the 1900 census. Then, on October 16, 1902, Martin Eggers married Meta Marjenhoff in Pittsburg. We can take a look at this couple’s Kansas marriage license.

It looks as if this couple had 7 children, one of which died in infancy. At the beginning of this marriage, Martin took his new bride back to Altenburg. Their first 2 children have their baptism records in the books of Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. Then, sometime after 1905, the Eggers family moved to Pittsburg, Kansas, where they would spend the rest of their lives. We find them listed in a 1908 city directory for Pittsburg. It says Martin was a fireman for the Pittsburg Sewer Pipe & Co.

In the 1910 census, we find the Eggers family with 3 children, the youngest being born in Kansas. Martin was called a night watchman for a tile works.

Martin had his World War I draft registration completed in 1918. Apparently, Martin had changed occupations. He is now called a farmer on this form.

I am going to return to Catherine Grotheer for a moment. Also in 1918, she must have been required to complete the form shown below. It is called an Affadavit for Alien Enemies. This is the first one of these documents that I have run across. It must have been required for some Americans of German descent to complete when we were at war with Germany.

I have enlarged the portion of this form on the bottom which shows the children of Catherine. The first one listed in Meta Eggers, and she is given a birth date of October 21, 1882.

In the 1920 census, the Eggers family was up to 5 children. Martin was called a farmer.

The 1930 census indicates that one more child had been born into the Eggers family in the previous decade.

The last census in which we find Martin is the one taken in 1940. Just 2 children remained in the household, and Martin, at the age of 64, was still farming.

Martin Eggers died in 1947 at the age of 72. The widow, Meta, is found in the 1950 census living with just her youngest daughter, Pauline, who was an assistant in a doctor’s office.

Meta Eggers died in 1961 at the age of 79. Martin and Meta are buried in the Zion Lutheran Cemetery in Pittsburg. In addition to their two gravestones, I will display a photo showing how these two are buried next to one another in that cemetery.

Zion Lutheran Church in Pittsburg celebrated their 140th anniversay in 2016. A photo of what that church looks like today is shown here. Now, they would be nearing the time to celebrated 150 years.

The story of Martin Eggers is not a usual one. For people who are characters on this blog who move to other places, it usually is a case of them moving away early in their life to spend much of their life elsewhere, or they spend most of their time in East Perry County and move away later in their life, usually to live with children. In Martin’s case, I would say he spent about half his life in Perry County and half his life in Pittsburg, Kansas.

Cal Eggers has written a short biography for Martin Eggers and placed it on his Ancestry.com family tree. It gives a few more details of his life. I will add that I think Cal (or his brother, Fred) should have written this story. They are the experts.