After years of writing these blog posts, I have discovered an interesting fact. I have on occasion stated that Lutheran pastors would not perform weddings during the penitential seasons of Advent or Lent. I have told numerous stories about brides and grooms that got married as soon as possible after those church seasons came to an end. Then, I did a search. I found out that the most common date for a marriage in our German Family Tree (by far) was December 26th, the day after the Advent Season ended. I am certain that another day when a lot of weddings took place was on the day after the Lenten Season came to an end on Easter Sunday. However, Easter happens on different dates for different years, so searching for weddings that took place on the day after Easter would be a daunting task. Today, I found this story because it contains one of those December 26th weddings. I came across it after seeing quite a few other December 26th weddings as I scrolled through the search results. It will be well into today’s tale before we see that wedding that took place the day after Christmas. First, we have to begin with a Wachter man.

Gottfried Carl Erdmann Wachter was born on July 20, 1834 in Germany. Charles, as he was called in America, was the son of Johann Christoph Erdmann and Catherine (Grosskopf) Wachter. Charles’s father died in Germany in 1846, and his mother then married Heinrich Zophele in 1847. In 1853, several members of this Wachter/Zophele family came to America aboard the ship, Minerva. The passenger list with several names of people that settled in this area is pictured here. Charles was said to be 20 years old at the time. He had several Wachter brothers on this passenger list.

Even before Charles appears in a United States census, he got married, so let’s take a look at the woman who would become his bride. Her name was Catherine Sophia Dede, whose date of birth is up for debate. If the baptism record below is the right one for Catherine, then she was born on July 22, 1835 in Oldendorf, Germany. Catherine was the daughter of Carl and Cathrina (Welmark) Dede.

Catherine made the voyage to this country in 1854 aboard the ship, Monmouth, along with her parents and a brother. The passenger list shown below says she was 18 years old at the time.

Charles Wachter married Catherine Dede on September 20, 1857 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. This took place not long before the split happened at that congregation which involved Rev. Schieferdecker being dismissed from being pastor of Trinity, after which he established Immanuel Lutheran Church on the other end of town. Rev. Schieferdecker married Charles and Catherine. Below is the church record for this wedding.

I am also able to display 2 civil marriage records for this event from Perry County. Here is the first one.

The next one is definitely easier to read.

This Wachter couple have 3 children listed in our German Family Tree. Their first child was baptized at Trinity, Altenburg, but the next 2 were baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New Wells. When the 1860 census was taken, we find the Wachter’s living in the Shawnee Township in northern Cape Girardeau County where New Wells is located. The Wachter’s had 2 sons at that time. Their son, Herman would die in 1862, so this is the only census entry in which we find him. Included in their household was Catherine’s brother, Charles Dede, who had married Catherine Blanken in 1859. There was also a farm laborer named Christoph Meyers.

Apparently, not long after the above census was taken, Charles Wachter died, but there is no documentation for it in our German Family Tree. What we do know is that the widow, Catherine, got married again in 1865. Her second husband was Friedrich Wilhelm Rupsch. If the image below is his German baptism record, then he was born on October 16, 1828, the son of Christlieb and Hanne Rupsch.

I really do not know anything else about Wilhelm, but here is where we are presented with a December 26th wedding. Wilhelm Rupsch married Catherine Wachter on December 26, 1865 at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New Wells. We can view this church marriage record for this couple below.

I am able to also display 2 civil records for this wedding from Cape Girardeau County.

Here is the second one.

Wilhelm and Catherine’s marriage did not last long. Wilhelm died in July of 1866, but he had fathered a child prior to his death. That child, a girl named Margaretha, was born in January of 1867.

Catherine would get married one more time. Her third husband was Friedrich Wilhelm Kolbe. I know practically nothing about him prior to his marriage. Friedrich Wilhelm Kolbe married Catherine Rupsch on April 30, 1869.

Once again, I am able to display 2 civil marriage records for this couple. They both actually contain information about 2 different weddings. The other is a Reisenbichler/Putz marriage.

Here is the second one.

In the 1870 census, we find this entry for the Kolbe’s. It looks like there are 3 Kolbe children, but 2 of them were Wachter’s, and the youngest one was a Rupsch. Wilhelm was a farmer in the Shawnee Township.

It appears that Wilhelm died prior to the 1880 census. We find Catherine living with her son, Ernst Wachter, her daughter, Margaret Rupsch, and a young farm laborer named Andrew Schumacher. Catherine is called a farmer.

Catherine Kolbe is found in the 1900 census, but it looks as if she was named Catherine Wachter. She was included in her son, Ernst’s, household. Ernst had married Agnes Holt.

The last census in which we find Catherine was the one taken in 1910. Once again, it looks as if she is named Catherine Wachter.

Catherine Kolbe died in 1918 at the age of 82. A very good researcher, Jenni Wachter, has a family tree on Ancestry.com that states that Catherine was born on July 27, 1835, not July 22nd. She may have gotten that date from this form which has a bit of a sloppy writing of her date of birth that looks a bit like 27.

Catherine Kolbe is buried in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in New Wells. I am placing 2 images of her gravestone below. The enlarged one looks like Catherine had a birth date of July 2, 1835, so there is another possible birthday for her.

One thing makes today’s December 26th wedding a bit different. Most of the weddings that took place on that date were first marriages for the couple. Catherine’s December 26th wedding was her second marriage.