Instead of writing a new post today, I am sharing an old one that was written on this day 6 years ago. Today is not only the birthday of the original Lichtenegger to arrive in this area, but also a very special one. Since Joseph Lichtenegger was born on March 2, 1850, this would be his 175th birthday.
I find it especially interesting that this old story included an image of Joseph when he was a boy in Austria. It is extremely rare on this blog for us to be able to display a photo of a local character that was taken in Europe prior to that person’s relocation to America.
This attached post also includes several other photos of Joseph, his wife, and several children. We are able to include photos like this because we have a family binder for the Lichtenegger’s in a collection of family histories that have been donated to our museum. Perhaps re-sharing this post today will inspire other families connected to this area to donate their family histories to be part of our museum’s collection.
Joseph Lichtenegger was a 16 year-old boy who traveled by himself to this country. What bravery that must have taken! Now, he has so many people from around here and around the country who can lay claim to being part of his family tree. I know that I will be worshiping with some of them this morning. You can also find quite a few other posts about Joseph’s descendants on this blog. Just put “Lichtenegger” in the search box to find their stories. I tried this just now and got 35 results.