If you read yesterday’s post, you know that a girl named Minnie Yamnitz married Fritz Kaiser, so she became Mrs. Minnie Kaiser. I know that I have run across several names over the years for people who have the same names, some names given at birth and some married names. However, I think the odds are stacked against finding two different individuals who carried the same name whose stories would end up being told on back-to-back days. That is what you will read today. It is another story about a different Minnie Kaiser.

Katharine Wilhelmina Klaus was born on March 1, 1877, the firstborn child of Henry and Anna (Arning) Klaus. There is somewhat of a debate about her date of birth because several family trees on Ancestry.com say that she was born on April 1st, not March 1st. I was unable to determine where the April 1st birthday came from. Her baptism record, her death certificate, and her Findagrave.com site all state that she was born on March 1st. As mentioned above, Wilhelmina was called Minnie during her lifetime, so I will use that name in this post. She was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim. We can view her baptism record below.

Minnie is found in the 1880 census at the age of 3. Her father was a farmer in the Apple Creek Township. Also in this household were Minnie’s Klaus grandparents.

Because Minnie would get married before the next census we can view, we will now take a look at the man who would become her husband. His name was Louis Wilhelm Kaiser, who was born on May 16, 1873. Louis was the son of Friedrich and Johanna (Elbrecht) Kaiser. The first child born in this Kaiser family was baptized at Trinity, Friedheim, but the remaining children do not have baptism records in our German Family Tree. Louis’s mother died in 1874 when Louis was just one year old, and his mother was buried in the Zion United Methodist Cemetery in Apple Creek, so I suspect that Louis’s baptism record might be found in that church’s records. Louis’s father then married Veronica Messmer in 1875. That explains what we see in the 1880 census for the Kaiser’s. Louis was 7 years old, and his father was a farmer in the Apple Creek Township.

Louis Kaiser married Minnie Klaus on April 15, 1895, so today would be this couple’s 130th wedding anniversary. They were married at Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim. Their church record for this event is displayed below.

The Missouri marriage license for this pair is pictured here.

I located this wedding photograph for Louis and Minnie.

According to our German Family Tree, Louis and Minnie had 11 children, some of which died early. Child #5 and child #7 were baptized at Trinity, Friedheim, but no baptism records are given in the GFT for the rest of them. In the 1900 census, this couple had 3 children listed in this entry. Louis was a farmer in the Byrd Township.

In the 1910 census, the Kaiser’s were living in Cape Girardeau with 6 children in their household. I think it says that Louis was a laborer at a lime kiln.

I am going to take a wild stab at saying that the photo below of Louis Kaiser was taken at about this time.

The Kaiser’s are still found living in Cape Girardeau when the 1920 census was taken. Once again, there were 6 children in their household, but they were not the same set of 6. Louis was working at the shoe factory in Cape Girardeau.

The Kaiser couple migrated to St. Louis during the next decade. Louis is not given an occupation, but Minnie was a milliner at a factory in this 1930 census entry.

Louis and Minnie were living in Gordonville when the 1940 census was taken. Both were in their 60’s and neither one had an occupation listed in this entry.

I found a few photos of members of this Kaiser family taken in the 1940’s. Here is a photo that was reportedly taken in 1944. I have to think that the setting was in Gordonville. I think you can figure out which ones are Louis and Minnie.

The next photo was taken in 1948. This one has a caption which identifies the people in the picture.

The last census we can view is the one taken in 1950. The Kaiser’s were still living in Gordonville. In the occupation column for Louis, it says “gardening chickens”.

Minnie Kaiser died in 1953 at the age of 76. Her death certificate below says that she died at the Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau.

Louis Kaiser died in 1960 at the age of 87. He was a resident at the Lutheran Altenheim in St. Louis at the time of his death.

Louis and Minnie Kaiser are buried together in the Christ Lutheran Cemetery in Gordonville.

The chances of finding two consecutive days to tell the story of women named Minnie Kaiser are incredibly slim. The chances of finding another Minnie Kaiser for tomorrow’s post are even more remote, so you should not expect another Minnie Kaiser story tomorrow.

Just a quick note: The famous Altenburg Debate started on this date back in 1841. I published this post about that debate back in 2017.

The Altenburg Debate: Who Won?