Today’s main character, Charles Frentzel, lived in a variety of locations and was married to 3 different women. Charles outlived all 3 of those wives, and he himself did not make it to his 60th birthday. From what I see in the documents for Charles, I come to the conclusion that he lived a rather tragic life.

Carl Heinrich Benjamin Frentzel was born on April 4, 1866, the son of Carl and Amalia (Hopfer) Frentzel. He was called Charles most of his life, so I will use that name. Here are photos of Charles’s parents that have appeared on this blog in previous posts.

Charles was the 7th of 9 children in his Frentzel family. He was baptized at Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. An image of his baptism record from that congregation’s books is pictured here.

Charles is found in the 1870 census at the age of 4. His father was a retail dry goods merchant in the Cinque Hommes Township.

Next, we find Charles in the 1880 census. During the 1870’s, a new township, the Union Township, was established in Perry County. It is at about this time that the town of Paitzdorf took on the name, Uniontown. The Frentzel’s are found living in the Union Township in 1880. Charles was 14 years old, and his father is called a grocer. I made a discovery when I found this census entry. It is found in the long-lost pages of the Union Township 1880 census, and those pages are still not included on Ancestry.com. However, I located this particular entry on Family Search. I was not aware that Family Search has included those particular pages.

1880 was also the year that Charles was confirmed at Grace, Uniontown. His confirmation record is shown below.

Now, we will take a look at the woman who would become Charles’s first wife. Her name was Anna Christine Amalia Kaeppel, who was born on June 22, 1860. It is her date of birth that led me to this story. She would be today’s birthday girl, celebrating her 165th birthday. Amalia was about 6 years older than Charles. Amalia was the daughter of Johann and Anna Barbara (Meyer) Kaeppel. She was born in Indiana, probably in Dearborn, where her father was a Lutheran teacher. In the 1870 census, we find the Kaeppel family living in Dearborn. Amalia was 10 years old at that time.

When the 1880 census was taken, the Kaeppel’s were living in Proviso, Illinois in the Chicago area. Her father was still a school teacher.

Proviso is not far from River Forest, Illinois, and in the 1880 census, we find Amalia’s younger brother, Albert, attending school at Concordia Teachers College in River Forest studying to be a Lutheran teacher. In 1881, Albert Kaeppel became the 2nd teacher in Wittenberg, Missouri where he met his future bride, Dorothea Weinhold. The story of the Kaeppel/Weinhold pair was told in the post, Another Wittenberg Musician. Albert would later become a music professor at Concordia, River Forest.

In 1889, John Kaeppel became the teacher at Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown, so I am sure that is how Charles met his first wife. Charles Frentzel married Amalia Kaeppel on January 1, 1893. They were married at Grace, Uniontown. We can view their church marriage record here.

We can also view 2 other civil marriage documents for this event. Here is the typical Missouri marriage license.

Here is a document that looks more like a certificate.

Apparently Charles and Amalia moved across the river to the vicinity of Christ Lutheran Church in Jacob, Illinois. When their first child was born in August of 1893, that baby was baptized at that church. However, this is where we find the first tragedy in Charles’s life. According to the death records for Amalia and their son, Walter, from the books of Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown, Amalia died on September 3rd, which was also the date of Walter’s baptism in Jacob, Illinois.

However, I also found a death record for Amalia in the books of Christ Lutheran Church in Jacob. There is a narrative on this form, but I am unable to read it.

Here is what I think happened. I think Amalia died in Jacob, Illinois and was likely buried there. After the funeral, I think the baby came back to Uniontown to be cared for by Amalia’s mother. I also think that Walter was a premature birth, and that may have contributed to his death just a week after he was baptized. The pastor of Grace, Uniontown chose to include both the death record for the mother and the son in his books. Of course, this is all speculation on my part.

Walter is likely buried in the Grace Lutheran Cemetery in Uniontown, but I found no entry for either Amalia or Walter on Findagrave.com. I also did not find entries on the site for Christ Lutheran Cemetery in Jacob, Illinois.

Charles married again a few years later. His second wife was Emma Mary Leonhardt, who was born on November 24, 1865. Emma was the daughter of Friedrich and Christiane (Burkhardt) Leonhardt. Emma was born and baptized in Altenburg. Her baptism record is found in the books of Trinity Lutheran Church, but I forgot to get an image of that baptism record.

Emma’s father died when she was just 2 years old. When Emma is found in the 1870 census, her mother was a widow, and the Leonhardt’s were living in Altenburg. Emma was 4 years old at the time.

In the 1880 census, Emma was a teenager. Her mother had married Carl Schuessler, but he then died in 1879, so Emma’s mother was once again a widow. There were some Schuessler children in the household.

On November 10, 1895, Charles Frentzel married Emma Leonhardt at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. The church marriage record for this occasion is shown here. This document says that Charles was from Fountain Bluff Township in Illinois.

I am also able to display 2 marriage records from Perry County. Here is this couple’s Missouri marriage license.

Here is a marriage certificate for Charles and Emma.

According to Family Search, this couple had 4 children. The first 2 were baptized at Christ Lutheran Church in Jacob, but when the 3rd child was born, it was baptized at Trinity, Altenburg. I think the 4th child was baptized at the Lutheran church in Campbell Hill, Illinois because I found a birth record that said this child was born in Campbell Hill. The first child died after only a matter of days. I think Charles must have been quite concerned about losing his wife also after this child was born and died. I think that one of the surprising aspects of today’s story is that so many church records are included in the books of Christ Lutheran Church in Jacob, but we never find Charles living in the Fountain Bluff Township in Illinois in a census entry. When the 1900 census was taken, Charles had moved his family across the river to Wittenberg. There was just one child in the household, along with Emma’s mother, Christiane Schuessler. Charles was a farmer.

The last child for this couple was born in 1906 in Campbell Hill, Illinois, so it appears that the Frentzel’s did not remain in Wittenberg for very long. When the 1910 census was taken, the Frenzel household was living in Campbell Hill where Charles was a salesman in a general store. There were 2 children in their family. The child that was born in 1906 likely died early because that child is not listed in this entry.

Emma Frentzel died during the same year that the above census was taken in 1910. However, her death certificate below says she died in St. Louis at the age of 44. This form says that Emma was to be buried in Seventy-Six, Missouri, which is located on the banks of the Mississippi River across from Jackson County, Illinois.

However, we find a death record for Emma Frentzel in the books of Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. Despite this, I failed to find a grave site for Emma on Findagrave.com.

Charles Frentzel got married again prior to the next census in 1920. His third wife was named Erna Lohoff, who had been married to Charles Caffall, but he had died in 1903. Charles married Erna on May 19, 1917. The St. Louis marriage record for this couple shown below says they were married by Rev. W.F. Wilk, who was the pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church.

Sadly, this marriage did not last long either. Erna Frentzel died in 1919 at the age of 47. Her death certificate says she was going to be buried in the New Pickers Cemetery in St. Louis, but that cemetery is also known as Gatewood Gardens Cemetery.

I located an obituary for Erna.

Charles is found as a widower and living in St. Louis when the 1920 census was taken. He was living with his daughter, Emma, who had married Charles Cummings. Charles Frentzel was a salesman at a grocery store.

Charles Frentzel died in 1926 at the age of 59, just a matter of days before his 60th birthday. We can also view his death certificate.

Both Charles and Erna Frentzel are buried in the Gatewood Gardens Cemetery in St. Louis. They both have sites on Findagrave.com for that cemetery, but neither one has a gravestone photo. One of the amazing facts that comes out of this story is that, despite mentioning so many deaths, I was not able to find any gravestone photos for any of the persons who died, whether they were infants or adults. If none of these people actually had gravestones, that would be another tragic aspect of the tale of the life of Charles Frentzel.