My late cousin, Myrtle (Schilling) Kuehnert’s husband was called Ernst Kuehnert. Today, I will be telling the story of Ernst’s parents. Myrtle’s mother-in-law is today’s birthday girl, so I will begin with her.

Lydia Concordia Boehme was born on July 16, 1888, so today would be her 137th birthday. Concordia was the daughter of Ludwig and Sarah (Hartung) Boehme. The Boehme family lived in Wittenberg where they had a farm in the bottoms right along the Mississippi River. Concordia was baptized at the church/school building in Wittenberg, and in those days, records for baptisms that took place there were found in the books of Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. Concordia’s baptism record from Trinity’s books is displayed here.

Concordia is found in the 1900 census at the age of 11. Her father was a farmer in the Brazeau Township.

Concordia was confirmed in 1902 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. Her confirmation record gives evidence that she was born in Wittenberg.

We find Concordia as a single woman in one more census entry. Her mother had died in 1907, so she is not found in the 1910 census entry for the Boehme’s. Concordia was 21 years old at the time. A 15 year-old, Curt Gemeinhardt, was helping her father on his farm.

Now, we will turn our attention to the man who would become Concordia’s husband. His name was Ernst Julius Kuehnert, who was born on February 6, 1886. Ernst was the son of Julius and Emma (Schmidt) Kuehnert. His baptism record is also found in the books of Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg.

Ernst is found in the 1900 census at the age of 14. Ernst’s grandfather, Johann Kuehnert, was the head of the household, and right below his name in this entry, you find Ernst’s parents. Both Johann and Julius were farmers, and Ernst was called a farm laborer.

In this photo of the Kuehnert family, you will find Ernst standing in the back row on the far right.

It was also in 1900 that Ernst was confirmed at Trinity, Altenburg. We can also look at that confirmation record below.

In the 1910 census, Ernst was 24 years old and still helping on his father’s farm.

I figure it must be about this time when Ernst was courting Concordia. Even to this day, if you want to travel along any kinds of roads from where the Kuehnert farm was located to where the Boehme farm was, you have to go a long way around to get from one place to the other. I have to figure that Ernst more likely either walked or rode a horse to go court Concordia. On the map below, I have placed pins to indicate where the Kuehnert farm was (on the left) and the Boehme farm was (on the right near the river). The two farms were actually quite close as the crow flies.

On April 30, 1911, Ernst Kuehnert married Concordia Boehme. In 1903, the church in Wittenberg officially became its own congregation, so this couple was married at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Wittenberg. We can view this couple’s church marriage record here. I decided to display the marriage record listed right above that of Ernst and Concordia also. It was the wedding of Theodore Kuehnert, Ernst’s brother, who married Laura Roth earlier in April. Please note that both Ernst and Concordia were part of that marriage’s wedding party.

We can also view this pair’s Missouri marriage license.

Yet another marriage document for this wedding looks more like a certificate you might frame and hang on a wall.

Here is the wedding photo of this couple.

In 1918, Ernst had his World War I draft registration completed. It gives him a Wittenberg address and calls him a farmer.

Our German Family Tree lists 6 children for this couple, two of which were stillborn. When the 1920 census was taken, Ernst was called the head of the household which listed 3 of his children. Also included in this household were Ernst’s parents and two of his brothers. The men in the family were farming.

On June 29, 1923, Ernst died at the age of 37. His death certificate below says he died of a ruptured appendix and peritonitis.

Although the above death certificate says that he was to be buried in Wittenberg, he is buried in the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Altenburg.

One sad part of this story is that the last of the Kuehnert children, a son named Oliver Ernst, was born on June 12, 1923, just 17 days before Ernst died. Concordia must have been holding a very young infant in her arms when she attended her husband’s funeral. That child, by the way, would be the one who later married my cousin, Myrtle.

Concordia Kuehnert married again on August 1, 1926. Her second husband was Martin Bellmann. Concordia was the 3rd of 4 wives that Martin Bellmann had during his life. If you want more details about Martin, you can read his story in the post, Pound the Hammer, Ring the Bell, Bang the Drum. The Bellmann/Kuehert wedding took place at Trinity, Altenburg. Here is the church marriage record for that event.

Sadly, this marriage did not last long because Concordia Bellmann died in 1928 at the age of 30. Her death certificate attributes her death to liver cancer.

An obituary for Concordia was published in the Perry County Republican.

Concordia is also buried in the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Altenburg.

The two grave sites of Ernst and Concordia are pretty close to one another in Trinity’s cemetery, but without knowing the details of this story, a casual observer would not know that they were once husband and wife. These two main characters in this post had very short stories because their lives ended at such early ages. However, for me, these two became special because they were the in-laws of my Cousin Myrtle.