It is perhaps a wedding anniversary that inspires today’s post. However, even though both the bride and the groom were born and baptized in Perry and Cape Girardeau Counties, they got married in St. Louis. I have no idea why. There is also a debate about whether today is actually this couple’s wedding anniversary or not. I will begin with the groom.

Friedrich Wilhelm Hoffmann was born on November 5, 1857. He is almost always called William during his life, so that is what I will call him. I think he may be the 3rd William Hoffmann that has been written about on this blog. William was the son of Heinrich and Caroline (Kaiser) Hoffmann, and his baptism record is found in the books of Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. An image of that baptism record is shown below.

Sadly, William’s father died in 1858 when he was not even one year old. His father is buried in the Arnsberg Cemetery in the Apple Creek Township. Then, his mother married again to a man named Christian Traub. So, in the 1860 census, we find William living in this Traub household. William was 3 years old, and his stepfather was a blacksmith in the Cinque Hommes Township.

When the 1870 census was taken, William was living in the Apple Creek Township with his maternal grandparents, William and Sophia Kaiser. William was 13 years old, and his grandfather was a farmer.

William would get married in 1880 prior to that year’s census being taken, so we will now look at the woman who would become his bride. Her name was Marie Fredericke Kiepe, who was born on April 21, 1857. She is almost always called Mary, so I will use that name. She was the daughter of Johann and Carolina (Zimmermann) Kiepe. Her baptism record can be found in the books of the Arnsberg Lutheran Church that existed in between Old Appleton and Friedheim for a short time.

Mary is found in the 1860 census at the age of 4. Her father was a farmer in the Apple Creek Township.

Mary was a teenager when she is found in the 1870 census.

William Hoffmann married Mary Kiepe on March 11, 1880 in St. Louis. The St. Louis marriage record pictured here says they were married by J.F. Jonas, who was the pastor of the Indep. Ev. Pres. Church. I conclude that this was a Presbyterian minister.

Our German Family Tree lists 3 children born to this couple, but there is other evidence that they had 5 children. One child was baptized at Grace, Uniontown, and 2 more were baptized at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Pocahontas. Since the 1880 census was taken at about the same time as their marriage, we find these newly-weds in that year’s entry with no children. William was a farmer in the Apple Creek Township.

Since 20 years passed before we can view another census entry in 1900, all 5 of their children had been born. This family had also relocated to the Shawnee Township during that interim. Their oldest son was helping William with the farming.

Next, we find the Hoffmann’s in the 1910 census with just 2 remaining children in their household. This time, a younger son was helping with the farming.

Mary Hoffmann died in 1917 at the age of 59. Her death certificate below says she died at the State Hospital in Farmington, Missouri.

An obituary that was printed in the Cash Book Journal does not mention where she died. This article says that Mary was baptized at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Pocahontas, but I found no evidence of that.

William is found in the 1920 census as a widower. He was living with his daughter, Emma, who was also a widow. She had been married to Alvin Borgfield, but he had died in 1913. It turned out that Emma was similar to a German “tante”, an unmarried female who took care of elderly parents, and she lived with her father for the rest of William’s life. These two were living in Fruitland in 1920.

The 1930 census includes William, Emma, and a farm laborer named Leon Mantz. William was a 72 year-old farmer in the Shawnee Township.

William Hoffmann died in 1936 at the age of 79. We can view his death certificate below.

William also had an obituary published in the Cash Book Journal.

William and Mary Hoffmann are each buried in the St. John’s United Church of Christ Cemetery near Fruitland.

In closing, let me explain how I ended up writing this post on September 30th. It is because of the fact that our German Family Tree, under the entry for Mary Kiepe, says that she was married on September 30, 1880, and it uses the Findagrave.com entry as the source for that wedding date. However, I have viewed Mary’s Findagrave site, and I find no reference to that marriage date. In conclusion, I admit that I probably should not have written this story today, but after I do so much research and gather so many documents for a story, I end up biting the bullet and writing the story anyway. That is what I did today.