I really do not understand why Lynn Degenhardt included several pages of a Kurre family in our German Family Tree. There are not many local church records to be found among these Kurre’s. Yet, the beginning of this Kurre family in the GFT goes all the way back to the 1600’s. It is among these Kurre’s that I located the starting point for today’s tale. I do know that the parents of today’s birthday boy are buried in the Hanover Lutheran Cemetery in Cape Girardeau, and that is good enough for me.

August John Kurre was born on December 21, 1855, so today would be his 170th birthday. August was the son of Friedrich and Henrietta (Heuer) Kurre. I do not have any baptism information for him, but according to the Cape Girardeau County marriage record shown here, his parents were married at Hanover Lutheran Church by one of the pioneer pastors in this area, Rev. Augustus Lehmann. I looked at some church records for Hanover Lutheran that we have in a binder at our museum and found out that some of the Kurre children are listed as being baptized there and others were not. August is not found in the list for 1855 baptisms.

August is found in the 1860 census at the age of 4. His father was a farmer in the Cape Girardeau Township, which as you can imagine, was located near the city of Cape Girardeau.

August was a teenager when the 1870 census was taken. His father had died in 1865, and his mother married Charles Reimann. In this entry, we see a combination of Reimann’s and Kurre’s. Charles Reimann was also a farmer in the Cape Girardeau Township.

August would get married in 1880 prior to that year’s census, so we will now look at the woman who would become his bride. Her name was Maria Elizabeth Huber, who was born on September 12, 1859. Mary was the daughter of Peter and Mary (Schatte) Huber. She was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Cape Girardeau. A transcription of her baptism record is displayed here. This record can be found in Ancestry.com’s collection of Missouri Synod church books.

Mary is found in the 1860 census at the age of 1. Her father was a farmer in the Randol Township, which was also near Cape Girardeau.

Next, we find Mary in the 1870 census. She was 11 years old and still living in the same location with her parents.

On February 5, 1880, August Kurre married Mary Huber. According to the civil marriage records below, this couple was married by a justice of the peace.

The newlyweds were found in the 1880 census living in the Cape Girardeau Township. August was called a laborer.

According to Family Search, this Kurre couple had 8 children. Some of these Kurre children are found in the listings of baptisms at Hanover Lutheran Church, but others are not. We cannot view another census entry until the one taken in 1900, and by then, all of their children had been born. A few children died as infants. There were 6 Kurre children in this 1900 census entry. August was a farmer in the Cape Girardeau Township.

The 1910 census shows the Kurre household with 5 children still living with their parents.

When we look at the census page including August and Mary’s family when the 1920 census was enumerated, we discover that they had an empty nest, but right below their names, we find the family of their son, Edward Kurre, who had married Christina Thiele.

Since both August and Mary died in the 1930’s, the census taken in 1930 is the last one in which we find them. They were each in their 70’s, and August was still farming. Their daughter, Tina, had married Henry Armgardt, and they had a child. Tina is called married in this entry, but I think Henry may have been a resident at the state hospital in Farmington. That is where we find him in a later census.

Mary Kurre died later in 1930 at the age of 71. We can view her death certificate below.

August Kurre died in 1933 at the age of 77. His death certificate is shown here.

An obituary for August was published in the Cash Book Journal.

August and Mary Kurre are buried in the New Lorimer Cemetery in Cape Girardeau.

We just experienced yet another great two days of the annual Christmas Country Church Tour. I did not have this story picked out for today yet, but it turns out that I visited with two different couples that have connections to this story (I think). First of all, Altenburg Public School will have a new principal, Seth Ward, next year, and I got the chance to meet him and his wife at the museum. If I remember correctly, his wife told me she was in the Thiele family. I wonder if she was related to August and Mary’s daughter-in-law. Also, the vicar presently serving Hanover Lutheran Church also visited us, and I had a nice conversation with him. I wish I remembered his name, but I confess that my memory has failed me.