I was so excited to find a story for today…until I discovered it was the wrong story. But it turned out to be another great story. In fact, today’s tale may really be about the process of finding the story. Let me describe the process.

I make it a standard procedure to start my search for a story by punching in the date to find a person who was born 200 years ago. I do not often succeed at locating a person with a bicentennial birthday, so when I find one, I get excited. And if it happens to be a person who has yet to have their story told on this blog before, I get even more excited. So, yesterday, when I entered “25 Dec 1825”, I was thrilled to see that I had some results. And the first result I looked at was for a woman named Maria Elizabeth Eisenberg. As far as I was concerned, I had found my story. Off I went to gather the documents and information I needed to tell Maria Elizabeth’s story. It did not take me long to discover that she married a man named Henry Emde at Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim. Our German Family Tree also mentioned that Maria Elizabeth’s death certificate called her Lizette Emde, which seemed to fit, considering she had a name, Elizabeth. I kept gathering census documents and other information about Maria Elizabeth all the way until I got to that death certificate and took a look at it. On that document, it said her maiden name was Behle, not Eisenberg. That got me to scratching my head.

I eventually got around to finding a Cape Girardeau County marriage record for Maria Elizabeth Eisenberg and Heinrich Emde, who were married on November 25, 1855 by Rev. Riedel, who was the pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim.

When I find a record like the one above, I almost always find another Cape Girardeau County marriage with a little different look to it with the same characters. I did find one for a wedding that took place on November 25, 1855, but if you look at that marriage record below, it lists Frederick Emde as the groom and Lizette Behle as the bride. The pastor was indeed Rev. Riedel from Trinity, Friedheim, but now, I was really flummoxed.

When I eventually looked farther down the page on which the above record was located, I found another record…the one shown below. It actually spilled over two pages. This is the record that corresponds with the Emde/Eisenberg marriage record shown earlier.

Now, I had the beginnings of an answer to the puzzle, and it absolutely amazed me. There were two Emde men who got married on November 25, 1855, one who married a woman with an Elizabeth in her name and the other named Lizette. The Lizette Emde death certificate was for the woman who married Fred Emde, not the one who married Henry Emde. I will eventually get around to displaying that death certificate, but for now, I will tell you that the date of birth for Lizette is givenon that document as December 25, 1825. That means it is Lizette Behle who would be celebrating her bicentennial birthday today. Since I never found any other documentation for the birth date for Maria Elizabeth Eisenberg, I have to figure that she almost certainly was not born on December 25, 1825, and her entry in our German Family Tree has an incorrect birthday. I eventually got around to completing the search in our GFT and found that it includes a Lizette Behle who was born on December 25, 1825, and she did indeed marry Fred Emde on the same day as the Emde/Eisenberg wedding. What are the chances?

The bottom line is that you will now read the story of Lizette Behle, not the story of Maria Elizabeth Eisenberg. And as it turns out, it will be a shorter story that does not include as many documents.

Lizette Behle was born on December 25, 1825 in Waldeck, Germany. There is a town named Waldeck in Germany, but I think Lizette was from a region in Germany called Waldeck. There were a bunch of folks who populated the pews at Trinity, Friedheim who were said to be from Waldeck. Lizette was the daughter of Christian and Catharina (Oehl) Behle. I am pretty sure that Lizette came to America in early 1855 aboard the ship, Heinrich von Gagern. We see her name on that ship’s passenger list right below a Bangert family that also settled in Friedheim. This list says Lizette was from Muhlhausen, Germany, which would be in the correct part of that country.

I think there is the possibility that Lizette came to America in 1855 with the intention of marrying Fred Emde. Let’s take a look at Fred.

Johann Friedrich Emde was born on May 3, 1824, also in the Waldeck region of Germany. Fred was the son of Johann Christian and Maria Elizabeth (Fingerhut) Emde. And yes, his mother was another Maria Elizabeth Emde. Fred came to America aboard the ship, Adonis, in 1854. There were actually two different Fred Emde’s on the passenger list below, one who was 27 years old, and the other was 30. I figure today’s character was the 30 year-old. You can also see another Bangert in this image.

Fred Emde, as pointed out before, married Lizette Behle on November 25, 1855. One civil marriage record was displayed above. Another one is pictured here.

I got up to the museum on this Christmas morning in anticipation of finding two marriage records for weddings that took place on November 25, 1855. I was not disappointed. They are shown here.

Our German Family Tree lists 8 children born to this couple, but a child named Ada in 1866 has no documentation included with her listing, nor did I find her in a census entry. I am going to say that there were 7 children. Some of these children were baptized at Trinity, Friedheim. When the 1860 census was taken, there were 3 children in their household. I admit that I giggled when I saw that the census taker called them the Empty family. Fred was a farmer in the Apple Creek Township. And did you notice that his wife was called Elizabeth in this entry?

I found a military record for a Fred Emde who served in the Union Army during the Civil War. I suppose this could have been the other Fred Emde we saw on the passenger list earlier. If this was Lizette’s husband, then it says Fred was discharged in 1864 as a result of a disability.

At some point after the Civil War, the Emde’s made a move. When the 1870 census was taken, we find this family living in Iron Mountain, Missouri with 7 children in their household. Fred was called a laborer in a furnace. He was likely working at one of the many mines located around Iron Mountain. This time, his wife was called Emily for some unknown reason.

Fred Emde died in 1874 at the age of 49. I have to wonder if a disability resulting from his military service or maybe some sort of job-related injury that caused his early death. Fred has an entry on Findagrave.com for the Iron Mountain Lutheran Cemetery. That cemetery has just 11 entries on that site, and none of them have gravestone photos. There was a St. John’s Lutheran Church in Bismark (Iron Mountain) that was founded in 1870.

Lizette is found as a widow in the 1880 census. She was back living in the Apple Creek Township with two of her children.

Lizette Emde was still living in the Apple Creek Township when the 1900 census was taken. She was living in the Henry Emde household. Yes, one of Lizette’s children was also named Henry.

Lizette was still living with her son, Henry, when the 1910 census was taken, but this time, we find them living in St. Louis. Henry was working for a roofing company.

Lizette Emde died in 1910 at the age of 84. She almost made it to her 85th birthday. This is the document where we see that Lizette was born on December 25, 1825. I must admit that when I found this certificate, I first thought it was the one for Maria Elizabeth Emde because the informant was Henry Emde, the name of her husband. However, eventually I noticed that her parent’s surnames were Behle and Oehl.

Lizette is buried in the New Bethlehem Cemetery in St. Louis. She does have a site on Findagrave.com, but there is no gravestone photo.

A previous post was written about Edward Emde, who was part of Fred and Lizette’s family. That post was titled, Edward Emde – St. Louis Sheet Metal Worker.

If there has not been enough unusual aspects to this story, let me add a few more. First of all, there was yet another Henry Emde who got married at Trinity, Friedheim in 1859. Add to that the fact that the other couple who got married on November 25th had sons named Henry and Fred. And if that is not enough, Fred and Lizette had a daughter named Lizette, and you might not believe when she was born. She was born on Christmas Day, December 25, 1865. I sense that I may be writing her story on a Christmas Day in the future.

I think what this story needed was a heavenly host of angels to announce births on Christmas Day and I certainly could have used some angelic help keeping this Emde story correct.

Here’s another tidbit. Before I even started my research for this story, supposedly for an Eisenberg, I discovered that in German, Eisenberg means “iron mountain”. I was kind of hoping at the time that the story would lead me to the town of Iron Mountain. As it turns out, it did. However, it wasn’t the Eisenberg bride that ended up there, but the Behle bride.

There’s also a Fingerhut in this story. There is still a Fingerhut online retail company doing business. I wonder how many Christmas presents were ordered from Fingerhut this year?

One more thing. I decided to find out what was the meaning of the name, Lizette. It turns out that one source says that it refers to “God’s promise”, especially in reference to the story of Elizabeth in the Bible. How about that?

So, we did finally end up with a bicentennial Christmas baby, but it wasn’t the one I expected.