Yesterday’s story was about Charles Ruesler who was born on March 4th. Today’s tale will be about his sister, Louise, who was born on March 5th. Louise Wilhelmine Marie Ruesler was born on March 5, 1868, so today she would be celebrating her 158th birthday. If you read yesterday’s post, you would know that Louise was the daughter of Wilhelm and Louise (Dickmann) Ruesler. She was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim. Her baptism record from that church’s books is shown here.

Louise is found in the 1870 census at the age of 2. She is called Eliza on this census entry. Her father was a farmer in the Union Township of Bollinger County.

Next, we find Louise in the 1880 census at the age of 12. This entry was also displayed in yesterday’s post. You can see Charles Ruesler at the bottom of this entry. This time, the Ruesler’s were living in the Whitewater Township in Bollinger County. That does not mean that they had moved. The Whitewater Township had been created in the previous decade.

The last census in which we find Louise prior to her marriage is the one taken in 1900. Her mother had died in 1882. She was living in the household of William Ruesler, her brother, who had married Wilhelmina Bangert. Louise’s widowed father and another brother, Frederick, were included in this household.

Louise would get married during the next decade, so we will now look at the man who would become her husband. His name was Heinrich Friedrich Bangert, who was born on January 20, 1868 the son of Charles and Caroline (Wilke) Bangert. Before I move on, let me show you the results of a search I made to find him on Family Search. The top 3 results of that search are shown in the image below.

The man in the top result would go by the name Henry, and I have written a post about his life. The middle result was a man who also went by the name, Henry Bangert. If you look at the names of his parents, they are identical to the parents of the 3rd person on this list. Friedrich Heinrich and Heinrich Frederick Bangert were brothers. All 3 of the men on the above list were born in the 1860’s and 1870’s, and all of them were baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim. If that is not confusing enough, I have also already written a post about another Frederick Bangert who had a different middle name who was also baptized at Trinity.

The man highlighted in this post was often called Fritz, so I am going to use that name in this post. Fritz’s baptism record from Trinity’s books is pictured here.

Fritz is found in the 1870 census at the age of 2. You might also notice that the next Bangert child born into this family was named Frederika. Fritz’s father was a farmer in the Apple Creek Township.

In the 1880 census, we see that several more children were born into this Bangert family during the 1870’s. The youngest child in this entry named Wilhelmina, is the woman who married Louise Ruesler’s brother, William Ruesler. Fritz was 12 years old in this entry and helping his father on his farm.

In the 1900 census, Fritz was no longer living with his parents. He was a farmer in the Whitewater Township of Bollinger County. Included in his household were two of his sisters, Frederika and Martha Bangert. Fritz was in his 30’s.

Fritz Bangert married Louise Ruesler on December 6, 1908. This couple was married at Lixville Lutheran Church, a congregation that had called pastors from 1897 until 1907. This congregation was only officially in existence for a short time. After 1907, this congregation was served by other local pastors. The Bangert/Ruesler wedding was conducted by Rev. Gassner, who was the pastor of Trinity, Friedheim at that time. The Missouri marriage license for this pair is shown below. This license was a Perry County license despite the fact that they were married in Bollinger County.

Since we have the church books for the Lixville Lutheran Church in our research library, I am able to display the church marriage record for this wedding.

Fritz and Louise would have only one child, a daughter named Anna born in 1909.. In the 1910 census, we find Fritz, Louise, and Anna, along with a niece named Tilda Wilke. Tilda was the daughter of Louise’s sister, Catherine. I actually found Tilda not only in this entry but also in the entry for her widowed mother, who was living in the Cinque Hommes Township. There was also a hired man named August Koch living with the Bangert’s.

The 1920 census entry lists just the 3 Bangert’s. Fritz was still farming in the Whitewater Township.

Before I show the 1930 census, I want to display a plat map for Bollinger County that was produced in 1930. You can see that Fritz had his farm not far from Lixville. This image is almost identical to the plat map I included in yesterday’s post. You can see the William Ruesler farm on the other side of Lixville. I believe that is the farm on which Louise was born and raised.

It must have been about this time that Fritz also made a move back to the Apple Creek Township because that is where we find his family living in the 1930 census. Two things happened that may have caused this move. First, Fritz’s father died in 1915. Then, Fritz’s brother, Henry, moved his family to Cape Girardeau, and in the 1920 census, Fritz’s mother was living with them in Cape. In other words, no one was living on the Bangert farm, so perhaps Fritz moved there to take over the Bangert farm.

Both Fritz and Louise died in 1939. First, Louise died in May of that year. For some reason that does not show up on her death certificate, she was moved to the State Hospital in Farmington because that is where she died. All of the causes of death on this form are typical medical conditions, not ones that would indicate mental illness.

An obituary for Louise was published in the Perry County Sun.

Fritz Bangert died in November of 1939. His death certificate can be viewed below.

Fritz’s obituary in the Perry County Republican mentions that he had a fall followed by a stroke.

Both Fritz and Louise Bangert are buried in the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Friedheim.

There are some interesting facts in this story, other than the fact that Louise was born on March 5th and her brother was born on March 4th. Today’s husband and wife were both born during the same year, 1868, and both died during the same year, 1939. It is not every day that you run across that situation with a married couple. There is also the fact that two Bangert siblings married two Ruesler siblings. In this case, the first Ruesler/Bangert marriage took place first. They were married in 1899. Today’s Bangert/Ruesler couple was married in 1908. It would be even more interesting if I were to find a Bangert marrying a Ruesler on March 6th so that I could write such a story tomorrow, but that will not happen because our museum director will be writing the post tomorrow since it is Friday.