A while back, a post was published on this blog about the original Kaempfe’s who were part of the Gesellschaft in 1839. That post was titled, Kaempfe’s Carriage, and I think it would be helpful to read that post to help understand the one being written today. You will discover that the husband and wife in today’s tale had very short lives, and none of their lives took place in Perry County. Not even in Missouri. I will begin with today’s birthday boy.
William Ludwig Kaempfe was born on March 18, 1851, so today would be his special 175th birthday. William’s father, Samuel Kaempfe, who had moved to the vicinity of Millstadt, Illinois, lost his first wife in 1848, and he had remarried in 1850. His second wife had the maiden name of Christiane Mueller, but her first husband, Friedrich Moos, had died in 1850. William was the first son born to Samuel and Christiane Kaempfe. He was likely baptized at Holy Cross Lutheran Church near Millstadt, Illinois, a congregation that had been established in 1841. However, I do not have access to that congregation’s church records.
William is found in the 1860 census at the age of 9. His father was a farmer in the Sugar Loaf Township in St. Clair County, Illinois. That is located not far from Millstadt. You can see a few Moos children in this household.
Here is a map showing the location of Holy Cross Lutheran Church. It is now given an address of Carondolet, Illinois. It is a congregation that is still active and a member of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
This photo shows what the Holy Cross sanctuary looks like now.
Next, we find William in the 1870 census at the age of 19.
William would get married not long after the above census was taken, so we will now take a look at the woman who would become his bride. Her name was Julianna Hoffstetter, who was born on June 21, 1851. She was the daughter of Jacob and Christine (Huth) Hoffstetter. I am guessing that if she was also baptized at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, which I think she was, her baptism record would be found on the same page as that of William. I did not locate Juliana in the 1860 census, but the 1870 enumeration shows the Hoffstetter’s living in the Sugar Loaf Township where her father was farming. Juliane was 19 years old at the time, and her mother had died not long before this census was taken.
William Kaempfe married Juliana Hoffstetter on January 1, 1871. I can display a transcription of an Illinois marriage record for this wedding.
I am going to display two different types of transcriptions of records that give evidence of 2 children being born to William and Juliana. First of all, there was a son named William who was born in about 1873. Evidence of that birth is found on a later marriage record for that son which took place in 1895.
Another child, a daughter named Carolina, was born on February 11, 1878 according to the Illinois birth record shown here.
Here is what is interesting about this daughter’s birth. William Kaemfe, the father, died on January 30, 1878 at the age of 26. I am unaware of the cause of this early death. However, you can see that he died less than 2 weeks prior to the birth of Carolina. Juliana must have been quite pregnant when she attended her husband’s funeral. And Juliana must have still been grieving when her daughter was born.
Juliana Kaempfe married again in 1879. Her second husband was Ernst Ludwig Drewes. I know practically nothing about this man. I am able to display this Illinois marriage record for that wedding.
This marriage did not even last one year. Juliana Drewes died in March of 1880 at the age of 28. I also do not know her cause of such an early death. What makes this story even more amazing is that Samuel Kaempfe, the father of today’s birthday boy, died in June of 1879, the time between William’s death and just prior to Juliana’s second marriage.
Apparently all of the characters mentioned in this story were buried in the Holy Cross Lutheran Cemetery near Millstadt. I am only going to show the gravestones of William and Juliana. You can see that Juliana has the surname, Drewes, on her tombstone.
On the Findagrave.com site for these people, you can find this information about the probable burials of several of the characters in this story. It looks like there were several burials in the same area of this cemetery during the last years of the 1870’s and 1880. If this information is correct, there is a site there that does not have gravestones.
It was about the same time that William’s brother, Traugott Kaempfe, who by then had gotten married, moved his family back to Perry County around 1876 and settled near Farrar. Traugott’s story can be read in the post, Carl from Millstadt. The photo below of the Traugott Kaempfe family gives the reason why we still have the Kaempfe surname around in East Perry County.
