I have a different starting point for today’s post. Although I usually find a date of birth or a wedding anniversary as a starting point, I chose to use a baptismal date for today’s story. I do this for a reason. Yesterday, I had a delightful visit with some descendants of the Gerhardt Thurm family at our museum. They had traveled from a few distant locations to get here. Almost all of the boys in the Gerhardt Thurm family moved away from Perry County when they were young men. All but one of them moved to Bremer County, Iowa. I have already told several of the stories of those Thurm boys on this blog. When I located a baptismal date for one of the Thurm boys whose story has not yet been told, I could not resist.

Johann Traugott Thurm was born on May 30, 1887, the son of Gerhardt and Johanna (Kutscher) Thurm. Our German Family Tree records 10 children born to that couple, and 9 of them were boys. The only girl in this family died a few months after she was born. John was baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Altenburg, and the date of that baptism record was June 7, 1887, so today would be John’s 139th baptismal birthday. We can view his baptism record below in two images.

John was also born at the time when Perry County was keeping birth records. Below, you can view the record for John.

Because we cannot view the 1890 census, we first find John in a census when the one was compiled in 1900. John was 13 years old, and his father was a farmer in the Brazeau Township. We know that his farm was on The Ridge north of Altenburg. John was the second of the Thurm children in their birth order. Even though the only girl, Lydia, lived just a matter of months, she is found in this census as a baby.

John’s mother died in 1905 when the last of the Thurm boys was born. She died as a result of that childbirth. John’s father then married Anna Jungclaus in 1906. I imagine that Gerhardt really needed a female in that house full of boys. At some time prior to the 1910 census, John moved to Iowa. Actually, I located two Thurm boys, John and Paul, living in Bremer County, Iowa in the 1910 census. John was a hired hand on the August Kelling farm in Readlyn, Iowa at that time. He was 22 years old. There was another hired hand named Emil Zeitlam who was born in Wisconsin in this household.

John would get married during the next decade, so we will now look at the woman who would become his bride. Her name was Bertha Schweer, who was born on June 27, 1894. Bertha was the daughter of Friedrich and Louise (Wilkening) Schweer. I am guessing, since she would get married at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Klinger, Iowa, that I would find Bertha’s baptism record in that congregation’s books. Bertha is found in the 1900 census at the age of 5. Her father was a farmer near Readlyn, Iowa.

Next, we find Bertha in the 1910 census at the age of 15. Bertha’s entry was on page 22 of that year’s census for that location, and John’s was on page 15.

John Thurm married Bertha Schweer on September 5, 1912. An Iowa marriage record for this wedding is displayed below in two images. It says that they were married in Klinger, Iowa by an Evangelical Lutheran pastor. Immanuel Lutheran Church in Klinger was established in 1873 as an LCMS congregation.

The map below gives you an idea of where Readlyn and Klinger are located.

John had his World War I draft registration completed in 1917. It gives him a Readlyn address and says he was farming for himself. It also says he was born in Altenburg, Missouri.

It was also in 1917 that another Lutheran church was established in Readlyn called Zion Lutheran Church. It was not an LCMS congregation. Since John and Bertha would later be buried in Zion’s cemetery, I figure these Thurm’s became members of that congregation.

According to Family Search, this Thurm couple had 3 children. Two of those children were born prior to the 1920 census. In their entry below, we find an interesting notation. John is not called the head of the household. Bertha is. Both of Bertha’s parents died in 1916, so I think John and Bertha took over the farm on which Bertha had been born and raised. Right below the Thurm entry is that of Louis Schweer, who was Bertha’s brother.

The third child in this Thurm family was born in 1922, so in the 1930 census, we see all 3 of the children. John was now called the head of the household.

In the 1940 census, we find just their youngest son, Erwin, living with John and Bertha.

The last census that the public can view is the one taken in 1950. John and Bertha had an empty nest, and John was still doing farm work at the age of 61.

Bertha Thurm died in 1968 at the age of 73. I am able to display Bertha’s Iowa death certificate. She died in a hospital in Waterloo, Iowa.

We can read an obituary for Bertha pictured here.

John Thurm died in 1980 at the age of 92. His obituary below says that he died at the Hillcrest Home in Sumner, Iowa.

John and Bertha Thurm are buried together in the Zion Lutheran Cemetery in Readlyn.

I have to think that one major factor attracted the Thurm boys to Bremer County, Iowa. East Perry County is very hilly and does not have the best soil for farming. Once the Thurm boys got to Iowa, the found large, flat farms with rich black dirt, excellent for farming and getting plenty of good yields.

John was born and raised on The Ridge near Altenburg, but he spent almost all his life in or near Readlyn, Iowa in Bremer County. His children probably had plenty of opportunities to get together with many of their cousins who also lived in that county. I understand that quite a few Thurm cousins gathered in Perryville last night around a restaurant table. I know some of those cousins got to meet each other for the first time in their lives. I like to think that our museum (and even this blog) enabled this Thurm family to have this little reunion in Perry County.