Today, I am having the feeling that I have been directed to this story by God Himself. The story I tell today that comes from a document in our local church record books which, by itself, does not appear that noteworthy. After all, you will find out it is the story of a single woman … More Disease, Death, and Dependence
The original Kaempfe family arrived aboard the Johann Georg as part of the Gesellschaft in 1839. I wrote a post about the early years in Perry County for the Kaempfe’s that was titled, Prof. Godfather. These Kaempfe’s eventually had a farm in Millstadt, Illinois, and one of their sons, Traugott, moved back to Perry County, … More Kaempfe’s Carriage
I am going to cheat again today. I have those typical Thanksgiving obligations to our family, so I’m pulling out an old blog post that was published three years ago. At that time, I wrote this post after Thanksgiving was over. I cannot believe it has been three years since this article was written. I … More Reflections on Thanksgiving
Several years ago, Gerard Fiehler and I had one of those “Holy Cow!” moments. While looking through an Excel spreadsheet that shows the church marriage records for Old Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Louis (in the Soulard neighborhood), we saw the following note. It was added to a record for a marriage that took place … More The Wedding in My Pasture
I have already written a few posts that have included Bernhardt Palisch. Just this past week, I wrote the story, Lichtenegger in Altenburg, which told of one of his daughters marrying a Lichtenegger. That is not the only story on this blog which has mentioned Bernhardt as the father of a story character. Another story … More Two Wives – Two Dozen Children
Thousands of people died in St. Louis during the summer of 1849. The cause of death was the disease known as cholera. It has been estimated that one out of every eleven people in that major city died from that disease primarily in the summer months of June and July. Many people who had the … More Summer of Death – 170 Years Ago
One of the characters in my book, Mama Buenger: Mother of a Synod is Clementine Buenger. She is today’s birthday girl. She was born on June 15, 1823 in Etzdorf, Germany. She was the daughter of Rev. Jakob and Christiane (Reiz) Buenger. Her father died in 1836, so her widowed mother decided to become a … More My Darling, Clementine
We begin today with an April 15th birthday in St. Louis, Missouri. Frederick Martin Grosse was born on April 15, 1845. Frederick was the son of Ernst Moritz and Wilhelmina (Hahn) Grosse and baptized at Old Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Louis. There were 5 children born to Ernst Moritz and Wilhelmina before Wilhelmina died … More Grosse Kirchen – Part 1
An old painting that is part of Lutheran history in America fascinates me. This painting is definitely connected to the history that we attempt to preserve at our museum. It is a painting that has been displayed in at least one previous post, but I am going to spend more time with it today. That … More Stories in a Painting
An sad, but interesting, death took place on this date in 1851 in Altenburg, Missouri. This event caused me to do quite a bit of thinking and searching, and the end result is that this post will take quite a few side trips. The death involved a very young boy by the name of Elias … More Elias Estel’s Early End
