Being a Schmidt, I am very accustomed to typing the letters S-c-h at the beginning of my name. Having been a Lutheran school teacher and principal, I saw the permanent files kept by the schools at which I served. The letter S was almost always the largest set of files. And in the S’s, there … More A Couple of S-C-H’s
Today is a good day for me to do a story that only has two potential church records to view. I am once again out of town doing a grandparently duty, so I cannot display such church records. It seems that I have written several of these kinds of stories lately that involve an East … More Joe and Eunice Noennig
I welcome a new guest blogger today. Her name is Pat Borgman. She will tell you the story of one of her aunts, Evelyn Meyr. Her Aunt Evelyn received her heavenly reward earlier this year, and she will receive special recognition in our immigration conference next week. Evelyn was a member of the building committee … More My Aunt Evelyn Meyr
Our birthday boy for March 19th is Edmund Reinhard Mueller. At our museum, Gerard Fiehler has come up with some classification names to describe the four major Mueller clans that have lived in Perry County over the years. It helps us comprehend the Mueller maze that makes researching the Muellers such a challenge. Edmund was … More Butter, Bank, and Band
December 11, 1836 was the birthday of Carl Gemeinhardt. As near as I can tell, he was the first of the Gemeinhardts to show up in the church books of East Perry County, Missouri. A buddy of mine from Memphis, Tennessee is Charlie Gemeinhardt, and he would call Carl his great grandfather. There is some … More Those Gemeinhardt-Fiehler Connections
Today would have been the 91st anniversary of Herman and Thekla. Or was it Benjamin and Onita. On their Perry County marriage license we see them as Benjamin and Onita. On a gravestone, they are Herman and Thekla. I am going to use Herman and Thekla. Not only did the names they used shift during … More Shifting Schaefers
April twentieth was the wedding day for two young Altenburgers who lived not far from each other along Main Street on the east side of town. It was a Sunday in 1913 when Ferdinand Buck was united in marriage with Alma Seibel at Trinity Lutheran Church. Here is their Missouri marriage license. The license says … More Buck Butter Business
The year was 1899. Three years earlier, William Drumtra’s wife, Mary (Mueller) Drumtra had died, leaving him with with four children, ages 15, 13, 7, and 3. Now on January 4th, William was getting married again, this time to Sarah Beyer, the daughter of Teacher Beyer at Trinity Lutheran School. Sarah was 23 years old … More A Man of Many Talents
Since it is Thanksgiving Day, and since Thanksgiving has traditionally been a day for family, I am doing a post about my own family. I have found out quite a bit about my own family only after I retired from teaching and moved to Altenburg. Once I started spending time at the Lutheran Heritage Center … More The Schmidt Store
The name Drumtra arrived in Perry County in the 1870’s and basically disappeared by the 1940’s. The following article can be found in the 1898 publication called “The Great Southwest”. It tells the story of Wm. J. Drumtra coming to Altenburg. Wm. J. Drumtra “The above named gentleman was born in Saxony-Weimar, Germany, in 1859, … More A Name Appears and Disappears
