First, an explanation of the title. The married couple for today is made up of a Koch and a Vogel. In German, Koch means “cook” and Vogel means “bird”. Enough said. Lydia Vogel is today’s birthday girl. She was born on September 15, 1890 and baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New Wells, Missouri. She … More The Cook and His Bird
Before I begin today’s story, I’d like to discuss pronunciation. I have talked to several local folks about how to pronounce Guetersloh. Although there is some difference of opinion, the pronunciation that gets the most support is Gitter-slaw. In fact, the folks that use this pronunciation far outnumber any other pronunciation. At least among the … More Guetersloh-Rathjen
Henry is today’s birthday boy, but before I tell his story, let me explain that in the German language the word for bird is vogel. Yesterday’s post highlighted a Vogel, and another Vogel will show up today. As I have researched the Vogel name in this area, I have found that the first Vogel’s in … More Henry’s Love Bird **Updated
I start today by reminding you of a previous post that was written about the Feig family. I looked up Feig on Google Translate, and it said this word means “cowardly” in English (although another German dictionary indicated you had to have an “e” at the end to mean “cowardly”). I am already getting off … More Cowardly Clara Becomes Käsekopf
Maria Mahnken was born on August 14, 1886. She was the daughter of John and Marie (Heitmann) Mahnken. She was born in Germany and is said to have come to America with her family in 1889. The first record we find in our German Family Tree for Maria is her confirmation record at Salem Lutheran … More M.M. and P.P.
We do not have a baptism record for today’s birthday boy. In fact, we don’t even come close to looking at such a document. That is because he was born in Ranchi, India. The map below shows the location of Ranchi in East India. The boy born on August 5, 1846 in India was Bernhard … More Pastor Proofreader
Today’s birthday girl can be described using so many names, as indicated in the title of this post. That list is not even complete, as you will later read. This girl’s family could trace their ancestry back to the Gesellschaft in 1839, but by the time of her birth, her parents were living across the … More Brewer’s Daughter; Coal Miner’s Wife; Baker; Laundress
Carl Friedrich Moeckel (he went by “Fred”) was born on July 19, 1883. He was the firstborn child in the family of Charles and Mathilda (Sewerosky) Moeckel. Fred was baptized at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna. Below is his baptism record. One more child was born and baptized at Concordia, Frohna, but when their third … More Motorman Moeckel
I wrote yesterday that I do not often use an early death as the starting point for a blog post. Now I am about to write my second post in a row that starts that way. What attracted me to an early death today is the likelihood that this death led to the first burial … More First Burial
Johann Friedrich Conrad Amschler was born on July 8, 1863. That would make today his 156th birthday. John’s story got a fairly good accounting in a previous post about one of his sons which was titled, Z to A. Even though that post included information about John, I decided to embellish his story in a … More Finding a Bride Across the River
