Theodore Albert Bodenschatz would be celebrating his 159th birthday today. He was born on April 6, 1862, the son of Erdmann and Christiana (Wachter) Bodenschatz. I am able to display a photograph of Theodore’s parents. Theodore was baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Altenburg. His baptism record from that congregation’s books is shown below. The … More Ted’s Two Wives and Two Kids
Henry Bimpage was quite an important character involved in the settlement of the Gesellschaft in Perry County. However, when you look in our German Family Tree for records for this character, you only find one date. That was his marriage which took place on March 1, 1840, not long after the German Lutherans arrived on … More Henry Bimpage – Realtor
In a previous blog post titled, Pocahontas Undertaker, the main character was Christian Reisenbichler. The “Pocahontas Undertaker” was Christian Ernst Reisenbichler, the son of Gottlieb and Anna Marie (Pilz) Reisenbichler who was born in 1874. Today, you will read the story of Christian E. Reisenbichler’s older cousin, Christian Johann Reisenbichler, who is today’s birthday boy. … More The Other Christian Reisenbichler
We will be taking a look at another person that would be celebrating her 150th birthday if she was still alive today. She was a Palisch, and she would go on to marry a Fischer. This was not the first time that a Palisch woman would marry a Fischer man. When I do stories on … More A More Recent Fischer-Palisch Pair
There is a remote connection between yesterday’s story which took place in the Shawnee Township of Cape Girardeau County, Missouri and today’s story which has its beginning in the Fountain Bluff Township of Jackson County, Illinois. The connection can be found if you backtrack to the beginning of the Vogel family in Perry County. There … More Mrs. Reinkensmeyer
I will drift away from my normal story strategy today. Instead of telling the tale of one family, I am going to give brief attention to three people that are not related to each other in any family way. What they do have in common is a connection to Reformation Day, October 31st. Two of … More Reformation Roundup
I think the story of Friedrich Bodenschaz contains two fairly distinct chapters. One chapter includes his life from birth to the year 1890, and the second chapter takes his life from that point until his death in 1929. You may understand that distinction by the time I get to the end of his story. Ernst … More Friedrich Bodenschatz’s Two Lives
A baptism record in the books of Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna presents us with a bit of a puzzle. This record shows a boy by the name of Leo Herbert Wagner being born on October 3, 1897. He was the son of Samuel and Margarethe (Sommer) Wagner. I will display that record here. The … More When Was Herbert Born?
Heinrich Albert Pilz was born on July 10, 1864, so he is today’s birthday boy. Although I will call him Henry today, I really ought to call him Henry A. because there were two boys named Henry Pilz that were born around the same time and were both members of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Altenburg. … More Pilz or Piltz; Henry A. or Henry C.
Today’s post once again sent me off on some more tangential research (down some extra rabbit holes). This time, I was off on a journey to learn the history of refrigeration and tractor trailers. I had actually done some of this research a while back on refrigeration when I was writing my Wittenberg ’03 book. … More George Gerhardt – From Blacksmith to Selling Refrigerators
