Perry County Lutheran Historical Society president, Warren Schmidt has authored the first book in a historical fiction series about Wittenberg, Missouri. It is simply wonderful. I often tell patrons, when they are curious about Wittenberg, that “Wittenberg may look like a former town, but our Wittenbergers are alive and well.” I celebrate that all of … More The Beginning of Two New Series
Our story today centers around the birth of Frederick Hoffmann in 1842. He was born in St. Louis, and his baptism took place at Old Trinity Lutheran Church in that city. His family’s story, however, takes a path through New York City and Perry County (and likely northern Cape Girardeau County) before they finally settled … More Frederick the Stone Cutter
As most of you know, today is Veterans Day. It is also a special Veterans Day. This special day of remembrance was once known as Armistice Day which began when the November 11th Armistice was signed in 1918 to mark the end of World War I. The photo below shows some American soldiers celebrating the … More Serving Their Country
Mina Markwort’s name can be seen on this gravestone in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Perryville, Missouri. You can see that she was born on today’s date in 1843, making her today’s birthday girl. Some quick math will tell you that today would have also been her 175th birthday. I will attempt to tell her … More Wife of Soldier and Saloon Keeper
When I am doing research for this blog, I sometimes refer to what I do as “going down rabbit holes”. I spend way too much time going down these rabbit holes just to see where they lead. Today, I started with the birth of a set of Guetersloh twins born in Jacob, Illinois, but as … More The Guetersloh Twins’ Spouses
Today, I am going to re-publish an old post and add some new information and some new photographs to it. Yesterday, our museum had a few visitors who happened to be descendants of the Harry mentioned in the title of this post who way back in 1885 was left in a basket out in the … More Harry Abandoned on the Prairie – Updated
Today’s blog post was written by Cal Eggers, and he tells the story of an Eggers. I find it to be a fascinating story. I think you will also. Thanks, Cal, for your contributions to our blog. ========================================================================= The word “pioneer” can be defined as: a person who is among the first … More Sons of the Pioneers
My wife and I are spending time with our daughter’s family in Johnson City, Tennessee for a few days. Today, because of the holiday that gets our grandchildren out of school, we are being taken to North Carolina for a day trip to Mount Airy, North Carolina, which is a small town that likes to … More Off to North Carolina Today
Today’s post was inspired by a question we received at our museum. The question was asked by Tom Hirsch, a friend of our museum who hails from the Tirmenstein family. He asked, “Which of the original immigrants was the youngest when the German Lutherans left their homeland in 1838?” Implied in this question is the … More Who Was the Youngest?
Two brothers, both shoemakers, were part of the Gesellschaft that came to America in 1838-1839. They were the Richter brothers from Kolkau, Germany. They came to America aboard the Copernicus. Here we see these two brothers shown on the passenger list of that ship. You can find Kolkau on the map below. It is one of the … More A Capital Wedding
