Back in 2021, a post was published on this blog titled, Widowed in Winter – Joined during June in Jacob. One of the characters in that post was a man named Henry Hollmann. The birthday boy in today’s story is another Henry Hollmann. The previous Henry Hollmann was born in Germany in 1870. Today’s main … More Another Henry Hollmann
St. John’s Lutheran Church in Ruma, Illinois is celebrating their 175th anniversary this year. It is not often that a story on this blog takes us to that little church in Randolph County, Illinois. Today will be one of those posts. The baptism record for today’s birthday girl is likely to be found in the … More A Rathjen-Rowold Romance
I have written a bunch of stories involving people with the name, Stueve. The number of posts written about a surname that has a slightly different name, Stueven, is considerably smaller. I did a search on this blog for posts that included the name, Stueve, and stopped counting the number of results after getting to … More Stueven’s in Jacob
A baby girl was born 175 years ago on today’s date in Scheeβel, Germany. You will be reading her story today. That baby was named Anna Weseloh. Her baptism record from the congregation in Scheeβel says she was born on February 8, 1848 and baptized 5 days later on February 13th. Anna was the daughter … More Happy 175th Birthday, Anna Weseloh
The story you will read today was inspired by a marriage that took place on December 1st back in the 1880’s. It may be an exception to a tradition of weddings not taking place during the seasons of Lent and Advent in German Lutheran churches. I think the marriage highlighted in this story did take … More Joachim from Jacob and His Uniontown Bride
Johannes Heinrich Claus Kistenmacher was born on December 12, 1869, so he is today’s birthday boy. A marriage record from Christ Lutheran Church in Jacob, Illinois says John was born in Wilhelmsburg, Hanover, Germany. That church record also states that John was the son of Heinrich and Maria (Schlichting) Kistenmacher. Our German Family Tree lists … More Boxmaker’s Wives and Kids
The starting point for today’s story is a wedding that took place on this day in 1894. This may not seem significant, but today is the first day of a new church liturgical year. It is also the beginning of the season of Advent. Things have changed over the years, but the liturgical color for … More Martin or Martha
I am going to write a story about Gustav Wagner today. This is not the first time that I have written about a man named Gustav Wagner. Today’s Gustav was the grandson of the man I have written about before. That Gustav Wagner had married Theresa Palisch, and those two ran what was once called … More Gustav and Frieda
There are several reasons today’s post will be different than most. First of all, the main character of this story does not live long. In fact, he still hadn’t made it past his teenage years when he died, and that also means that he never married. Therefore, I do not have many documents to share … More Lightning Struck Suddenly
Yesterday, I mentioned that there have already been several stories in which people begin their lives in Perry County, Missouri, spend part of their lives in Jackson County, Illinois, just across the Mississippi from here, and end their lives in the big city of St. Louis. I didn’t expect to run across another one so … More Another One of Those Stories
