Carl Hugo Paffrath arrived in New York City in February of 1882 aboard the Vaderland. We see his name on the passenger list shown below. Little did Carl know that his family would cross paths with a girl from Perry County roots. It was that girl who is today’s birthday girl. Her name was Clara … More Clara’s Car Guy
I start today with a birthday girl with the surname Militzer, but I will use her special day as a gateway to get me back to some German church records to explore the origin of the Schilling name in East Perry County. Juliane Militzer was born on February 1, 1875 and baptized at Trinity Lutheran … More Schilling German Origins
My Aunt Clara Schilling would have been 116 years old today. She was born on August 7, 1902 and baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church. She was the daughter of Henry and Bertha (Mueller) Loebs who had a farm in Wittenberg. Bertha Mueller was my grandmother, only I come by way of second husband, Emanuel Schmidt. … More Aunt Clara
Our German Family Tree records that Flora Schoenborn (“schoen” means beautiful in German) was born on July 20, 1897, so today would have been her 121st birthday. However, there is no baptism record for Flora in any church records from Perry County. Yet we do know from all the census records that include her that … More Florida – Born Beautiful
I was attracted to today’s story by a name. I noticed the name a while back, but decided that I would wait to do the story on December 21st. It was the birthday of a girl who was named Christliebe Marie Schoenborn. As near as I can tell, the name “Christliebe” means “dear to Christ”. … More A Nativity Name
Today is the birthday of Addie Isenberg. She was the daughter of Henry and Pauline (Hanf) Isenberg. Addie was born on December 3, 1899 and baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim, Missouri. Here is her baptism record. This is a case where our research library has the church records of Trinity, Friedheim, but they … More Isenberg in Wittenberg
One of the character traits of the German Lutherans who came to Perry County is their ability to take on new professions. For example, many of the original immigrants came to America with other skill sets, but ended up being farmers here because that was what was needed. However, there are other examples as well, … More Gaebler the Grocer
We have had a busy day here at our museum, with not much time to devote to a blog. So here is a quick story which brings a smile to my face. Gerard Fiehler was looking through some old files a few days ago and found this item: It shows the program for a play, … More That Crazy Smith Family
I know this is a great stretch, but I cannot resist a possible connection between historical people. In the Roman Catholic Church, there is a feast celebrated in some places called the Feast of Gertrude the Great which takes place on November 16th. Gertrude was a German nun who became notable for her spiritual writings … More Lillian the Great
