Wegehaupt Wednesday

And now something for the other line of the family.

While in Parkston, SD for great-grandma's 90th birthday, I had a chance to stop by Immanuel Lutheran, rural Dimock, to drop off the altar flowers in honor of Grandma.  Since it was a nice day and I had my camera, I started walking the cemetery to get a better idea of who and how everyone is connected in the Geidel and Wegehaupt families.
Pastor Otten came over to talk to me while taking a break from yard work on the parsonage. Over the course of his time at Immanuel, he's gotten to know the Wegehaupt families and he showed me through the cemetery.
He pointed to one Wegehaupt plot and mentioned- "they're related, but distant."  He wasn't sure how they were connected, so of course as I'm driving back to town, I start thinking how I can unravel it.

The "Distant" Wegehaupts

The so-called distant Wegehaupts aren't that distant in terms of where they're buried.

This is Fritz and Anna Elizabeth Wegehaupt's headstone in the Immanuel Cemetery.

Fritz (Senior) is the first Wegehaupt settler in the Hillside/Flensburg area of Douglas County, SD.
Notice the Wegehaupt graves behind their's.

The two standing stones are:

• Emma Wegehaupt (1875-1918)
• Another family marker for Wegehaupt, for:
• Adolf (1880-1946)
• Bertha (1884-1876)

In between them is a bronze miltary marker in the ground for Karl Wegehaupt (1910-July 25 1944. T5 US Army, WWII)

Fritz (Junior) is buried in a different section of the same cemetery.

So who are Emma, Adolf and Karl?

A little hint can come from their immigration papers, which are available from Ellis Island.
Arrival in New York from Hamburg on the SS Amerika October 24, 1906.

Name	Marital Status	Age
Henrietta Wegehaupt	widowed	57
Emma Wegehaupt	single	34
Adolf Wegehaupt	single	26
Magdalena Wegehaupt	single	16
Martha Wegehaupt	single	16

Brackets connect these 5 together for the remaining questions:

• Nationality: German
• Last Residence: Minkowske
• Destination: Hillside, SD
• Whether going to join a relative or friend; and if so... [their] name and complete address:  Fritz Wegehaupt, Hillside S.D.

So they're here in America and are going to join Fritz in SD. Given their birth dates (Fritz Jr born 1889, Fritz Sr born 1858) it's more likely they are meaning Fritz, Sr.

Fritz Sr.'s German "Vacation"?

While digging a little more, there are some more clues to this mystery.

Item 1: Fritz leaves Germany, again

A search of German port departures on Ancestry.com found a Fritz Wegehaupt leaving Hamburg, Germany on 6 January 1901.  The German record lists his age as 42, his occupation as "landmann" (farmer), his residence as Flensburg (another name for the German settlement in this part of Douglas County, South Dakota) and his nationality as American.

Item 2: Fritz's passport

The passport itself is gone, but his passport application is still on file.  On August 28, 1900 he applied for a passport, saying he'd be out of the country for less than 2 years. He has the passport sent to an address in New York, NY (which I read as the "Evangelical Lutheran Pilgrim House"- which matches the address of the Lutheran Pilgrim House at 8 State Street, New York) So it appears he plans to be in NY around early September to board a ship to Germany, then spends about 3-4 months in Germany.

So why go back to Germany?

• Settle an estate?
• Receive an inheritance?
• Visit a dying family member?

The exact reason is unknown, but the results (a widow immigrating to America with her children 6 years later) appear to be known. It's a reasonable conclusion that Adolf and Emma are at least cousins to Fritz, Sr to some degree, or maybe even step-siblings.  The next step is to get Henrietta's obituary to see if a husband is named, or if her relationship to the other Wegehaupts in the area is listed.

Post-script: The other three Wegehaupt women

Henrietta and the twins appear in the 1910 census for this part of Douglas County, by the 1920 census they've moved to Delmont.

• Henrietta dies in 1921 and is buried in Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Delmont.
• The twins appear to never marry and die in 1981 (Magdalena) and 1991 (Martha)

Church on Sunday

So it's Sunday, what better day to talk about the churches in the family history?
Both the Gehners and the Schweppe families were originally from the Borgholzhausen, Germany area and were bought up in the German Lutheran church, specifically this one-- the Evangelical Parish Church in Borgholzhausen, today part of the Halle district of the Evangelische Kirche of Westphalia.

Henry Sr. (in German: Johann Heinrich Gehner) was baptized here in August 1830, while his first wife Maria Schweppe was baptized at the same church in 1841.(Maria's father was baptised in Detmold, which is about 20km from Borgholzhausen)

The building itself dates from around 1496, and the carved altar dates from 1501.

Sources:

• Baptism records from Family History Library international film #473585 (Baptisms 1820-1851)  Evangelical Church of Borgholzhausen, Germany
• Building information from Wikipedia.de entry for Borgholzhausen
• Exterior Photo from Wikimedia Commons.  Public domain image by Hagar66
• Interior Photo from Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image (published in 1908) in The Architectural and Cultural Monuments of Westphalia, Halle District

Talented Tuesday

The family talent streak in music and metals isn't a new thing.  Here's a couple of the more recent discoveries from 100 years ago-

Fred's patents

Henry Sr's son Frederick apparently wasn't just a merchant and farmer, he had time to tinker and invent a couple of inventions along the way which he patented
Patent 871690 "A new and useful wrench"
Patent 895448 for a wheel-mounted push scraper

Herman's music

Fred's brother Herman went the music and teaching route.  His obituary in the Shawano Leader (WI) from 1960 best describes it:
"He came to Shawano soon after his graduation from Addison Normal School in Illinois as a teacher in the school, and the church organist and choir director.  His early training as a teacher and organist was received at Fort Wayne College in Indiana...  Mr. Gehner devoted nearly 30 years of hiis early married life to teaching and choral directing."