THE GERMAN IMMIGRANTS
OF MILLER COUNTY:
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Miller County was settled pretty much by English and Irish immigrants to begin with. While there were some earlier German settlers, the most part came in the late 1880s and early 1900. The German people at this time in history were far advanced in technology. By this I mean Science, Engineering, Medical etc. We saw this in World War II with the U-2 Rockets. The Russians beat us to the moon because they had more German scientists and mathematicians. Because of the WARS and other prejudices, I personally feel like the German settlers were not given the recognition and respect they deserved. I am not just talking about Miller County. I have seen enough prejudice that no one will convince me that it didn't exist. I AM ENGLISH & IRISH predominantly. There is not a lot of German History available in county records to do Look-ups. I am going to concentrate on the St. Elizabeth area of Miller County and do what I can to get information on these people that were and still are so important to our heritage. In some cases I will group familys together whether they are related or not Many of these German settlers settled in Maries, Miller, Osage and Cole counties which was very easy to do. If you are familar with St. Elizabeth, you are within 5 miles of all four counties. You can bet that on Sunday you would find them all at St. Elizabeth in Church. There would be two reasons for that, most were Catholic, and they wanted to visit and speak German with their fellow countrymen. Can you imagine this point in time. Germans, English and French trying to communicate with each other. My great-grandfather was English and dad said you couldn't hardly understand a word he said with that Scotch-Irish brogue. The British Isles are made up of Scotland, Wales, Ireland etc. Every island had it's own brogue. Just like here in the USA, if you go to New York you think they talk "funny", do to Louisiana, the same. The census takers and tax collectors had to go nuts trying to understand all these different dialects. No wonder you see some strange spelling of names. I had the good fortune to meet some of the Lueckenhoffs in my quest For my West ancesters. They were very courteous and helpful. The Lueckenhoffs own the famous "Lost Hill" of West history. When I was there, Mr. Luechenhoff and his little granddaughter were putting up new guttering. The granddaughter was mostly supervising and apparently Mr. Lueckenhoff paid attention, because when I went back it really looked good. The mother of this little granddaughter gave me one of my prized possessions, a copy of the "St. Elizabeth: The First Century, 1880-1980. This was a little book put out for the St. Elizabeth Centennial in1980. A lot of people contributed to this booklet, but most of the credit, I think, should go to Dale Doerhoff and his wife Ruth. There are old pictures of "Old St. Elizabeth" and a lot of the old buildings in both Old & New Charleytowne. There are stories in it taken from Biographies from the old German immigrants themselves. There are pictures of the old gatherings and people who have long since gone. Well, I guess they are not really gone, I see their headstones and the headstones of all these families, I've been working on, side by side at the St. Lawrence Cemetery in St. Elizabeth. They shared their lives and now they share Eternity. I didn't mention the first names of these Lueckenhoffs that were so gracious to me, because I didn't want to impose on their privacy, but thank you Carol wherever you are. According to the book on St. Elizabeth, The first marriage ever performed by a Catholic Priest in Miller county was at Old St. Elizabeth 10/17/1871. There were two that day: Both performed by Rev. Wm. Klevinghaus. Henry Borgmeyer to Anna Catherine Haake. John Diedrich Holtmeyer to Gertrude Heiman. 7 other marriages were performed before the church moved to New Elizabeth. They were: Joseph Luechenhoff to Francis Riggs 5/21/1872. by J.M. Buergler. John Paul Beeble to Manziska Haake. 1/14/1873. by Alvia Mayers. Herman Boechman to Gertrude Buechter, 1/18/1873, by J. M. Buergler Henry Shulte to Eliza Brandt. 1/16/1877. by Rev. F. Veaper. Frank Lepper to Anna Wilbers. 4/22/1879. by P. Bremerich. Gerard Henry Hake to Elizabeth Schepers 5/6/1879. by P. Bremerich. James Henry Heckemeyer to Gertrude Buechter 8/26/1879. By Bremerich. During this same time period 81 were baptized. DeVere |