Johannes August Rödiger (7/9/1889-?)

New info on Johannes August Rödiger that I have recently found.

I stumbled across his marriage while researching records in the village of Liedersdorf (AKA Lüdersdorf) near Bebra.

So, first off, let me orient you on how Johannes August fits into the family tree. He was the son of Justus Rödiger, the older brother of George and Conrad Tobias, all three being the children of Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer. George and Tobias emigrated to Ohio, but Justus stayed in Germany, and became Bürgermeister (mayor) of the village of Tann from 1880-1887.

Justus was born on 10 September 1850. He married twice. First, to Anna Margaretha Lotz on 27 April 1773 at the Lutheran Church in Tann. They had seven children. The oldest was Johannes Heinrich (AKA John Henry) who emigrated to Ohio in 1893 and married Anna Christina Eschmeyer. After his first wife died (8 April 1886), Justus married Anna Katharina Ernestine Hornickel on 17 October 1886. John Henry later related to his own children that one of the reasons that he left home and came to America was the treatment he and his siblings received at the hand of his new stepmother. She fed them less and poorer quality food than her own children received and they were forced to sleep in the barn which was attached to the house.

Justus and Anna Katharina Ernestine Hornickel, his second wife (the “wicked step-mother”) had two children that I have been able to identify. The first was Barbara Katharina Ernestine (7/30/1887-12/18/1940). And the second was the subject of this blog post, Johannes August. He was born in Tann on 9 July 1889, and baptized in the Evangelische Kirche on 4 August 1889. That was all I had been able to discover about him before I recently discovered his marriage record:

To summarize what is found in this record, the second column reveals that Johann August Rödiger was a Landwirt (farmer, cultivator of the soil), son of Justus Rödiger (also a Landwirt) and his wife, Katharine Ernestine, whose maiden name was Hornickel. Johann(es) August was born 9. July 1889, reformed confession (Lutheran) in Tann.

The third column gives the particulars concerning his bride: Anna Katharina Brehm was the daughter of Konrad Brehm and Anna Maria, whose maiden name was Claus. Anna Katharina was born on 15 April 1889, reformed confession in Lüdersdorf.

The fourth column records the place and date of the required registration to marry (like a marriage license here in the US. They registered to marry in the village of Breitenbach on 16 October 1920. They were both 31 years old. While we, here in the USA, are used to marriages taking place at much younger ages, based on my research, this was a relatively "normal" age to marry during this period of time in Hesse. And though it does not specify in this record, it does appear that this was the first marriage for both. I was going to go through all the reasons for this conclusion, but after writing it all out it got rather verbose, so I scratched it.

The fifth column is the Kirchliche Aufgebote, which we might know as "Banns" in which the couple's intention to marry are proclaimed before the congregation on two or three separate occasions prior to the marriage. In this case the Aufgebot was proclaimed on 26 September and again on 3 October.

Finally in the sixth column, is the date and place of the wedding. The wedding of Johann(es) August Rödiger and Anna Katharina Brehm took place on 17 October 1920 in the church [of Lüdersdorf].

Below is a Google Map showing the proximity of Lüdersdorf to Tann, just a nice 4 mile hike through the woods and fields:

I have been searching for children of J. August and A. Katharina, but have been stymied in that attempt, because the last Lüdersdorf Church Book, which covers the years 1830-1937, only has baptismal records up through 1920, the year they were married.

I also have not found a death record for J. August yet. However, I did find his wife's government issued death record on Ancestry.com. She died 13 June 1956 in House #16, Lüdersdorf (the same house she was born in). And according to the record, J. August appears to still be living. So, for now, the date of his death is unknown, but placed some time later than 6/13/1956.

So, now you know all that I know about John Henry Roediger's half-brother, Johann August Rödiger. Just another piece of Eichenauer-Roediger puzzle I am putting together.

George Rödiger, pt 2-- "in America"

This post is a continuation of the last post, so if you haven't already, you might want to read it first. It may have been better to put one of George's descendants to work on this subject because I have just the bare bones facts to relate. But I shall supply what I know, and hope for comments to help flesh it out.

If you have photos or newspaper clippings that relate to this, let me know so we can post something more complete in the future.

When George arrived in Ohio in 1888, he was reunited with his brother, Conrad Tobias (my great-grandfather) and his first cousins (who were also his half-nephews), Tobias, Conrad, Adam and Justus (Gus) Eichenauer who had preceded him to Ohio. I found a file card pertaining to his naturalization in the Auglaize County Courthouse, Probate Office, in Wapakoneta which says that George arrived at Baltimore on December 4, 1888, and was became a naturalized citizen on 24 October 1896.

The ship record itself says, Dec. 3, and his obituary says Dec. 6, so there is a bit of a discrepancy but nothing critical at all.

As you may remember from pt. 1, George arrived in Baltimore with his five surviving children, Nicolaus, age 15; Conrad, age 11; Elisabeth, age 9 and Margaretha, age 4.
Since the Census Record of 1890 was almost completely destroyed in a fire in Washington DC, we do not have the first census record that George and his family would have been found in. Twelve years after their arrival, George appears in the 1900 Census of Washington Twp, Auglaize County, Ohio. I have reproduced just the first half of the page, otherwise it would be too small for you to read. However, the right half of the page does inform us that the Roedigers were born in Germany, immigrated in 1888 and had lived in the US for 12 years, and that George was a naturalized citizen.
What I want you to see from this census is that the only child still living at home is the youngest daughter, Margaret, who is now 16. This should not be too surprising since her elder siblings would have all been old enough to have "left the nest."

According to the Auglaize County Death records, two of George's children died in 1895 of "brain fever" just a little over a month apart: Conrad George on 25 September 1895, age 18 years and 1 day; and Anna Katharina Elisabeth on 28 October 1895, age 16 years and 8 days. I know the graphic is difficult to read. I can send you a copy of this page if you request it.

This left George's oldest child, Heinrich Nicolaus and Margaretha. Heinrich Nicolaus went by "Henry" and I found him in Washington Twp, Auglaize County, Ohio in the 1900 Census listed as Henry N. Roediger:

Again, I have cut off the righthand side of the page to make this more legible. What I discovered is that Henry was single, working as a servant (right side of page specifies "farmhand") and living with the John M. Arnett family. What is unusual is that his age is listed as unknown and no birth date info is provided. It may be that Henry was away or out on the "back 40" when the enumerator arrived, and the Arnett's didn't know Henry's birthdate or year, so it was left blank. According to the righthand side of the record, Henry could read, write and speak English and was born in Germany, as were his parents.

Sadly, Henry did not live until the 1910 census. His headstone can be found in Arnett Cemetery, located on the Moulton-New Knoxville Rd, between Washington Pike and Weifenbach Rd. south of Moulton in Auglaize Co.

"Henry Roediger died Dec. 23, 1905, aged 32y, 8m 6d"
"We shall meet again dear brother in a brighter clime than this,
where the anguish of this world of ours is lost in deathless bliss."

While attempting to discover  Henry's cause of death, through the Auglaize county death records, I discovered that the death records for those who died between 1899 and 1909 are completely missing.  This is very mysterious and of course, leaves us in the dark as to Henry's cause of death. I feel obligated to investigate the cause for this, and determine if these records were stashed in a separate book that was never digitized or if they are gone forever.

So, I have had to fall back on the recollections of my Dad, who at one time said that he thought that Nicolaus Heinrich Roediger had been hit and killed by a train. I would appreciate hearing from any of you that might be able to shed some light on this. If nothing is forthcoming, I will try to peruse the Wapak newspaper collection the next time I get to Wapak to see if I can find an obituary or an article concerning his death.

In any case, out of the 9 children from George's first marriage, 5 died under age 6, before he came to America. Of the remaining 4, two died in their teens from "brain fever" and 1 died at age 32 without marrying, from a cause yet to be discovered.

That leaves Anna Margaretha Agnesa "Margaret", whom I am happy to say survived her childhood, married William Wesley Aufderhaar and they had 9 children of their own and numerous descendants.

I can only imagine the sadness that must have been in George Roediger's heart, to lose his wife and five children in their childhood and his house and barn to a fire; to come to America for a fresh start and within a relatively short time lose three more children in the prime of their lives. I do not know how this affected his outlook on life, but he did not give up on life, of that I am sure.

And that story will be part of an upcoming post, "George Roediger, pt. 3--A New Family".

Stay Tuned!