The Widow Landwehr
The lyrical descriptions of the American West that filled emigrant guidebooks, travel accounts, and letters mailed back home by prior emigrants led some German emigrants to expect more than the "land of opportunity" could possibly provide. Anna Landwehr was apparently one of the many who were surprised by the harsh realities of the German immigrants's life on the frontier. Katie Wolff's history tells us that before Anna Landwehr brought her five children to America, she had "heard quite a bit about the land and supposed that milk and honey flowed therein".
Certainly, Anna could not have foretold the dramatic events of her first few years in America. They were years filled with challenges and uncertainty, and undoubtedly they brought some tears. The first few months of her search for a new life included the rigors of the long Atlantic crossing with her children, the long journey from New Orleans to Franklin County, the requirement to find suitable homes in a new land for each of her children, her own hasty marriage to a man whom she had probably just met, and the qualms she must have felt when she sent her 14-year-old daughter to work in St. Louis. The next year she saw her two oldest sons drawn into the War of the Rebellion, and received the news that her eldest son had been killed or captured by the Confederate forces. All of these dramatic events occured during Anna's first two years in America.
Her hastily-arranged marriage to Henry Guese, only a few weeks after her arrival in Franklin County, probably provided Anna with only a modicum of personal comfort and security. The marriage did provide Anna with a home, so that she was no longer dependent on the generosity of her sister for a place to live. But Henry Guese did not have the means to provide much in the way of comfortable living accomodations. The 1860 Federal census, enumerated just nine months after Henry Guese and Anna were married, informs us that their home was situated immediately adjacent to the Fritz Guese home, where Fritz and his wife and two young daughters were living. Since Henry Guese never owned any land in Franklin County, the census strongly suggests that Henry and Anna lived in a separate house located on the Fritz Guese farm.
Henry Guese and Anna apparently had very limited means. In the 1860 census, Henry listed the value of his personal property at only $100. The 1860 census also informs us that Henry Guese's two youngest sons, 13-year-old Philip Guese and 11-year-old William Guese, were living with Henry and Anna, and were attending school. Henry's 16-year-old daughter, Elisa Guese, was living next door with the family of her brother, Fritz Guese. But, as we know, Anna's five children had been split up, and were living with other families. We may presume that Henry and Anna did not have a house large enough to accomodate Anna's children, or they did not have the means to feed them.
While Anna was apparently not able to provide a home for her children during her first year in America, it would appear that she managed to keep her children near her. The exception was Maria, who went to St. Louis to work. After their discharge from military service in August of 1861, Henry and Philip again returned to the New Haven area. In 1862, Henry Landwehr married Louise (Wegener) Peitsmeier and settled in southern Warren County. But Henry's new home was just across the Missouri River, not more than eight miles "as the crow flies" from Anna's home.
A year later, in 1863, Philip Landwehr married his step-sister, Elisa Guese. Following their marriage, Philip and Elisa continued to live in the same general area where their parents made their home.
Then, in January of 1864, Maria Landwehr married Christopher Lichte, a young man who lived next door to her brother, Henry Landwehr, in Warren County. Maria and Christopher probably spent their first few years together in the neighborhood of Henry Landwehr's Warren County farm. So Anna was still not far removed from any of her children.
The Methodist Episcopal Church had been active in the Hermann and Berger neighborhood since the first congregation was organized in 1844. Like many of her neighbors, Anna had been a life-long member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia. In America, the Church was no longer controlled by the State, and religious choices were available. The early circuit riders of the German Methodist Church appealed to many of the German Lutheran immigrants, and Anna was no exception.
Anna was probably introduced to the Methodist Episcopal Church by either her sister, or her new husband. In either event, she was converted to the church fairly soon after her arrival in Franklin County. When Anna died many years later, her obituary indicated that she was converted to the church in 1860, but also indicated that she was converted under the ministry of Reverend Wilhelm Kleinschmidt. Since Reverend Kleinschmidt was the local Methodist minister from 1854 until 1856, and then again from 1862 until 1865, Anna may not have joined the church until 1862 or later. Anna's step-son and his wife, Fritz and Louisa Guese, joined the church in 1862, lending support to the theory that Anna also joined the church that same year. At that time, the Hermann Circuit consisted of three congregations--Meyer's Church, Berger Station, and Berger Bottom. On the basis of location, we feel safe in assuming that Anna (and probably the rest of the Guese family) were associated with the Meyer's Church congregation.
About 1868, Philip and Elisa Landwehr bought their first farm. The farm was located about five miles north, and a little east, of the present site of Gerald. About the same time, Christopher and Maria Lichte bought a farm adjoining Philip's farm. While the purchases of these two farms represented a movement of the Landwehr family further away from the Missouri River valley, they did not physically separate the family to any great extent. The sites of the two farms were only about eight miles south of Anna Landwehr Guese's home.
While Anna and her oldest son, Henry, were separated by the Missouri River, we know that Anna traveled to Henry's home for visits. Ella Trietsch, a granddaughter of Henry Landwehr, recalls hearing that during the summer months, Anna would cross the Missouri River, and would stay with Henry and his wife, Louise, long enough for Louise to make Anna some dresses.
The 1870 Federal census indicates that Henry Guese and Anna were still living near Henry's son, Fritz Guese, although the homes of Henry and Fritz Guese were now separated by two other homes in the census listing. None of Henry's children, or Anna's children, were living with them. Henry Guese, now sixty-three years old, listed his occupation as stone mason, and the value of his personal property as $560.
A description of Henry Guese's farm in 1870 is provided by :figref refid=fguese.. Two points are significant. First, Henry indicated that he was farming forty acres, but did not own any horses or mules, or any farming implements. The absence of both on Henry Guese's farm supports our supposition that Henry was dependent on his son, Fritz Guese. It is very likely that Henry was farming forty acres of his son's farm. Second, the $575 estimate of the value of his farm production sold or consumed in 1869 was above average for the neighborhood where Henry and Anna lived. If 1869 was a typical year, they enjoyed a reasonably good income. At the same time, we note that of the total of $575, $400 was attributed to "forest products", and wonder whether this was typical, or represented an extraordinary year.
:fig id=fguese.
.ce
HENRY GUESE FARM
.br
.sk 1
DESCRIPTION OF FARM
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Improved Land: 20 acres
:li.Woodland: 20 acres
:eul.
.in -5
LIVE STOCK
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Milk Cows: 2
:li.Other Cattle: 1
:li.Swine: 2
:eul.
.in -5
1869 PRODUCTION
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Winter Wheat: 100 bushels
:li.Corn: 100 bushels
:li.Irish Potatoes: 20 bushels
:li.Hay: 1 ton
:li.Forest Products: $400
:eul.
.in -5
VALUES
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Farm: $600
:li.Live stock: $70
:li.All farm production consumed or sold in 1869: $575
:eul.
.in -5
:figcap.Henry Guese farm in 1870
:efig.
That same year, Fritz Landwehr married Katharine (Lefmann) Bottemueller, a widow, and settled on her farm near Champion City. Fritz's farm was about nineteen miles south of Anna's home, and represented the Landwehr family's first move to the Champion City neighborhood.
About two years later, in 1872, Christopher and Maria Lichte sold their farm, and apparently moved north to the Etlah community, about three or four miles from Anna's home. Then, in 1874, William Landwehr, Anna's youngest son, purchased a farm near his brother Fritz, at Champion City. William was the only one of the five Landwehr children who was not married. And now he owned his own farm.
Meanwhile, Anna's marriage to Henry Guese was not a happy union. The story passed down to Ella Trietsch was that Henry Guese "stayed drunk most of the time, and was very mean to Anna". Whatever the reasons that justified her action, Anna apparently left Henry Guese, and moved to Champion City, where she lived with her son William. While we don't know exactly when this separation took place, it was probably about 1875. William Landwehr bought his farm in December of 1874. One of William's grandsons, Everett Bromelsick, recalled his mother telling him that Anna stayed with William for four or five years before he married in 1879.
By 1875, then, four of Anna's children were married, and had children of their own. Henry lived just across the river in Warren County. Philip and Maria were living in the Etlah area. Anna, Fritz, and William were living at Champion City.
It was probably about 1874 or 1875 that Anna's son-in-law, Christopher Lichte, died. Maria (Landwehr) Lichte remarried, and remained in the Etlah area. Then, in 1879, Maria died. That same year, Anna's youngest son, William, was married to Augusta Hammelmann. Then, in 1881, Philip Landwehr moved his family from Etlah to the Champion City community, where he joined his mother and two brothers. For the remaining eighteen years of her life, Anna lived at Champion City, spending part of the time with William and his family, and part of the time with Philip and his family.
Having joined the Methodist Episcopal Church soon after her marriage to Henry Guese, Anna was probably an active member of the Meyer's Church congregation until her move to Champion City about 1875. But after her move to Champion City, she found there was no Methodist Church within a convenient distance. In fact, Champion City did not have any church for the first twenty years of the community's existence. Philip and William Landwehr attended the Dutch Hill Evangelical Church near Spring Bluff, about two and one-half miles southeast of Champion City. Anna Landwehr and Fritz Landwehr may also have attended the Dutch Hill Church.
When the opportunity to organize a Methodist congregation in Champion City finally presented itself, Anna was a strong supporter of the effort. A history of the German Methodist Episcopal Church at Champion City, written in 1970 by Rev. Theodore Wolff, a grandson of Philip Landwehr, provides some background on the founding of the church. According to his history, Champion City found itself without the services of any minister in June of 1893. The Dutch Hill Evangelical Church did not have a regular pastor at the time, so the members loaned the use of their church building to the Methodists. The pastor of the Methodist Church at Owensville, Reverend Guido Boellner, was asked to conduct services in the Dutch Hill Evangelical Church building, and he did so until September, when the Dutch Hill congregation obtained the services of a regular pastor.
:fig id=ccmeth frame=box depth='6.9i'.
:figcap.Champion City Methodist Church Congregation
:figdesc.Photograph taken between 1894 and 1898. From
"Jubilaeumsbuch der St. Louis Deutschen Konferenz"
:efig.
:fig id=gsanna frame=box depth='6.1i'.
:figcap.Anna Landwehr's gravestone
:figdesc.Champion City Methodist Church Cemetery
:efig.
In the fall of 1893, the St. Louis German Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church appointed Reverend G. L. Zocher as an assistant to Reverend Boellner, with an assignment to assist the Methodists at Champion City. Plans were soon made for construction of a church at Champion City. Philip Landwehr was one of three Champion City men who made a three-day trip with teams and wagons to the Pinery, near Potosi, to obtain the lumber needed for the building. Henry Landwehr, eldest son of Philip and Elisa Landwehr, fashioned the cornerstone. While the church was being constructed, Reverend Zocher lived and boarded with the Philip Landwehr family.
The Champion City Methodists continued to conduct services in their homes until the church building was completed in April of 1894. For the last five months, these services were conducted in the home of Henry Landwehr, on the Philip Landwehr farm. On April 28, 1894, the Champion City Methodist Episcopal Church was dedicated. The sixteen charter members included Anna Landwehr, Philip and Elisa Landwehr, and William and Augusta Landwehr. In an early photograph of the Champion City Methodist Episcopal Church congregation, Anna Landwehr can be seen sitting in the middle of the second row, with her left arm resting on a table (see :figref refid=ccmeth.).
Anna was probably living with Philip Landwehr and his family when she died on January 3, 1899. She was eighty-two years old, and was in her fortieth year as a Franklin County resident. Anna was probably the first person to be buried in the cemetery of the Methodist Church that she helped establish only five years earlier. Her final resting place lies in the back row of this small rural cemetery, just in front of a wire fence that separates the cemetery from an adjacent farm field. Her second marriage, to Henry Guese, was not recognized by her sons when they erected her gravestone, as the inscription on her stone reads "ANNA M. LANDWEHR" (see :figref refid=gsanna.).
:fig id=aobit frame=box depth='3.3i'.
:figcap.Obituary of Anna Landwehr
:figdesc.Printed in the March 9, 1899 issue of "Der Christliche
Apologete"
:efig.
Some of the historical material used in this Landwehr family history was located in unexpected places. One such source was Der Christliche Apologete ("The Christian Advocate"), a periodical printed in the German language for its immigrant readers. In 1839, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Methodist Episcopal Church began publication of this weekly periodical, which gave information of denominational activities, announced meetings of the church's conferences, presented sermons and thought-provoking subjects for study and consideration, advertised books and periodicals approved for reading, as well as releases of national and foreign news.
Often the church members' chief contact with the outside world, as they went about their daily tasks, was this journal available to them through the church. We know that those early generations of our Landwehr family who were affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church read Der Christliche Apologete. At the time of Anna's death in 1899, subscribers in America were paying $2.00 per year for this weekly sixteen-page publication, while subscribers in Germany and Switzerland paid $2.75!
Also included in each issue was a regular feature called "Selig sind, die im Herrn sterben", then later "Todesberichte", and still later "Heimgegangene". This was a column of obituaries, usually five to twenty-five per issue, informing the general church membership of the losses of members by death. The German immigrants living in rural locations like Champion City had no local German-language newspaper (or English-language newspaper) in which a record of death could be published. These Methodist obituaries were sent to the publisher in Cincinnati by the local pastor who officiated at the funeral. Anna's obituary, which appeared in the March 9, 1899 issue, is provided by :figref refid=aobit.. An English translation of her obituary reads:
Landwehr - Anna Maria Elisabeth Landwehr (born Bonse) was born on July 24, 1816 in the parish of Engern, provincial district of Minden, Prussia, and died blessed in the hope of eternal life on January 3, 1899. In 1836 she married Wilhelm Landwehr, which ended with his death in 1854. In 1859 she travelled with her children to America. Under the ministry of Brother Kleinschmidt she embraced the Methodist Church in 1860, and remained a faithful member until the end. She had a desire, at Champion City, where she made her home with her son, to also see a church, and her wish was fulfilled. She leaves four sons, a sister, 18 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.
Owensville, Mo. Otto M. Brinkmann
The Champion City Methodist Episcopal Church that Anna helped organize has through the years served the Champion City community and continues to provide spiritual leadership and training to residents of the area. Four generations of the Landwehr family, including Anna and three of her five children, are buried in the church cemetery. The history of the church written by Rev. Wolff refers to church records of 1922 which show that nearly one-third of the sixty-five persons enrolled in the Sunday School during that year were descendants of Anna Landwehr. Over one-third of of those buried in the Champion City Cemetery are descendants of Anna Landwehr. More than any other place, this backwoods church, located among the cedars of Franklin County, represents the spiritual home of the American branch of our Landwehr family.
Certainly, Anna could not have foretold the dramatic events of her first few years in America. They were years filled with challenges and uncertainty, and undoubtedly they brought some tears. The first few months of her search for a new life included the rigors of the long Atlantic crossing with her children, the long journey from New Orleans to Franklin County, the requirement to find suitable homes in a new land for each of her children, her own hasty marriage to a man whom she had probably just met, and the qualms she must have felt when she sent her 14-year-old daughter to work in St. Louis. The next year she saw her two oldest sons drawn into the War of the Rebellion, and received the news that her eldest son had been killed or captured by the Confederate forces. All of these dramatic events occured during Anna's first two years in America.
Her hastily-arranged marriage to Henry Guese, only a few weeks after her arrival in Franklin County, probably provided Anna with only a modicum of personal comfort and security. The marriage did provide Anna with a home, so that she was no longer dependent on the generosity of her sister for a place to live. But Henry Guese did not have the means to provide much in the way of comfortable living accomodations. The 1860 Federal census, enumerated just nine months after Henry Guese and Anna were married, informs us that their home was situated immediately adjacent to the Fritz Guese home, where Fritz and his wife and two young daughters were living. Since Henry Guese never owned any land in Franklin County, the census strongly suggests that Henry and Anna lived in a separate house located on the Fritz Guese farm.
Henry Guese and Anna apparently had very limited means. In the 1860 census, Henry listed the value of his personal property at only $100. The 1860 census also informs us that Henry Guese's two youngest sons, 13-year-old Philip Guese and 11-year-old William Guese, were living with Henry and Anna, and were attending school. Henry's 16-year-old daughter, Elisa Guese, was living next door with the family of her brother, Fritz Guese. But, as we know, Anna's five children had been split up, and were living with other families. We may presume that Henry and Anna did not have a house large enough to accomodate Anna's children, or they did not have the means to feed them.
While Anna was apparently not able to provide a home for her children during her first year in America, it would appear that she managed to keep her children near her. The exception was Maria, who went to St. Louis to work. After their discharge from military service in August of 1861, Henry and Philip again returned to the New Haven area. In 1862, Henry Landwehr married Louise (Wegener) Peitsmeier and settled in southern Warren County. But Henry's new home was just across the Missouri River, not more than eight miles "as the crow flies" from Anna's home.
A year later, in 1863, Philip Landwehr married his step-sister, Elisa Guese. Following their marriage, Philip and Elisa continued to live in the same general area where their parents made their home.
Then, in January of 1864, Maria Landwehr married Christopher Lichte, a young man who lived next door to her brother, Henry Landwehr, in Warren County. Maria and Christopher probably spent their first few years together in the neighborhood of Henry Landwehr's Warren County farm. So Anna was still not far removed from any of her children.
The Methodist Episcopal Church had been active in the Hermann and Berger neighborhood since the first congregation was organized in 1844. Like many of her neighbors, Anna had been a life-long member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia. In America, the Church was no longer controlled by the State, and religious choices were available. The early circuit riders of the German Methodist Church appealed to many of the German Lutheran immigrants, and Anna was no exception.
Anna was probably introduced to the Methodist Episcopal Church by either her sister, or her new husband. In either event, she was converted to the church fairly soon after her arrival in Franklin County. When Anna died many years later, her obituary indicated that she was converted to the church in 1860, but also indicated that she was converted under the ministry of Reverend Wilhelm Kleinschmidt. Since Reverend Kleinschmidt was the local Methodist minister from 1854 until 1856, and then again from 1862 until 1865, Anna may not have joined the church until 1862 or later. Anna's step-son and his wife, Fritz and Louisa Guese, joined the church in 1862, lending support to the theory that Anna also joined the church that same year. At that time, the Hermann Circuit consisted of three congregations--Meyer's Church, Berger Station, and Berger Bottom. On the basis of location, we feel safe in assuming that Anna (and probably the rest of the Guese family) were associated with the Meyer's Church congregation.
About 1868, Philip and Elisa Landwehr bought their first farm. The farm was located about five miles north, and a little east, of the present site of Gerald. About the same time, Christopher and Maria Lichte bought a farm adjoining Philip's farm. While the purchases of these two farms represented a movement of the Landwehr family further away from the Missouri River valley, they did not physically separate the family to any great extent. The sites of the two farms were only about eight miles south of Anna Landwehr Guese's home.
While Anna and her oldest son, Henry, were separated by the Missouri River, we know that Anna traveled to Henry's home for visits. Ella Trietsch, a granddaughter of Henry Landwehr, recalls hearing that during the summer months, Anna would cross the Missouri River, and would stay with Henry and his wife, Louise, long enough for Louise to make Anna some dresses.
The 1870 Federal census indicates that Henry Guese and Anna were still living near Henry's son, Fritz Guese, although the homes of Henry and Fritz Guese were now separated by two other homes in the census listing. None of Henry's children, or Anna's children, were living with them. Henry Guese, now sixty-three years old, listed his occupation as stone mason, and the value of his personal property as $560.
A description of Henry Guese's farm in 1870 is provided by :figref refid=fguese.. Two points are significant. First, Henry indicated that he was farming forty acres, but did not own any horses or mules, or any farming implements. The absence of both on Henry Guese's farm supports our supposition that Henry was dependent on his son, Fritz Guese. It is very likely that Henry was farming forty acres of his son's farm. Second, the $575 estimate of the value of his farm production sold or consumed in 1869 was above average for the neighborhood where Henry and Anna lived. If 1869 was a typical year, they enjoyed a reasonably good income. At the same time, we note that of the total of $575, $400 was attributed to "forest products", and wonder whether this was typical, or represented an extraordinary year.
:fig id=fguese.
.ce
HENRY GUESE FARM
.br
.sk 1
DESCRIPTION OF FARM
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Improved Land: 20 acres
:li.Woodland: 20 acres
:eul.
.in -5
LIVE STOCK
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Milk Cows: 2
:li.Other Cattle: 1
:li.Swine: 2
:eul.
.in -5
1869 PRODUCTION
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Winter Wheat: 100 bushels
:li.Corn: 100 bushels
:li.Irish Potatoes: 20 bushels
:li.Hay: 1 ton
:li.Forest Products: $400
:eul.
.in -5
VALUES
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Farm: $600
:li.Live stock: $70
:li.All farm production consumed or sold in 1869: $575
:eul.
.in -5
:figcap.Henry Guese farm in 1870
:efig.
That same year, Fritz Landwehr married Katharine (Lefmann) Bottemueller, a widow, and settled on her farm near Champion City. Fritz's farm was about nineteen miles south of Anna's home, and represented the Landwehr family's first move to the Champion City neighborhood.
About two years later, in 1872, Christopher and Maria Lichte sold their farm, and apparently moved north to the Etlah community, about three or four miles from Anna's home. Then, in 1874, William Landwehr, Anna's youngest son, purchased a farm near his brother Fritz, at Champion City. William was the only one of the five Landwehr children who was not married. And now he owned his own farm.
Meanwhile, Anna's marriage to Henry Guese was not a happy union. The story passed down to Ella Trietsch was that Henry Guese "stayed drunk most of the time, and was very mean to Anna". Whatever the reasons that justified her action, Anna apparently left Henry Guese, and moved to Champion City, where she lived with her son William. While we don't know exactly when this separation took place, it was probably about 1875. William Landwehr bought his farm in December of 1874. One of William's grandsons, Everett Bromelsick, recalled his mother telling him that Anna stayed with William for four or five years before he married in 1879.
By 1875, then, four of Anna's children were married, and had children of their own. Henry lived just across the river in Warren County. Philip and Maria were living in the Etlah area. Anna, Fritz, and William were living at Champion City.
It was probably about 1874 or 1875 that Anna's son-in-law, Christopher Lichte, died. Maria (Landwehr) Lichte remarried, and remained in the Etlah area. Then, in 1879, Maria died. That same year, Anna's youngest son, William, was married to Augusta Hammelmann. Then, in 1881, Philip Landwehr moved his family from Etlah to the Champion City community, where he joined his mother and two brothers. For the remaining eighteen years of her life, Anna lived at Champion City, spending part of the time with William and his family, and part of the time with Philip and his family.
Having joined the Methodist Episcopal Church soon after her marriage to Henry Guese, Anna was probably an active member of the Meyer's Church congregation until her move to Champion City about 1875. But after her move to Champion City, she found there was no Methodist Church within a convenient distance. In fact, Champion City did not have any church for the first twenty years of the community's existence. Philip and William Landwehr attended the Dutch Hill Evangelical Church near Spring Bluff, about two and one-half miles southeast of Champion City. Anna Landwehr and Fritz Landwehr may also have attended the Dutch Hill Church.
When the opportunity to organize a Methodist congregation in Champion City finally presented itself, Anna was a strong supporter of the effort. A history of the German Methodist Episcopal Church at Champion City, written in 1970 by Rev. Theodore Wolff, a grandson of Philip Landwehr, provides some background on the founding of the church. According to his history, Champion City found itself without the services of any minister in June of 1893. The Dutch Hill Evangelical Church did not have a regular pastor at the time, so the members loaned the use of their church building to the Methodists. The pastor of the Methodist Church at Owensville, Reverend Guido Boellner, was asked to conduct services in the Dutch Hill Evangelical Church building, and he did so until September, when the Dutch Hill congregation obtained the services of a regular pastor.
:fig id=ccmeth frame=box depth='6.9i'.
:figcap.Champion City Methodist Church Congregation
:figdesc.Photograph taken between 1894 and 1898. From
"Jubilaeumsbuch der St. Louis Deutschen Konferenz"
:efig.
:fig id=gsanna frame=box depth='6.1i'.
:figcap.Anna Landwehr's gravestone
:figdesc.Champion City Methodist Church Cemetery
:efig.
In the fall of 1893, the St. Louis German Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church appointed Reverend G. L. Zocher as an assistant to Reverend Boellner, with an assignment to assist the Methodists at Champion City. Plans were soon made for construction of a church at Champion City. Philip Landwehr was one of three Champion City men who made a three-day trip with teams and wagons to the Pinery, near Potosi, to obtain the lumber needed for the building. Henry Landwehr, eldest son of Philip and Elisa Landwehr, fashioned the cornerstone. While the church was being constructed, Reverend Zocher lived and boarded with the Philip Landwehr family.
The Champion City Methodists continued to conduct services in their homes until the church building was completed in April of 1894. For the last five months, these services were conducted in the home of Henry Landwehr, on the Philip Landwehr farm. On April 28, 1894, the Champion City Methodist Episcopal Church was dedicated. The sixteen charter members included Anna Landwehr, Philip and Elisa Landwehr, and William and Augusta Landwehr. In an early photograph of the Champion City Methodist Episcopal Church congregation, Anna Landwehr can be seen sitting in the middle of the second row, with her left arm resting on a table (see :figref refid=ccmeth.).
Anna was probably living with Philip Landwehr and his family when she died on January 3, 1899. She was eighty-two years old, and was in her fortieth year as a Franklin County resident. Anna was probably the first person to be buried in the cemetery of the Methodist Church that she helped establish only five years earlier. Her final resting place lies in the back row of this small rural cemetery, just in front of a wire fence that separates the cemetery from an adjacent farm field. Her second marriage, to Henry Guese, was not recognized by her sons when they erected her gravestone, as the inscription on her stone reads "ANNA M. LANDWEHR" (see :figref refid=gsanna.).
:fig id=aobit frame=box depth='3.3i'.
:figcap.Obituary of Anna Landwehr
:figdesc.Printed in the March 9, 1899 issue of "Der Christliche
Apologete"
:efig.
Some of the historical material used in this Landwehr family history was located in unexpected places. One such source was Der Christliche Apologete ("The Christian Advocate"), a periodical printed in the German language for its immigrant readers. In 1839, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Methodist Episcopal Church began publication of this weekly periodical, which gave information of denominational activities, announced meetings of the church's conferences, presented sermons and thought-provoking subjects for study and consideration, advertised books and periodicals approved for reading, as well as releases of national and foreign news.
Often the church members' chief contact with the outside world, as they went about their daily tasks, was this journal available to them through the church. We know that those early generations of our Landwehr family who were affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church read Der Christliche Apologete. At the time of Anna's death in 1899, subscribers in America were paying $2.00 per year for this weekly sixteen-page publication, while subscribers in Germany and Switzerland paid $2.75!
Also included in each issue was a regular feature called "Selig sind, die im Herrn sterben", then later "Todesberichte", and still later "Heimgegangene". This was a column of obituaries, usually five to twenty-five per issue, informing the general church membership of the losses of members by death. The German immigrants living in rural locations like Champion City had no local German-language newspaper (or English-language newspaper) in which a record of death could be published. These Methodist obituaries were sent to the publisher in Cincinnati by the local pastor who officiated at the funeral. Anna's obituary, which appeared in the March 9, 1899 issue, is provided by :figref refid=aobit.. An English translation of her obituary reads:
Landwehr - Anna Maria Elisabeth Landwehr (born Bonse) was born on July 24, 1816 in the parish of Engern, provincial district of Minden, Prussia, and died blessed in the hope of eternal life on January 3, 1899. In 1836 she married Wilhelm Landwehr, which ended with his death in 1854. In 1859 she travelled with her children to America. Under the ministry of Brother Kleinschmidt she embraced the Methodist Church in 1860, and remained a faithful member until the end. She had a desire, at Champion City, where she made her home with her son, to also see a church, and her wish was fulfilled. She leaves four sons, a sister, 18 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.
Owensville, Mo. Otto M. Brinkmann
The Champion City Methodist Episcopal Church that Anna helped organize has through the years served the Champion City community and continues to provide spiritual leadership and training to residents of the area. Four generations of the Landwehr family, including Anna and three of her five children, are buried in the church cemetery. The history of the church written by Rev. Wolff refers to church records of 1922 which show that nearly one-third of the sixty-five persons enrolled in the Sunday School during that year were descendants of Anna Landwehr. Over one-third of of those buried in the Champion City Cemetery are descendants of Anna Landwehr. More than any other place, this backwoods church, located among the cedars of Franklin County, represents the spiritual home of the American branch of our Landwehr family.