Fritz Landwehr Biography
Information about Fritz Landwehr's first ten years in America is extremely limited. We know that he was living with the Fred Stoppelmann family south of Berger in the fall of 1860, less than a year after the arrival of the Landwehr family in America. Only eleven years old, Fritz was attending school with Fred Stoppelmann's daughters. Until Fritz was old enough to take care of himself, he may have been dependent on the generosity of families like the Stoppelmann family. He may have received some care from his mother and step-father. And, after his two older brothers and his sister married in 1862, 1863, and 1864, they may have provided Fritz with a home.
While Fritz may have suffered from an unsettled home life as a youngster, he apparently continued to receive religious training. Following his appearance in the 1860 census, our next record of Fritz is dated in 1863. The 1863 confirmation class of the Ebenezer Evangelical Church was comprised of six children. One of them was "Friedrich Wilhelm Landwehr" (Fritz), born April 29, 1848. It would be interesting to know why Fritz was confirmed in this particular church. The Ebenezer Evangelical Church (now the Ebenezer United Church of Christ) is located eleven miles south of Berger, and about six miles south of the area where we believe that Fritz' mother was living with her second husband, Henry Guese. Two Methodist Episcopal congregations, also popular with the Prussian immigrants, were located in the area where Fritz's mother lived, and where Fritz was living three years earlier, in the summer of 1860.
This is an appropriate time to pause, and point out two discrepancies that appear consistently in the records of Fritz Landwehr. The first is in regard to his name. The German baptismal records show that Fritz was baptized "Wilhelm Heinrich Landwehr". Yet, he was called Friedrich, or Fritz, all of his life. And all records which include his full name, such as the 1863 comfirmation record, carry his name as Friedrich Wilhelm, not Wilhelm Heinrich. To further confuse the situation, Friedrich Wilhelm was the baptismal name of Fritz's younger brother, William. While the life-long use of a name other than the person's baptismal name was not common-place, neither was it terribly unusual. Several other instances appear within the pages of this family history. Perhaps the parents had a change of heart about their new-born's name after the baptism, or perhaps the minister baptizing the infant made an error in recording the name in the registers of the church.
The second discrepancy is in regard to Fritz's date of birth. His German baptismal record indicates that Fritz was born on April 20, 1849, and that he was baptized on April 29. Throughout his life, Fritz thought that he was born on April 29, 1848. In a period when baptisms normally occured a few days after birth, and few written records were kept, it is not hard to understand how a birth date and a baptismal date could become confused. And discrepancies of a year between the the supposed and actual date of birth were extremely common in Fritz's generation. A comparison of the dates of birth on the gravestones of Fritz and his three brothers with their dates of birth in the German baptismal records reveals that none of the four gravestones were inscribed with the correct date of birth! The dates of birth on the gravestones, and in the newspaper obituaries, of German immigrants seldom matched the baptismal records in the churches.
We know nothing of Fritz for the next seven years, from 1863 to 1870. It is probably safe to assume that he began working as a farm laborer at a young age, and we have no reason to believe that he lived anywhere other than western Franklin County. The Civil War (1861-65) undoubtedly affected his life, but the war ended shortly after his sixteenth birthday (Fritz would have considered it to have been his seventeenth birthday), so he did not serve in the army or the militia.
Our next record of Fritz Landwehr appears in a Federal census of Franklin County, recorded in August of 1870. Fritz Landwehr was listed as a 23-year-old laborer, born in Prussia, living with the William Koch family. William Koch was a 44-year-old retail merchant from Prussia, with a wife and six children. He listed his post office as "Cedar Forks". Fritz's brother Philip, and Fritz's sister Maria, were both living with their families in the neighborhood of the Cedar Fork Post Office in 1870 (see :hdref refid=philip. and :hdref refid=maria.). An 1878 map of the landowners in the Cedar Fork area includes a Wm Koch farm about a mile northwest of the farms where the Philip Landwehr family and Christopher and Maria (Landwehr) Lichte family were living in 1870 (see :figref refid=mphil.).
Less than a month after the census enumerator recorded Fritz Landwehr in August of 1870, Fritz was married. The marriage records of the Ebenezer Evangelical Church, where Fritz was confirmed in 1863, include the marriage of "Friedrich Wilhelm Landwehr" to "Chatharina Louise Bottemueller geb Lefmann", on September 5, 1870. They were married by Rev. Wilhelm Friedrich Bek, minister of the Ebenezer Evangelical Church. Their witnesses were Caspar Heinrich Lefmann (Katharine's father) and Wilhelm Lefmann (one of Katharine's brothers).
Katharine (Lefmann) Bottemueller was the daughter of Johann Caspar 'Casper' and Louise Catharine Elisabeth (Klute) Lefmann. She was born in 1843 about four miles north of the present site of the village of Leslie. She had previously married Hermann Bottemueller in April of 1862, and they had settled down on his farm near Champion City. Champion City is located six miles south and three miles east of Gerald, Missouri (see :figref refid=mcc.). Four children were born to Hermann and Katharine before Hermann died in February of 1870. For further information about the location of the Lefmann farm, about the Lefmann family, and about Katharine's first marriage, see :hdref refid=lefman..
:fig id=mcc frame=box depth='8.3i'.
:figcap.Map of western Franklin County
:efig.
When Fritz and Katharine married in September, Katharine had been a widow for seven months. Fritz was twenty-one years old (though he thought he was twenty-two), and Katharine was twenty-seven. Katharine's four children were aged seven years, four years, two years, and eight months.
It is easy to imagine how Fritz and Katharine might have met. Katharine and Hermann Bottemueller attended the Ebenezer Evangelical Church during the period 1868-1870, so it is quite possible that Fritz could have known the family through his association with the church. Another possibility exists. Fritz's brother Philip sold his farm near the Cedar Fork Post Office in January of 1869, twenty months before Fritz was married. But Philip and his family apparently continued to live on the farm for some time after it was sold. The purchaser of the Philip Landwehr farm was Friedrich Vogt, former husband of Katharine Lefmann's oldest sister, Charlotte (she died in 1863). Through this land transaction, a business relationship existed between the Landwehr and Lefmann families before Fritz and Katharine were married.
According to family stories, Fritz and Katharine began their married life in the log house on the 170-acre Hermann Bottemueller farm near Champion City--the house where Katharine and her first husband lived before his death. Their log house, like many built by the early settlers of the area, probably provided a roof over the occupants' heads, but little additional comfort. Family stories indicate that when Katharine lived in the cabin with her four young Bottemueller children, they would sleep upstairs (probably in a loft), and snow would sift in through the chinks between the logs onto their beds in the winter.
On January 13, 1872, Fritz and Katharine became parents of their first child. That spring, on April 21, Georg Hermann Heinrich Landwehr was baptized at the Ebenezer Evangelical Church, where Fritz and Katharine had been married. Fritz's brother, Philip Landwehr, was the godfather of Fritz's first child. It was a doubly special day for the Landwehr family. On the same day, Philip and Elisa Landwehr's one-month-old son was baptized, and Fritz was his godfather.
While Fritz farmed the 170-acre Bottemueller farm previously owned by Katharine's first husband, the farm legally belonged to Katharine and Fritz's four step-children. On June 22, 1872, two years after his marriage, Fritz purchased eighty acres of the land from A. C. Schmidt, the Administrator of Hermann Bottemueller's estate, and guardian for the Bottemueller children, for $320. The property had been appraised by three of Fritz Landwehr's neighbors: John R. Robertson, Eberhard Giebler, and Henry Koppelmann. The eighty acres consisted of two forty-acre tracts originally purchased by Hermann Bottemueller in 1860, and included the land where their log cabin was located. On the map provided as :figref refid=mfritz., this eighty acres appears as two forty-acre tracts, located south of the Wm. Landwehr farm, and owned by F. Landwehr, in Section 8.
:fig id=mfritz frame=box depth='6.6i'.
:figcap.Map of Champion City area in 1878
:figdesc.From Atlas Map of Franklin County, Missouri,
published in 1878.
:efig.
The first child born to Fritz and Katharine is said to have lived only about one year. He is said to be buried in a small private cemetery, known as the old Elbert cemetery, where Hermann Bottemueller was also buried. The cemetery is located in a farm field just southeast of Champion City. There is no inscribed grave marker for Georg Landwehr.
We think of Hermann Bottemueller and Katharine as having lived in the Champion City neighborhood from 1862 until Hermann's death in 1870. In actuality, there was no Champion City at that time. The village of Champion City probably began the same way that most small Missouri farm villages began in the 19th century--with a small general store that an enterprising farmer established on his farm. In this case, that enterprising farmer was Eberhard Giebler, and the store was located on the Giebler farm less than a mile east of the cabin where Fritz and Katharine lived.
If the establishment of a general store was usually the first event to occur in the genesis of a village, the next events often included the establishment of a post office, a church, and sometimes a mill. The birth of Champion City closely followed this pattern. In 1870, the year that Hermann Bottemueller died, and the year that Fritz and Katharine were married, construction of the Champion Flour Mill commenced.
The mill was built by Eberhard Giebler, who is recognized as the founder of Champion City. He was later credited with construction of the first steel bridge across the Bourbeuse River at that point, and was characterized as "a great man for public improvements" who "worked hard for his country". When he began building the original mill in 1870, he first built a saw mill and sawed the needed lumber. The framework of the mill was built by John Bole. After the framework was done, the mill machinery was supervised by Mr. Curtis of Detmold, who was a millwright by profession. Powered by a water-wheel across the Bourbeuse River, the mill was completed May 25, 1873, when the first grain was made into flour. It was then christened by the owner, Mr. Giebler, J. F. and Charles Roedder, A. C. Schmidt, and Mr. Curtis.
Fritz must have been both excited and encouraged to see a mill being constructed in his neighborhood at the same time that he was getting established in the area, starting his own family, and expanding his land holdings.
A second son, John Henry Edward Landwehr, was born to Fritz and Katharine on January 13, 1874. Later that same year, Fritz and Katharine received a new neighbor. The Bottemueller-Landwehr farm consisted of four tracts of land (the four tracts identified as belonging to F. Landwehr in Sections 5 and 8 on the map provided by :figref refid=mfritz.). In December of 1874, Fritz's younger brother, William, purchased the 110-acre farm that physically separated the northern ninety acres of the Fritz Landwehr farm from the southern eighty acres of the farm. The William Landwehr home was only a few hundred yards south of the old Bottemueller house where Fritz and Katharine lived. And not long after William purchased his farm, Fritz's mother, Anna, left her second husband, Henry Guese, and moved in with William.
The roads were poor, and travel was slow. With all the work that was required to establish a farm and raise a family, Fritz probably saw little of his two older brothers and his sister. We know that there was some contact by mail, as we have one letter that Fritz received from Henry, who lived in Warren County. The letter, written in a neat German script, roughly translates as follows:
.kp on
:lq.
.in +35
:p.Kruegersville January 28, 1876
.in -35
Dear Brother & Sister-in-Law & Children,
God's blessing greet you. I received your letter this year and can see that all of you are well. I can say the same for us, except for my daughter Hanne who has a cold.
It is good to have received your letter and it's contents. It is winter-time and today it is nice, usually it is dirty and cold. This winter I haven't thought about Mrs. (???). I think you forgot something in your letter, I wanted to know how far Mrs. (???) lives from you? What is the name of Seckenkreit (Second Creek?), Redock (Red Oak?), Pothotzen (Port Hudson?) or Orvensville (Owensville), also where does the man (Arman?) live? I think he lives somewhere around your part with the old and young boy. That's OK, and how long has she been a widow by now, is she alone, or is she with her son or daughter? I think she is a religious woman, as I have always thought of her that way in my heart. The Lord will make it right. Fritz, please write me as soon as possible again. I don't know when I'll come again.
Please greet all of the relatives and dear Mother for me.
.in +50
:p.John H. Landwehr
.in -50
:elq.
.kp off
Fritz and Katharine apparently continued to live in the log Bottemueller house until at least 1875. But, in time, they decided to build a new home, to be located in the northwest corner of the southernmost forty-acre tract of land that Fritz bought from the Bottemueller estate in 1872. Their new house would be the home that would one day belong to their eldest son, Edward Landwehr. One of William Landwehr's daughters would recall her father telling her that Fritz and Katharine, as they worked to build their new home, would walk through the William Landwehr place every morning on the way to their new homesite, and walk back to their log house every evening, after their day's toil was completed.
There was certainly a need for a larger house to replace the log cabin. Fritz and Catharine became parents of their first daughter, Ida Landwehr, on March 27, 1876. The Fritz Landwehr family was now a family of eight--Fritz, Katharine, the four Bottemueller children, and Fritz's two children.
The presence of the mill built by Eberhard Giebler was a boon to the growth of the community where Fritz and Katharine lived. The date of establishment of a post office at that site is not clear. One source states that the builders of the mill petitioned the U. S. Post Office, wanting a post office, only fourteen months after the mill was completed in 1873. Another source dates the establishment of the Post Office on August 20, 1877. In any event, Mr. Giebler was asked what the name of the community was at present, or what name they preferred. He replied that his mill was called Champion Mill, so the post office (and community) were offically named Champion City.
Champion City was thought by most observers to have great potential. In the Atlas Map of Franklin County, Missouri, published by The Saint Louis Atlas Publishing Company in 1878, the compilers wrote:
"Champion City is the only chance for a town (in Boone Township). It is just started, and is located in the central part of the township. It already has a store, a mill, a blacksmith shop, and a physician; and as there are several energetic gentlemen backing up the enterprise, we record the existence of the town as a fixed fact."
A second daughter, Anna Louise Landwehr, was born to Fritz and Katharine on March 13, 1878. And on February 27, 1880, Fritz enlarged his farm for the first time since his marriage ten years earlier. Fritz purchased the forty acres situated immediately south of the forty acres where he and Katharine had built their new home. The land was purchased from the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Company for $50. Fritz now owned 120 acres, and Katharine and the Bottemueller children still owned the northernmost ninety acres of the original Bottemueller farm. A description of Fritz's farm in 1880 is provided by :figref refid=ffritz..
:fig id=ffritz.
.ce
FRITZ LANDWEHR FARM
.br
.sk 1
DESCRIPTION OF FARM
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Tilled Land: 50 acres
:li.Woodland and Forest: 120 acres
:eul.
.in -5
LIVE STOCK
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Horses: 4
:li.Mules, Asses: 2
:li.Milk Cows: 1
:li.Other Cattle: 9
:li.Sheep: 5
:li.Swine: 25
:li.Barnyard Poultry: 40
:eul.
.in -5
1879 PRODUCTION
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Hay: 3 tons from 3 acres
:li.Calves Dropped: 1
:li.Cattle Sold: 1
:li.Cattle Died, Strayed, or Stolen: 1
:li.Butter 50 pounds
:li.Lambs Dropped: 3
:li.Fleeces Shorn: 5 (11 pounds)
:li.Eggs: 400
:li.Corn: 350 bushels from 12 acres
:li.Oats: 150 bushels from 15 acres
:li.Wheat: 268 bushels from 26 acres
:li.Potatoes: 100 bushels
:li.Apples: 2 acres
:eul.
.in -5
VALUES
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Farm: $1500
:li.Farming implements and machinery: $150
:li.Live stock: $450
:li.All farm production sold, consumed, or on hand for 1879: $715
:eul.
.in -5
:figcap.Fritz Landwehr farm in 1880
:efig.
Fritz Landwehr's sister, Maria, died in 1879. Although Fritz' younger brother, William, and his mother, lived on an adjoining farm, Fritz was separated by quite a distance from his two older brothers. Henry lived in southern Warren County, and Philip was still living in the Etlah neighborhood. Fritz and Philip normally saw each other only once or twice each year. Then, in September of 1881, Philip and his family moved from Etlah to the Champion City neighborhood, where they operated a rented farm. All of the family except Henry were now united in the same community.
Katharine gave birth to their last child, Julius Fred 'Jule' Landwehr, at Champion City, on May 11, 1882. Jule was baptized at the St. John's Evangelical Church near Casco, which was the Lefmann family's original home church.
On December 27, 1890, Katharine and Fritz and the four Bottemueller children sold the remaining ninety acres of the original Bottemueller farm to Casper Koelling for $900. At the same time, Casper and Margreth Koelling signed a Deed of Trust borrowing $750 from Katharine and the four Bottemueller children to finance the purchase. The loan was to be repaid in three years, at 6% interest. To guarantee repayment of the loan, Casper Koelling mortgaged the property to Fritz.
By 1891, the Fritz Landwehr family consisted of Fritz and Katharine, the four Bottemueller children, aged twenty-one to twenty-eight, and Fritz's four children, aged nine to seventeen. Dolph Bottemueller, the youngest of the three Bottemueller boys, moved to Warren County two years earlier, in 1889, and it is likely that his two older brothers were also out on their own by 1891. The youngest of the Bottemueller children was the first to marry, when Sophie Bottemueller married Florence E. Koelling on August 26, 1891. They were married in Champion City by the Minister of St. John's Evangelical Church at Casco.
Florence Koelling was a son of Casper Koelling, who had purchased ninety acres of the original Bottemueller farm from Fritz and Katharine less than a year earlier. Florence and Sophie (Bottemueller) Koelling would purchase a farm just west of the Fritz Landwehr farm (see :figref refid=mcc98.), and would live as neighbors of Fritz, Edward, and Jule Landwehr the rest of their lives.
There was one other tie between the Fritz Landwehr family and the Casper Koelling family. Casper Koelling had a large family. In fact, Casper had more children than he could care for. As a result, he farmed some of his children out, to be raised by other families. Fritz and Katharine took in, and raised, one of Casper's children. Sophie Koelling, remembered by Fritz's grandchildren as "Little Sophie", was four and one-half years younger than Jule Landwehr, Fritz's youngest child. We don't know when she joined the Landwehr household, but suspect that it might have been about the same time that the Bottemueller boys were leaving home. Just as Fritz had been cared for by other families when he arrived in America as a ten-year-old boy, he and Katharine provided help to another family in need, and gave another child a better start in life.
On May 2, 1892, Fritz again expanded his land holdings through purchase of a 160-acre tract of land from the estate of Daniel S. Appleton, of New York City. This tract was located across the Bourbeuse River to the west of Fritz's home place of 120 acres, and it would later became the Jule Landwehr farm, after Fritz's death. On the map provided by :figref refid=mfritz., this 160 acres appears as two eighty-acre tracts owned by D. S. Appleton in the southeast corner of Section 7 and the northeast corner of Section 18.
When purchased in 1892, the 160 acres of land was still nearly all wooded. One small spot of a couple of acres had been cleared in the eastern part of the farm near the Bourbeuse River bluff. Fritz's grandchildren remember hearing that there was a log cabin on this cleared spot which at one time was the home of a "squatter". One day the squatter heard a commotion in his corn patch and, taking his rifle with him, found a bear feeding on his roasting ears. For this invasion of the squatter's property, the bear was killed.
Fritz's three step-sons were all married in 1894. William Bottemueller was married to Minnie Charlotte Saak in Warren County on February 22, Henry married Allie Phillips in Franklin County on March 14, and Dolph married Lavena Saak in Warren County on October 25.
It is likely that most children growing up in German immigrant homes in the 19th century considered their father to be overly strict at times regarding their children's behavior. And Fritz Landwehr's children were apparently no exception. A grandson of Fritz's daughter, Annie, recalls a story that Annie would later relate about Fritz. In recalling her youth, Annie remembered Fritz as being opposed to dancing, singing, music, and merriment in general. But Annie characterized her mother as being much more liberal in her views regarding the children's behavior. Annie recalled that when Fritz was going to be gone from home for a period of time, Louise would allow the children to sing and dance and have a merry time. But to guard against their father coming back unexpectedly, Annie recalled that they would post a lookout on the road to watch for him.
:fig id=mcc98 frame=box depth='6.8i'.
:figcap.Map of Champion City area in 1898
:figdesc.From Atlas Map of Franklin County, Missouri,
published in 1898.
:efig.
Annie's perception of her father as a strict disciplinarian may have been tempered by Annie's own independent nature. Annie was the first of Fritz and Katharine's children to marry. It is not surprising that Fritz and Katharine did not approve of Annie's decision to marry Earnest McCallister. Annie was only seventeen years old, which was a very young age for marriage within the German society. And the situation was more difficult for her parents to accept because Annie's husband-to-be was a 27-year-old Scotsman! Fritz and Katharine are said to have threatened to disown Annie if she married Earnest. But Annie loved him, and was determined to have her way, and she married Earnest Calvin McCallister in defiance of her parents' wishes on September 19, 1895. Katharine finally gave her consent to the marriage, since Annie was less than eighteen years of age, and Annie and Earnest were married in the office of a Justice of the Peace. The objections which Fritz and Katharine had to Earnest were later set aside, and they provided substantial assistance to their daughter and son-in-law.
For the purpose of getting his new land cleared, Fritz leased his recently-acquired 160-acre wooded tract to John Sorrells on December 13, 1895 for a period of twelve years, extending to March 1, 1908. This lease is a lengthy and interesting document. Under its many provisions, Sorrells agreed to clear about sixty acres during the twelve-year term, and further agreed
"...that after clearing the ground or land he is to put it under fence, said fence shall be made of good and sound rails and not less than eight rails high, and no field shall contain more than ten or twelve acres..."
Areas larger than the stated amount
"...shall be divided by one or more partition fence or fences..."
For clearing and fencing the land
"...he is to have and receive as pay for the same, all of the cropp or cropps raised thereon for the term of three years, that is to say he is to get three cropps off every piece of ground or land that he clears, and no more."
An addendum to the original lease, dated December 27, 1898, shows that Fritz bought out the lease by paying Sorrells $35.00. The number of acres that had been cleared and the reason for terminating the lease are not known. There was a log house and log barn, located near the present home on that land, that were supposedly used by Sorrells during this period.
The second of Fritz's children was married on September 12, 1900, when his daughter Ida married John J. Duerst. They were married at Champion City by Valentine Strauss, Minister of the St. Paul's Evangelical Church at Shotwell.
A year later, Fritz's eldest son, Edward, was married. Edward Landwehr and Anna Christina Kampschroeder were married on October 31, 1901. Like his sister Ida, Edward was married at Champion City by the Minister of St. Paul's Evangelical Church at Shotwell.
:fig id=family frame=box depth='4.5i'.
:figcap.The Fritz Landwehr family
:figdesc.Photograph of Sophie Koelling, Fritz, Edward, Annie,
Katharine, and Jule Landwehr taken in front of Fritz Landwehr home
about 1894. Courtesy of Ron Kreienkamp.
:efig.
Edward and his new bride probably started married life on the old Fritz Landwehr farm where Edward had grown up. They may have initially lived with Fritz, Katharine, and Edward's younger brother Jule, until Fritz built a house on his other farm. Edward and Anna continued to live on the old Fritz Landwehr farm, paying Fritz crop rent, for the rest of Fritz's life.
Fritz's youngest son, Jule, apparently had a desire to do something other than farm. As a young man, Jule left the farm and went to St. Louis with plans to earn enough money to permit him to attend medical school. He worked for a period of time at Emerson Electric, but then returned to the farm when Fritz suffered a stroke. At some time near the turn of the century, Fritz suffered a paralytic stroke which left his right arm crippled, and restricted his activities during the remainder of his life.
The two story frame house on Fritz's 160-acre farm was probably built around the turn of the century. With some remodeling, it is still being used as a dwelling in 1986. The date when Fritz and Katharine moved into this new home is not available, but they continued to live there the remainder of their lives, except for a short period when they lived in Gerald.
Jule Landwehr and Carrie Brommelsick were married in a triple wedding ceremony at Champion City on January 29, 1903. After their marriage, they lived with Fritz and Katharine on their 160-acre farm, and operated that farm on a rental basis. While the farm was only one-half mile southwest of the old Fritz Landwehr home place, this distance would soon make a difference in their daily lives. Prior to the move, Fritz and Katharine were closely affiliated with the Champion City community. Following their move, the nearby community of Strain, only one-half mile southwest of their home, became the center of activity for Fritz and Katharine, as it would for Jule and Carrie and their family.
Just as the active growth of the Champion City community paralleled the growth of the Fritz Landwehr family, the growth of the Jule Landwehr family was paralleled by the active growth of the Strain community. In 1903, the same year that Jule and Carrie Landwehr were married, John Strain, a pioneer farmer in the area, decided there was a need for a general store in the community. Mr. Strain discussed the matter with John Hulsey, who became interested in the idea. Several neighbors hauled the lumber with wagons from the pinery near Potosi, Missouri, a distance of about forty-five miles. Mr. Hulsey and family moved into a log house near the location while the store building was under construction. When the building was completed, he became the first owner and operator of the store.
A U. S. Post Office was established in the store in November of 1903. Being the first postmaster, Mr. Hulsey requested that the Post Office be named "Strain", in recognition of John M. Strain, who first suggested building the store.
Mr. Hulsey operated the store and served as postmaster until 1905, when he sold the store to Christ Michel. In 1910, Mr. Michel sold to John Strain and his son Andrew. A photograph of the Strain Store, taken during a Memorial Day picnic in 1913, is provided by :figref refid=strain.. The residents of the Strain community who gathered in front of the store that day included Jule Landwehr (standing on the porch, back row, right of center) and his older children, and Earnest and Annie McCallister. The general store is still in operation today, after several changes in ownership.
:fig id=strain frame=box depth='4.3i'.
:figcap.The Strain Store
:figdesc.A photo taken during a Memorial Day picnic in 1913.
Courtesy of Burton Landwehr.
:efig.
The community had erected a one-room school building in 1892, the same year in which Fritz Landwehr bought his 160-acre farm. The school was originally called the Pleasant Hill School, but after the store and post office were established, it was usually referred to as the Strain School.
Another essential enterprise in any community in the early 1900's was the blacksmith shop. The Strain blacksmith shop was located across the road from the store, and was operated by Charley Walsh. The Strain store, school, and blacksmith shop were all situated within one-half mile of the Fritz and Jule Landwehr home.
The Strain Cemetery, situated one-half mile south of the store, was established in 1868. It was originally called the Pleasant Hill Cemetery, and is known today as the Schmidt Cemetery.
The Strain Canning Company was established in 1907 by John Strain, John Rebura, and Fred Schmidt. The primary purpose was to can tomatoes which were grown in the area. The plant was operated by John Rebura and employed from fifteen to twenty people. In the early years, the canned product was delivered by wagon and team to grocery stores in Sullivan, St. Clair, Owensville, Bland, Belle, and Cuba. Operation of the plant continued until 1934.
The Strain Post Office was discontinued in 1910, after which the community was served by the Elmont Post Office, located five miles southeast of Strain. The Elmont R.F.D. Route No. 1 ended at the Strain store. This left an area between the northern end of the Elmont route and the southern end of the Gerald rural route that did not have rural mail delivery. Mail for families in this area was left at the Strain store, where it was distributed to mail boxes in the store, and then picked up by those families at the store. Thus, the Strain store effectively became a postal sub-station for those families affected, including the Fritz and Jule Landwehr families. This arrangement would still be in effect when the Landwehr family moved from the community in 1927.
While the Strain community became the center of daily activity for the Fritz and Jule Landwehr families, they still lived less than two miles from Champion City, where they traded at the mill, and attended the Methodist Church. The Champion Mill, the center of commerce at Champion City, was destroyed by fire on November 21, 1907. The mill had been one of the latest, and was equipped with new, up-to-date machinery--at that time the best in Franklin county. It furnished the flour for the Hamilton Iron Furnace and for the town of Sullivan, which meant about 10,000 pounds a week besides the great amount of custom work. It had a capacity of sixty barrels a day.
The mill had changed hands twice after the original owner, Eberhard Giebler, grew too old to operate it. He sold it to his son, John E. Giebler, and after several years John Giebler sold it to Henry Kaeller and son of Shotwell. They were the owners at the time of the fire. The mill had been in operation thirty-four years. It had first been a bur mill, was changed into a roller mill in 1891, and never stayed idle a single week in all the thirty-four years. The loss of the mill would have been a major loss to the community. But, apparently, the mill was rebuilt soon after the fire.
The Champion City post office was discontinued in May of 1911, less that four years after the original mill burned. But the Champion City community continued to thrive. There was a blacksmith shop in back of the mill, which was operated by Charles Roedder until about 1918. And after a few farmers in the area bought automobiles, Charlie Danz had a little one-horse garage where he would fix people's cars. Local residents still fondly remember the programs that were presented at the Champion City School. And Champion City also had a Woodmen of America Hall, a Yeomen Hall, a doctor's office, and a general store.
In the winter of 1913-14, Fritz and Katharine moved into Gerald. Fritz purchased a house and one-half acre of land in Gerald in November of 1913 for $815, with possession promised no later than February 1, 1914. In addition to the land and dwelling, the deed conveyed "the Telephone Box now located in Dwelling on said premises with the right and priviledge of Telephone 62 line 36." In these new surroundings, Katharine missed being with the grandchildren, and Fritz had nothing to keep him busy. On the farm, he had been accustomed to working at odd jobs, and he did much of the work required in feeding and watering the livestock, especially the horses.
They were not happy with life in Gerald, and did not stay long. Julius built a two-room addition onto the house on Fritz's farm, so that Fritz and Katharine could have their own room. They moved back to the farm in the spring of 1914. Fritz retained the property in Gerald until February 18, 1918, when he sold it to Louis H. Altemeyer for $1000.
:fig id=mcc19 frame=box depth='6.8i'.
:figcap.Map of Champion City area in 1919
:figdesc.From Atlas Map of Franklin County, Missouri,
published in 1919.
:efig.
:fig id=fricat frame=box depth='5.2i'.
:figcap.Fritz Landwehr
:efig.
:fig id=katcat frame=box depth='5.2i'.
:figcap.Katharine (Lefmann) Bottemueller Landwehr
:efig.
The 160-acre farm where the Jule Landwehr family lived was nearly all woodland when Fritz bought it in 1892. Clearing the heavily wooded land was, of course, a major problem, and the process continued every winter, even into the 1920's. In addition to the work Jule did to clear the land, they hired men every winter for this purpose. One winter day a transient came by looking for a job, so they hired him to work in the clearing. Apparently this man had been in trouble somewhere and was on the "Wanted" list. He never talked about his past, and always kept his loaded pistol on a stump nearby as he chopped away at the trees.
With only the axe and the crosscut saw available, clearing land was hard work and very time consuming. The trees were selected and used for different purposes. When needed for lumber, the larger oaks were cut into saw logs. Since they are straight-grained and easy to split, black oak trees were cut into eight-foot lengths and split into rails. White oaks were split to make fence posts and palings. Cooking and heating the home was done entirely with wood stoves, so much of the timber was used as firewood, and it was always available for this purpose.
On March 12, 1914, Jule replaced the standard saw buck used in cutting timber into firewood lengths by buying a gasoline engine and circular saw mounted on a low-wheeled wagon. This equipment was purchased from Charley Walsh, blacksmith at the nearby community of Strain, for $83.00. The saw frame was modified so that it could also be used to sharpen fence posts.
Clearing additional land each year over a period of twenty-five years resulted in many fields, some quite small, but all fenced with miles and miles of rail fences.
On at least two different occasions, the owners of a saw mill set up their equipment on the farm and sawed the lumber for the construction of three farm buildings. All the lumber in the large horse barn built in 1903, and possibly some of the lumber in the house, was sawn from native oak produced on the farm. This was also true of the cattle barn and another building, both of which were built around 1920. Both barns are still in usable condition.
German aggression in World War I created a backlash of opinion against all that was German by both the American Government, and by much of the American population. One of Fritz' granddaughters, Alice (Landwehr) Gardner, remembers a visit to the Jule Landwehr home during the war by an officer of the government. Seating Fritz on a chair in the back yard, the officer took a photograph for use in registration of Fritz as an alien. Even though Fritz was only ten years old when he left Germany, and had lived in the United States more than fifty-five years at the time of World War I, the family was nevertheless subjected to the same name-calling, criticism, and slander that was used during that period against most people of German origin. Burton Landwehr remembers that Fritz took pride and solace in the fact that in the drives to sell Liberty Bonds during the war, Fritz did what he could to help this country, by buying more Liberty Bonds than any of his critical "Dutch"-hating neighbors.
Although Katharine was born in the United States, she was also required by law to register as an alien female during World War I. She was registered by Andrew Schatz, the local Postmaster, on July 6, 1918, only six months before the end of the war. Regulations required that the "Registration Card of Alien Female", including her photograph and thumbprint, be carried on her person anywhere in the United States, or its territiories or possessions. A violation of this regulation was punishable by arrest and detention for the period of the war.
On February 20, 1920, fifteen months after the end of World War I, Fritz appeared in the Circuit Court at Union, and filed a "Declaration of Intention" to become a citizen of the United States. We can't be sure why he decided on this course so late in life, but it can be assumed that his experiences during the war were a contributing factor in the decision. By this action, he expressed his intention to renounce forever all allegiance to "Germany or any independent State within the bounds of the former German Empire." He listed his age as seventy-one, date of birth as April 28, 1848, and described himself as having fair complexion, five feet ten and 1/2 inches in height, 120 pounds, with grey hair and blue eyes. Fritz died within months after beginning the three-year naturalization process, so he never became a U. S. citizen.
Fritz was at his home near Strain when he passed away. He had been under the care of a physician for several months, and had spent most of the prior week in Gerald with his younger brother, William, so that he could be near a doctor. He had returned home the previous evening, but suffered a paralytic stroke which caused his death the morning of June 12, 1920. Funeral services were held at Fritz's home and at the Champion City Methodist Church on June 14, and Fritz was buried near his mother and brother Philip in the Champion City Methodist Church Cemetery.
If Fritz and Katharine joined the Methodist Church at Champion City, they must have joined very late in life. Fritz was affiliated with the Evangelical Church to a greater extent than his mother, sister, and brothers. This may have been due, at least in part, to the fact that the Lefmann family was solidly Evangelical. Fritz was confirmed, and later married, in the Ebenezer Evangelical Church near Detmold. Katharine and her first husband attended the Ebenezer Evangelical Church for several years prior to her marriage to Fritz, and Fritz's first child was baptized at that church in 1872. Some time between 1872 and 1874, Fritz and Katharine began attending another church. They probably returned to the St. John's Evangelical Church near Casco, which was the Lefmann family's original home church.
We know that Fritz and Katharine were affiliated with the St. John's Evangelical Church in 1882 and 1891. They apparently changed churches again between 1891 and 1896, as we know that they were affiliated with the St. Paul's Evangelical Church at Shotwell, just east of the present site of Gerald, from 1896 until 1901 or later. And there is some evidence to strongly suggest that they later associated with the Dutch Hill Evangelical Church at Spring Bluff, not far from Champion City. At the same time, Fritz's son Jule was affiliated with the Methodist Church at Champion City as early as 1901.
Fritz wrote his last will and testament five years before his death. In his will, Fritz bequeathed legacies of $500 to each of his two daughters, $200 to each of his three step-sons, $5 to his step-daughter Sophie, and $50 to Sophie (Koelling) Frye, who Fritz and Katharine raised and educated.
To his son Edward, Fritz bequethed the 120-acre farm that Fritz had purchased in 1872 and 1880. This land included the house that Fritz and Katharine built approximately 1875. Edward and his family had been living on that farm for a number of years, and had been paying rent to Fritz and Katharine. In bequeathing the farm to Edward, Fritz made three stipulations:
.in +5
:ul.
:li.Edward was to pay all future taxes assessed against the land
:li.Edward was to pay $825 to the Executor of Fritz's estate within
two years, to help fund the legacies in Fritz's will
:li.To provide for Fritz's widow, Edward was to pay rent to Katharine
for the rest of her life. The rent was to be one-fourth of all
wheat, oats, corn and potatoes and one-third of all hay, fruit, or
any other crops that Edward raised on the inherited land
:eul.
.in -5
To his son Jule, Fritz bequethed the 160 acres of land that Fritz had purchased in 1892. This land included the house where Fritz and Katharine had been living with Jule and his family since Jule was married in 1903. In bequeathing the farm to Jule, Fritz made the same three stipulations that he made on Edward's inheritance. In addition, Fritz stipulated that the house and buildings on the farm Jule inherited were to remain in Katharine's possession for the rest of her life. Fritz bequeathed all his personal property to Katharine.
Finally, Fritz provided that upon Katharine's death, his four step-children were to each receive $1, and his four children were to equally share the remainder of his estate.
Katharine (Lefmann) Landwehr died at her home near Strain, on Friday, April 18, 1924. Funeral services were held Sunday afternoon at the Landwehr home and the Champion City Methodist Church. Katharine was buried beside Fritz in the Champion City Methodist Church Cemetery.
While Fritz may have suffered from an unsettled home life as a youngster, he apparently continued to receive religious training. Following his appearance in the 1860 census, our next record of Fritz is dated in 1863. The 1863 confirmation class of the Ebenezer Evangelical Church was comprised of six children. One of them was "Friedrich Wilhelm Landwehr" (Fritz), born April 29, 1848. It would be interesting to know why Fritz was confirmed in this particular church. The Ebenezer Evangelical Church (now the Ebenezer United Church of Christ) is located eleven miles south of Berger, and about six miles south of the area where we believe that Fritz' mother was living with her second husband, Henry Guese. Two Methodist Episcopal congregations, also popular with the Prussian immigrants, were located in the area where Fritz's mother lived, and where Fritz was living three years earlier, in the summer of 1860.
This is an appropriate time to pause, and point out two discrepancies that appear consistently in the records of Fritz Landwehr. The first is in regard to his name. The German baptismal records show that Fritz was baptized "Wilhelm Heinrich Landwehr". Yet, he was called Friedrich, or Fritz, all of his life. And all records which include his full name, such as the 1863 comfirmation record, carry his name as Friedrich Wilhelm, not Wilhelm Heinrich. To further confuse the situation, Friedrich Wilhelm was the baptismal name of Fritz's younger brother, William. While the life-long use of a name other than the person's baptismal name was not common-place, neither was it terribly unusual. Several other instances appear within the pages of this family history. Perhaps the parents had a change of heart about their new-born's name after the baptism, or perhaps the minister baptizing the infant made an error in recording the name in the registers of the church.
The second discrepancy is in regard to Fritz's date of birth. His German baptismal record indicates that Fritz was born on April 20, 1849, and that he was baptized on April 29. Throughout his life, Fritz thought that he was born on April 29, 1848. In a period when baptisms normally occured a few days after birth, and few written records were kept, it is not hard to understand how a birth date and a baptismal date could become confused. And discrepancies of a year between the the supposed and actual date of birth were extremely common in Fritz's generation. A comparison of the dates of birth on the gravestones of Fritz and his three brothers with their dates of birth in the German baptismal records reveals that none of the four gravestones were inscribed with the correct date of birth! The dates of birth on the gravestones, and in the newspaper obituaries, of German immigrants seldom matched the baptismal records in the churches.
We know nothing of Fritz for the next seven years, from 1863 to 1870. It is probably safe to assume that he began working as a farm laborer at a young age, and we have no reason to believe that he lived anywhere other than western Franklin County. The Civil War (1861-65) undoubtedly affected his life, but the war ended shortly after his sixteenth birthday (Fritz would have considered it to have been his seventeenth birthday), so he did not serve in the army or the militia.
Our next record of Fritz Landwehr appears in a Federal census of Franklin County, recorded in August of 1870. Fritz Landwehr was listed as a 23-year-old laborer, born in Prussia, living with the William Koch family. William Koch was a 44-year-old retail merchant from Prussia, with a wife and six children. He listed his post office as "Cedar Forks". Fritz's brother Philip, and Fritz's sister Maria, were both living with their families in the neighborhood of the Cedar Fork Post Office in 1870 (see :hdref refid=philip. and :hdref refid=maria.). An 1878 map of the landowners in the Cedar Fork area includes a Wm Koch farm about a mile northwest of the farms where the Philip Landwehr family and Christopher and Maria (Landwehr) Lichte family were living in 1870 (see :figref refid=mphil.).
Less than a month after the census enumerator recorded Fritz Landwehr in August of 1870, Fritz was married. The marriage records of the Ebenezer Evangelical Church, where Fritz was confirmed in 1863, include the marriage of "Friedrich Wilhelm Landwehr" to "Chatharina Louise Bottemueller geb Lefmann", on September 5, 1870. They were married by Rev. Wilhelm Friedrich Bek, minister of the Ebenezer Evangelical Church. Their witnesses were Caspar Heinrich Lefmann (Katharine's father) and Wilhelm Lefmann (one of Katharine's brothers).
Katharine (Lefmann) Bottemueller was the daughter of Johann Caspar 'Casper' and Louise Catharine Elisabeth (Klute) Lefmann. She was born in 1843 about four miles north of the present site of the village of Leslie. She had previously married Hermann Bottemueller in April of 1862, and they had settled down on his farm near Champion City. Champion City is located six miles south and three miles east of Gerald, Missouri (see :figref refid=mcc.). Four children were born to Hermann and Katharine before Hermann died in February of 1870. For further information about the location of the Lefmann farm, about the Lefmann family, and about Katharine's first marriage, see :hdref refid=lefman..
:fig id=mcc frame=box depth='8.3i'.
:figcap.Map of western Franklin County
:efig.
When Fritz and Katharine married in September, Katharine had been a widow for seven months. Fritz was twenty-one years old (though he thought he was twenty-two), and Katharine was twenty-seven. Katharine's four children were aged seven years, four years, two years, and eight months.
It is easy to imagine how Fritz and Katharine might have met. Katharine and Hermann Bottemueller attended the Ebenezer Evangelical Church during the period 1868-1870, so it is quite possible that Fritz could have known the family through his association with the church. Another possibility exists. Fritz's brother Philip sold his farm near the Cedar Fork Post Office in January of 1869, twenty months before Fritz was married. But Philip and his family apparently continued to live on the farm for some time after it was sold. The purchaser of the Philip Landwehr farm was Friedrich Vogt, former husband of Katharine Lefmann's oldest sister, Charlotte (she died in 1863). Through this land transaction, a business relationship existed between the Landwehr and Lefmann families before Fritz and Katharine were married.
According to family stories, Fritz and Katharine began their married life in the log house on the 170-acre Hermann Bottemueller farm near Champion City--the house where Katharine and her first husband lived before his death. Their log house, like many built by the early settlers of the area, probably provided a roof over the occupants' heads, but little additional comfort. Family stories indicate that when Katharine lived in the cabin with her four young Bottemueller children, they would sleep upstairs (probably in a loft), and snow would sift in through the chinks between the logs onto their beds in the winter.
On January 13, 1872, Fritz and Katharine became parents of their first child. That spring, on April 21, Georg Hermann Heinrich Landwehr was baptized at the Ebenezer Evangelical Church, where Fritz and Katharine had been married. Fritz's brother, Philip Landwehr, was the godfather of Fritz's first child. It was a doubly special day for the Landwehr family. On the same day, Philip and Elisa Landwehr's one-month-old son was baptized, and Fritz was his godfather.
While Fritz farmed the 170-acre Bottemueller farm previously owned by Katharine's first husband, the farm legally belonged to Katharine and Fritz's four step-children. On June 22, 1872, two years after his marriage, Fritz purchased eighty acres of the land from A. C. Schmidt, the Administrator of Hermann Bottemueller's estate, and guardian for the Bottemueller children, for $320. The property had been appraised by three of Fritz Landwehr's neighbors: John R. Robertson, Eberhard Giebler, and Henry Koppelmann. The eighty acres consisted of two forty-acre tracts originally purchased by Hermann Bottemueller in 1860, and included the land where their log cabin was located. On the map provided as :figref refid=mfritz., this eighty acres appears as two forty-acre tracts, located south of the Wm. Landwehr farm, and owned by F. Landwehr, in Section 8.
:fig id=mfritz frame=box depth='6.6i'.
:figcap.Map of Champion City area in 1878
:figdesc.From Atlas Map of Franklin County, Missouri,
published in 1878.
:efig.
The first child born to Fritz and Katharine is said to have lived only about one year. He is said to be buried in a small private cemetery, known as the old Elbert cemetery, where Hermann Bottemueller was also buried. The cemetery is located in a farm field just southeast of Champion City. There is no inscribed grave marker for Georg Landwehr.
We think of Hermann Bottemueller and Katharine as having lived in the Champion City neighborhood from 1862 until Hermann's death in 1870. In actuality, there was no Champion City at that time. The village of Champion City probably began the same way that most small Missouri farm villages began in the 19th century--with a small general store that an enterprising farmer established on his farm. In this case, that enterprising farmer was Eberhard Giebler, and the store was located on the Giebler farm less than a mile east of the cabin where Fritz and Katharine lived.
If the establishment of a general store was usually the first event to occur in the genesis of a village, the next events often included the establishment of a post office, a church, and sometimes a mill. The birth of Champion City closely followed this pattern. In 1870, the year that Hermann Bottemueller died, and the year that Fritz and Katharine were married, construction of the Champion Flour Mill commenced.
The mill was built by Eberhard Giebler, who is recognized as the founder of Champion City. He was later credited with construction of the first steel bridge across the Bourbeuse River at that point, and was characterized as "a great man for public improvements" who "worked hard for his country". When he began building the original mill in 1870, he first built a saw mill and sawed the needed lumber. The framework of the mill was built by John Bole. After the framework was done, the mill machinery was supervised by Mr. Curtis of Detmold, who was a millwright by profession. Powered by a water-wheel across the Bourbeuse River, the mill was completed May 25, 1873, when the first grain was made into flour. It was then christened by the owner, Mr. Giebler, J. F. and Charles Roedder, A. C. Schmidt, and Mr. Curtis.
Fritz must have been both excited and encouraged to see a mill being constructed in his neighborhood at the same time that he was getting established in the area, starting his own family, and expanding his land holdings.
A second son, John Henry Edward Landwehr, was born to Fritz and Katharine on January 13, 1874. Later that same year, Fritz and Katharine received a new neighbor. The Bottemueller-Landwehr farm consisted of four tracts of land (the four tracts identified as belonging to F. Landwehr in Sections 5 and 8 on the map provided by :figref refid=mfritz.). In December of 1874, Fritz's younger brother, William, purchased the 110-acre farm that physically separated the northern ninety acres of the Fritz Landwehr farm from the southern eighty acres of the farm. The William Landwehr home was only a few hundred yards south of the old Bottemueller house where Fritz and Katharine lived. And not long after William purchased his farm, Fritz's mother, Anna, left her second husband, Henry Guese, and moved in with William.
The roads were poor, and travel was slow. With all the work that was required to establish a farm and raise a family, Fritz probably saw little of his two older brothers and his sister. We know that there was some contact by mail, as we have one letter that Fritz received from Henry, who lived in Warren County. The letter, written in a neat German script, roughly translates as follows:
.kp on
:lq.
.in +35
:p.Kruegersville January 28, 1876
.in -35
Dear Brother & Sister-in-Law & Children,
God's blessing greet you. I received your letter this year and can see that all of you are well. I can say the same for us, except for my daughter Hanne who has a cold.
It is good to have received your letter and it's contents. It is winter-time and today it is nice, usually it is dirty and cold. This winter I haven't thought about Mrs. (???). I think you forgot something in your letter, I wanted to know how far Mrs. (???) lives from you? What is the name of Seckenkreit (Second Creek?), Redock (Red Oak?), Pothotzen (Port Hudson?) or Orvensville (Owensville), also where does the man (Arman?) live? I think he lives somewhere around your part with the old and young boy. That's OK, and how long has she been a widow by now, is she alone, or is she with her son or daughter? I think she is a religious woman, as I have always thought of her that way in my heart. The Lord will make it right. Fritz, please write me as soon as possible again. I don't know when I'll come again.
Please greet all of the relatives and dear Mother for me.
.in +50
:p.John H. Landwehr
.in -50
:elq.
.kp off
Fritz and Katharine apparently continued to live in the log Bottemueller house until at least 1875. But, in time, they decided to build a new home, to be located in the northwest corner of the southernmost forty-acre tract of land that Fritz bought from the Bottemueller estate in 1872. Their new house would be the home that would one day belong to their eldest son, Edward Landwehr. One of William Landwehr's daughters would recall her father telling her that Fritz and Katharine, as they worked to build their new home, would walk through the William Landwehr place every morning on the way to their new homesite, and walk back to their log house every evening, after their day's toil was completed.
There was certainly a need for a larger house to replace the log cabin. Fritz and Catharine became parents of their first daughter, Ida Landwehr, on March 27, 1876. The Fritz Landwehr family was now a family of eight--Fritz, Katharine, the four Bottemueller children, and Fritz's two children.
The presence of the mill built by Eberhard Giebler was a boon to the growth of the community where Fritz and Katharine lived. The date of establishment of a post office at that site is not clear. One source states that the builders of the mill petitioned the U. S. Post Office, wanting a post office, only fourteen months after the mill was completed in 1873. Another source dates the establishment of the Post Office on August 20, 1877. In any event, Mr. Giebler was asked what the name of the community was at present, or what name they preferred. He replied that his mill was called Champion Mill, so the post office (and community) were offically named Champion City.
Champion City was thought by most observers to have great potential. In the Atlas Map of Franklin County, Missouri, published by The Saint Louis Atlas Publishing Company in 1878, the compilers wrote:
"Champion City is the only chance for a town (in Boone Township). It is just started, and is located in the central part of the township. It already has a store, a mill, a blacksmith shop, and a physician; and as there are several energetic gentlemen backing up the enterprise, we record the existence of the town as a fixed fact."
A second daughter, Anna Louise Landwehr, was born to Fritz and Katharine on March 13, 1878. And on February 27, 1880, Fritz enlarged his farm for the first time since his marriage ten years earlier. Fritz purchased the forty acres situated immediately south of the forty acres where he and Katharine had built their new home. The land was purchased from the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Company for $50. Fritz now owned 120 acres, and Katharine and the Bottemueller children still owned the northernmost ninety acres of the original Bottemueller farm. A description of Fritz's farm in 1880 is provided by :figref refid=ffritz..
:fig id=ffritz.
.ce
FRITZ LANDWEHR FARM
.br
.sk 1
DESCRIPTION OF FARM
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Tilled Land: 50 acres
:li.Woodland and Forest: 120 acres
:eul.
.in -5
LIVE STOCK
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Horses: 4
:li.Mules, Asses: 2
:li.Milk Cows: 1
:li.Other Cattle: 9
:li.Sheep: 5
:li.Swine: 25
:li.Barnyard Poultry: 40
:eul.
.in -5
1879 PRODUCTION
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Hay: 3 tons from 3 acres
:li.Calves Dropped: 1
:li.Cattle Sold: 1
:li.Cattle Died, Strayed, or Stolen: 1
:li.Butter 50 pounds
:li.Lambs Dropped: 3
:li.Fleeces Shorn: 5 (11 pounds)
:li.Eggs: 400
:li.Corn: 350 bushels from 12 acres
:li.Oats: 150 bushels from 15 acres
:li.Wheat: 268 bushels from 26 acres
:li.Potatoes: 100 bushels
:li.Apples: 2 acres
:eul.
.in -5
VALUES
.br
.in +5
:ul compact.
:li.Farm: $1500
:li.Farming implements and machinery: $150
:li.Live stock: $450
:li.All farm production sold, consumed, or on hand for 1879: $715
:eul.
.in -5
:figcap.Fritz Landwehr farm in 1880
:efig.
Fritz Landwehr's sister, Maria, died in 1879. Although Fritz' younger brother, William, and his mother, lived on an adjoining farm, Fritz was separated by quite a distance from his two older brothers. Henry lived in southern Warren County, and Philip was still living in the Etlah neighborhood. Fritz and Philip normally saw each other only once or twice each year. Then, in September of 1881, Philip and his family moved from Etlah to the Champion City neighborhood, where they operated a rented farm. All of the family except Henry were now united in the same community.
Katharine gave birth to their last child, Julius Fred 'Jule' Landwehr, at Champion City, on May 11, 1882. Jule was baptized at the St. John's Evangelical Church near Casco, which was the Lefmann family's original home church.
On December 27, 1890, Katharine and Fritz and the four Bottemueller children sold the remaining ninety acres of the original Bottemueller farm to Casper Koelling for $900. At the same time, Casper and Margreth Koelling signed a Deed of Trust borrowing $750 from Katharine and the four Bottemueller children to finance the purchase. The loan was to be repaid in three years, at 6% interest. To guarantee repayment of the loan, Casper Koelling mortgaged the property to Fritz.
By 1891, the Fritz Landwehr family consisted of Fritz and Katharine, the four Bottemueller children, aged twenty-one to twenty-eight, and Fritz's four children, aged nine to seventeen. Dolph Bottemueller, the youngest of the three Bottemueller boys, moved to Warren County two years earlier, in 1889, and it is likely that his two older brothers were also out on their own by 1891. The youngest of the Bottemueller children was the first to marry, when Sophie Bottemueller married Florence E. Koelling on August 26, 1891. They were married in Champion City by the Minister of St. John's Evangelical Church at Casco.
Florence Koelling was a son of Casper Koelling, who had purchased ninety acres of the original Bottemueller farm from Fritz and Katharine less than a year earlier. Florence and Sophie (Bottemueller) Koelling would purchase a farm just west of the Fritz Landwehr farm (see :figref refid=mcc98.), and would live as neighbors of Fritz, Edward, and Jule Landwehr the rest of their lives.
There was one other tie between the Fritz Landwehr family and the Casper Koelling family. Casper Koelling had a large family. In fact, Casper had more children than he could care for. As a result, he farmed some of his children out, to be raised by other families. Fritz and Katharine took in, and raised, one of Casper's children. Sophie Koelling, remembered by Fritz's grandchildren as "Little Sophie", was four and one-half years younger than Jule Landwehr, Fritz's youngest child. We don't know when she joined the Landwehr household, but suspect that it might have been about the same time that the Bottemueller boys were leaving home. Just as Fritz had been cared for by other families when he arrived in America as a ten-year-old boy, he and Katharine provided help to another family in need, and gave another child a better start in life.
On May 2, 1892, Fritz again expanded his land holdings through purchase of a 160-acre tract of land from the estate of Daniel S. Appleton, of New York City. This tract was located across the Bourbeuse River to the west of Fritz's home place of 120 acres, and it would later became the Jule Landwehr farm, after Fritz's death. On the map provided by :figref refid=mfritz., this 160 acres appears as two eighty-acre tracts owned by D. S. Appleton in the southeast corner of Section 7 and the northeast corner of Section 18.
When purchased in 1892, the 160 acres of land was still nearly all wooded. One small spot of a couple of acres had been cleared in the eastern part of the farm near the Bourbeuse River bluff. Fritz's grandchildren remember hearing that there was a log cabin on this cleared spot which at one time was the home of a "squatter". One day the squatter heard a commotion in his corn patch and, taking his rifle with him, found a bear feeding on his roasting ears. For this invasion of the squatter's property, the bear was killed.
Fritz's three step-sons were all married in 1894. William Bottemueller was married to Minnie Charlotte Saak in Warren County on February 22, Henry married Allie Phillips in Franklin County on March 14, and Dolph married Lavena Saak in Warren County on October 25.
It is likely that most children growing up in German immigrant homes in the 19th century considered their father to be overly strict at times regarding their children's behavior. And Fritz Landwehr's children were apparently no exception. A grandson of Fritz's daughter, Annie, recalls a story that Annie would later relate about Fritz. In recalling her youth, Annie remembered Fritz as being opposed to dancing, singing, music, and merriment in general. But Annie characterized her mother as being much more liberal in her views regarding the children's behavior. Annie recalled that when Fritz was going to be gone from home for a period of time, Louise would allow the children to sing and dance and have a merry time. But to guard against their father coming back unexpectedly, Annie recalled that they would post a lookout on the road to watch for him.
:fig id=mcc98 frame=box depth='6.8i'.
:figcap.Map of Champion City area in 1898
:figdesc.From Atlas Map of Franklin County, Missouri,
published in 1898.
:efig.
Annie's perception of her father as a strict disciplinarian may have been tempered by Annie's own independent nature. Annie was the first of Fritz and Katharine's children to marry. It is not surprising that Fritz and Katharine did not approve of Annie's decision to marry Earnest McCallister. Annie was only seventeen years old, which was a very young age for marriage within the German society. And the situation was more difficult for her parents to accept because Annie's husband-to-be was a 27-year-old Scotsman! Fritz and Katharine are said to have threatened to disown Annie if she married Earnest. But Annie loved him, and was determined to have her way, and she married Earnest Calvin McCallister in defiance of her parents' wishes on September 19, 1895. Katharine finally gave her consent to the marriage, since Annie was less than eighteen years of age, and Annie and Earnest were married in the office of a Justice of the Peace. The objections which Fritz and Katharine had to Earnest were later set aside, and they provided substantial assistance to their daughter and son-in-law.
For the purpose of getting his new land cleared, Fritz leased his recently-acquired 160-acre wooded tract to John Sorrells on December 13, 1895 for a period of twelve years, extending to March 1, 1908. This lease is a lengthy and interesting document. Under its many provisions, Sorrells agreed to clear about sixty acres during the twelve-year term, and further agreed
"...that after clearing the ground or land he is to put it under fence, said fence shall be made of good and sound rails and not less than eight rails high, and no field shall contain more than ten or twelve acres..."
Areas larger than the stated amount
"...shall be divided by one or more partition fence or fences..."
For clearing and fencing the land
"...he is to have and receive as pay for the same, all of the cropp or cropps raised thereon for the term of three years, that is to say he is to get three cropps off every piece of ground or land that he clears, and no more."
An addendum to the original lease, dated December 27, 1898, shows that Fritz bought out the lease by paying Sorrells $35.00. The number of acres that had been cleared and the reason for terminating the lease are not known. There was a log house and log barn, located near the present home on that land, that were supposedly used by Sorrells during this period.
The second of Fritz's children was married on September 12, 1900, when his daughter Ida married John J. Duerst. They were married at Champion City by Valentine Strauss, Minister of the St. Paul's Evangelical Church at Shotwell.
A year later, Fritz's eldest son, Edward, was married. Edward Landwehr and Anna Christina Kampschroeder were married on October 31, 1901. Like his sister Ida, Edward was married at Champion City by the Minister of St. Paul's Evangelical Church at Shotwell.
:fig id=family frame=box depth='4.5i'.
:figcap.The Fritz Landwehr family
:figdesc.Photograph of Sophie Koelling, Fritz, Edward, Annie,
Katharine, and Jule Landwehr taken in front of Fritz Landwehr home
about 1894. Courtesy of Ron Kreienkamp.
:efig.
Edward and his new bride probably started married life on the old Fritz Landwehr farm where Edward had grown up. They may have initially lived with Fritz, Katharine, and Edward's younger brother Jule, until Fritz built a house on his other farm. Edward and Anna continued to live on the old Fritz Landwehr farm, paying Fritz crop rent, for the rest of Fritz's life.
Fritz's youngest son, Jule, apparently had a desire to do something other than farm. As a young man, Jule left the farm and went to St. Louis with plans to earn enough money to permit him to attend medical school. He worked for a period of time at Emerson Electric, but then returned to the farm when Fritz suffered a stroke. At some time near the turn of the century, Fritz suffered a paralytic stroke which left his right arm crippled, and restricted his activities during the remainder of his life.
The two story frame house on Fritz's 160-acre farm was probably built around the turn of the century. With some remodeling, it is still being used as a dwelling in 1986. The date when Fritz and Katharine moved into this new home is not available, but they continued to live there the remainder of their lives, except for a short period when they lived in Gerald.
Jule Landwehr and Carrie Brommelsick were married in a triple wedding ceremony at Champion City on January 29, 1903. After their marriage, they lived with Fritz and Katharine on their 160-acre farm, and operated that farm on a rental basis. While the farm was only one-half mile southwest of the old Fritz Landwehr home place, this distance would soon make a difference in their daily lives. Prior to the move, Fritz and Katharine were closely affiliated with the Champion City community. Following their move, the nearby community of Strain, only one-half mile southwest of their home, became the center of activity for Fritz and Katharine, as it would for Jule and Carrie and their family.
Just as the active growth of the Champion City community paralleled the growth of the Fritz Landwehr family, the growth of the Jule Landwehr family was paralleled by the active growth of the Strain community. In 1903, the same year that Jule and Carrie Landwehr were married, John Strain, a pioneer farmer in the area, decided there was a need for a general store in the community. Mr. Strain discussed the matter with John Hulsey, who became interested in the idea. Several neighbors hauled the lumber with wagons from the pinery near Potosi, Missouri, a distance of about forty-five miles. Mr. Hulsey and family moved into a log house near the location while the store building was under construction. When the building was completed, he became the first owner and operator of the store.
A U. S. Post Office was established in the store in November of 1903. Being the first postmaster, Mr. Hulsey requested that the Post Office be named "Strain", in recognition of John M. Strain, who first suggested building the store.
Mr. Hulsey operated the store and served as postmaster until 1905, when he sold the store to Christ Michel. In 1910, Mr. Michel sold to John Strain and his son Andrew. A photograph of the Strain Store, taken during a Memorial Day picnic in 1913, is provided by :figref refid=strain.. The residents of the Strain community who gathered in front of the store that day included Jule Landwehr (standing on the porch, back row, right of center) and his older children, and Earnest and Annie McCallister. The general store is still in operation today, after several changes in ownership.
:fig id=strain frame=box depth='4.3i'.
:figcap.The Strain Store
:figdesc.A photo taken during a Memorial Day picnic in 1913.
Courtesy of Burton Landwehr.
:efig.
The community had erected a one-room school building in 1892, the same year in which Fritz Landwehr bought his 160-acre farm. The school was originally called the Pleasant Hill School, but after the store and post office were established, it was usually referred to as the Strain School.
Another essential enterprise in any community in the early 1900's was the blacksmith shop. The Strain blacksmith shop was located across the road from the store, and was operated by Charley Walsh. The Strain store, school, and blacksmith shop were all situated within one-half mile of the Fritz and Jule Landwehr home.
The Strain Cemetery, situated one-half mile south of the store, was established in 1868. It was originally called the Pleasant Hill Cemetery, and is known today as the Schmidt Cemetery.
The Strain Canning Company was established in 1907 by John Strain, John Rebura, and Fred Schmidt. The primary purpose was to can tomatoes which were grown in the area. The plant was operated by John Rebura and employed from fifteen to twenty people. In the early years, the canned product was delivered by wagon and team to grocery stores in Sullivan, St. Clair, Owensville, Bland, Belle, and Cuba. Operation of the plant continued until 1934.
The Strain Post Office was discontinued in 1910, after which the community was served by the Elmont Post Office, located five miles southeast of Strain. The Elmont R.F.D. Route No. 1 ended at the Strain store. This left an area between the northern end of the Elmont route and the southern end of the Gerald rural route that did not have rural mail delivery. Mail for families in this area was left at the Strain store, where it was distributed to mail boxes in the store, and then picked up by those families at the store. Thus, the Strain store effectively became a postal sub-station for those families affected, including the Fritz and Jule Landwehr families. This arrangement would still be in effect when the Landwehr family moved from the community in 1927.
While the Strain community became the center of daily activity for the Fritz and Jule Landwehr families, they still lived less than two miles from Champion City, where they traded at the mill, and attended the Methodist Church. The Champion Mill, the center of commerce at Champion City, was destroyed by fire on November 21, 1907. The mill had been one of the latest, and was equipped with new, up-to-date machinery--at that time the best in Franklin county. It furnished the flour for the Hamilton Iron Furnace and for the town of Sullivan, which meant about 10,000 pounds a week besides the great amount of custom work. It had a capacity of sixty barrels a day.
The mill had changed hands twice after the original owner, Eberhard Giebler, grew too old to operate it. He sold it to his son, John E. Giebler, and after several years John Giebler sold it to Henry Kaeller and son of Shotwell. They were the owners at the time of the fire. The mill had been in operation thirty-four years. It had first been a bur mill, was changed into a roller mill in 1891, and never stayed idle a single week in all the thirty-four years. The loss of the mill would have been a major loss to the community. But, apparently, the mill was rebuilt soon after the fire.
The Champion City post office was discontinued in May of 1911, less that four years after the original mill burned. But the Champion City community continued to thrive. There was a blacksmith shop in back of the mill, which was operated by Charles Roedder until about 1918. And after a few farmers in the area bought automobiles, Charlie Danz had a little one-horse garage where he would fix people's cars. Local residents still fondly remember the programs that were presented at the Champion City School. And Champion City also had a Woodmen of America Hall, a Yeomen Hall, a doctor's office, and a general store.
In the winter of 1913-14, Fritz and Katharine moved into Gerald. Fritz purchased a house and one-half acre of land in Gerald in November of 1913 for $815, with possession promised no later than February 1, 1914. In addition to the land and dwelling, the deed conveyed "the Telephone Box now located in Dwelling on said premises with the right and priviledge of Telephone 62 line 36." In these new surroundings, Katharine missed being with the grandchildren, and Fritz had nothing to keep him busy. On the farm, he had been accustomed to working at odd jobs, and he did much of the work required in feeding and watering the livestock, especially the horses.
They were not happy with life in Gerald, and did not stay long. Julius built a two-room addition onto the house on Fritz's farm, so that Fritz and Katharine could have their own room. They moved back to the farm in the spring of 1914. Fritz retained the property in Gerald until February 18, 1918, when he sold it to Louis H. Altemeyer for $1000.
:fig id=mcc19 frame=box depth='6.8i'.
:figcap.Map of Champion City area in 1919
:figdesc.From Atlas Map of Franklin County, Missouri,
published in 1919.
:efig.
:fig id=fricat frame=box depth='5.2i'.
:figcap.Fritz Landwehr
:efig.
:fig id=katcat frame=box depth='5.2i'.
:figcap.Katharine (Lefmann) Bottemueller Landwehr
:efig.
The 160-acre farm where the Jule Landwehr family lived was nearly all woodland when Fritz bought it in 1892. Clearing the heavily wooded land was, of course, a major problem, and the process continued every winter, even into the 1920's. In addition to the work Jule did to clear the land, they hired men every winter for this purpose. One winter day a transient came by looking for a job, so they hired him to work in the clearing. Apparently this man had been in trouble somewhere and was on the "Wanted" list. He never talked about his past, and always kept his loaded pistol on a stump nearby as he chopped away at the trees.
With only the axe and the crosscut saw available, clearing land was hard work and very time consuming. The trees were selected and used for different purposes. When needed for lumber, the larger oaks were cut into saw logs. Since they are straight-grained and easy to split, black oak trees were cut into eight-foot lengths and split into rails. White oaks were split to make fence posts and palings. Cooking and heating the home was done entirely with wood stoves, so much of the timber was used as firewood, and it was always available for this purpose.
On March 12, 1914, Jule replaced the standard saw buck used in cutting timber into firewood lengths by buying a gasoline engine and circular saw mounted on a low-wheeled wagon. This equipment was purchased from Charley Walsh, blacksmith at the nearby community of Strain, for $83.00. The saw frame was modified so that it could also be used to sharpen fence posts.
Clearing additional land each year over a period of twenty-five years resulted in many fields, some quite small, but all fenced with miles and miles of rail fences.
On at least two different occasions, the owners of a saw mill set up their equipment on the farm and sawed the lumber for the construction of three farm buildings. All the lumber in the large horse barn built in 1903, and possibly some of the lumber in the house, was sawn from native oak produced on the farm. This was also true of the cattle barn and another building, both of which were built around 1920. Both barns are still in usable condition.
German aggression in World War I created a backlash of opinion against all that was German by both the American Government, and by much of the American population. One of Fritz' granddaughters, Alice (Landwehr) Gardner, remembers a visit to the Jule Landwehr home during the war by an officer of the government. Seating Fritz on a chair in the back yard, the officer took a photograph for use in registration of Fritz as an alien. Even though Fritz was only ten years old when he left Germany, and had lived in the United States more than fifty-five years at the time of World War I, the family was nevertheless subjected to the same name-calling, criticism, and slander that was used during that period against most people of German origin. Burton Landwehr remembers that Fritz took pride and solace in the fact that in the drives to sell Liberty Bonds during the war, Fritz did what he could to help this country, by buying more Liberty Bonds than any of his critical "Dutch"-hating neighbors.
Although Katharine was born in the United States, she was also required by law to register as an alien female during World War I. She was registered by Andrew Schatz, the local Postmaster, on July 6, 1918, only six months before the end of the war. Regulations required that the "Registration Card of Alien Female", including her photograph and thumbprint, be carried on her person anywhere in the United States, or its territiories or possessions. A violation of this regulation was punishable by arrest and detention for the period of the war.
On February 20, 1920, fifteen months after the end of World War I, Fritz appeared in the Circuit Court at Union, and filed a "Declaration of Intention" to become a citizen of the United States. We can't be sure why he decided on this course so late in life, but it can be assumed that his experiences during the war were a contributing factor in the decision. By this action, he expressed his intention to renounce forever all allegiance to "Germany or any independent State within the bounds of the former German Empire." He listed his age as seventy-one, date of birth as April 28, 1848, and described himself as having fair complexion, five feet ten and 1/2 inches in height, 120 pounds, with grey hair and blue eyes. Fritz died within months after beginning the three-year naturalization process, so he never became a U. S. citizen.
Fritz was at his home near Strain when he passed away. He had been under the care of a physician for several months, and had spent most of the prior week in Gerald with his younger brother, William, so that he could be near a doctor. He had returned home the previous evening, but suffered a paralytic stroke which caused his death the morning of June 12, 1920. Funeral services were held at Fritz's home and at the Champion City Methodist Church on June 14, and Fritz was buried near his mother and brother Philip in the Champion City Methodist Church Cemetery.
If Fritz and Katharine joined the Methodist Church at Champion City, they must have joined very late in life. Fritz was affiliated with the Evangelical Church to a greater extent than his mother, sister, and brothers. This may have been due, at least in part, to the fact that the Lefmann family was solidly Evangelical. Fritz was confirmed, and later married, in the Ebenezer Evangelical Church near Detmold. Katharine and her first husband attended the Ebenezer Evangelical Church for several years prior to her marriage to Fritz, and Fritz's first child was baptized at that church in 1872. Some time between 1872 and 1874, Fritz and Katharine began attending another church. They probably returned to the St. John's Evangelical Church near Casco, which was the Lefmann family's original home church.
We know that Fritz and Katharine were affiliated with the St. John's Evangelical Church in 1882 and 1891. They apparently changed churches again between 1891 and 1896, as we know that they were affiliated with the St. Paul's Evangelical Church at Shotwell, just east of the present site of Gerald, from 1896 until 1901 or later. And there is some evidence to strongly suggest that they later associated with the Dutch Hill Evangelical Church at Spring Bluff, not far from Champion City. At the same time, Fritz's son Jule was affiliated with the Methodist Church at Champion City as early as 1901.
Fritz wrote his last will and testament five years before his death. In his will, Fritz bequeathed legacies of $500 to each of his two daughters, $200 to each of his three step-sons, $5 to his step-daughter Sophie, and $50 to Sophie (Koelling) Frye, who Fritz and Katharine raised and educated.
To his son Edward, Fritz bequethed the 120-acre farm that Fritz had purchased in 1872 and 1880. This land included the house that Fritz and Katharine built approximately 1875. Edward and his family had been living on that farm for a number of years, and had been paying rent to Fritz and Katharine. In bequeathing the farm to Edward, Fritz made three stipulations:
.in +5
:ul.
:li.Edward was to pay all future taxes assessed against the land
:li.Edward was to pay $825 to the Executor of Fritz's estate within
two years, to help fund the legacies in Fritz's will
:li.To provide for Fritz's widow, Edward was to pay rent to Katharine
for the rest of her life. The rent was to be one-fourth of all
wheat, oats, corn and potatoes and one-third of all hay, fruit, or
any other crops that Edward raised on the inherited land
:eul.
.in -5
To his son Jule, Fritz bequethed the 160 acres of land that Fritz had purchased in 1892. This land included the house where Fritz and Katharine had been living with Jule and his family since Jule was married in 1903. In bequeathing the farm to Jule, Fritz made the same three stipulations that he made on Edward's inheritance. In addition, Fritz stipulated that the house and buildings on the farm Jule inherited were to remain in Katharine's possession for the rest of her life. Fritz bequeathed all his personal property to Katharine.
Finally, Fritz provided that upon Katharine's death, his four step-children were to each receive $1, and his four children were to equally share the remainder of his estate.
Katharine (Lefmann) Landwehr died at her home near Strain, on Friday, April 18, 1924. Funeral services were held Sunday afternoon at the Landwehr home and the Champion City Methodist Church. Katharine was buried beside Fritz in the Champion City Methodist Church Cemetery.
