Schaefer Family

I found the following on ancestry.com. I'm not sure who wrote it. The original is a little hard to follow, so I've tried to make it clearer where needed. I have crossed out information that was included in the story that I have found to be incorrect. Notes on the corrections can be found below.

Lineage of  Anna Catherine Margaret Schaefer. 

Married Jacob Becker Sr in 1862-1863
Margaret b 2-28-1840 d. 10-14-1877
Jacob b.10-2-1824 d. 10-20-1892

What has been found out is that a letter from the Roman Catholic Bishop of Praderborn- a city near Hagensdorf where the lineage starts as follows. 

Anton Scheiffers and Anna Margaret Stahl were married in the Heilege Kreuz (Holy Cross) Church in Hqagensdorf on September 14, 1749. The church was famous in all parts of Germany for it contained among its treasures a holy cross with miraculous powers.

The legend of the cross:
Three girls from Hagensdorf were gathering herbs in the woods when they heard heavenly choirs. Looking around they spied a wooden cross hanging by a silk band on a thorn bush. Joyfully they took this cross to the parish priest at Hagensdorf. From then is played a central part in the life of the village and the church, being carried aloft with pride and reverence in annual processions.

The Scheiffer's name changed spelling and became Shaefers. Their home on the edge of Hagendorf was called Dortmuller instead of a number. Other spellings were Schaefer, Scheiffers and Scheffers.

On the lineage chart find Casper Henricus, father of Margaret. Casper's father was a well to do farmer (Ackerman, lots of land). Due to wealth, Casper grew up in idleness, so during Casper's young manhood be became a habitue of the local bierstudes. He went not so much for the beer but for the stimulus of male conversation and companionship. Those years from 1815 on were very exciting with many violent upheavals to discuss and digest. Politics of Europe had been altered by the French Reveloution and Napoleon, so the first stirrings of nationalism were being felt. 

Germany was split apart, the northerners opted for Lutheranism and the southerns remained Catholic. For some reason the Schaefers remained Catholic.
Before Napoleon marched into Germany, brother of Jerome Bonaparte. Neither one lasted much longer in Germany, although Napoleon changed the face of Germany by putting to an end ecclesiastical states ruled by Bishops or Abbots. Tiny domains of knights and free walled towns were reduced to 39. 

Soon after this, Napoleon decreed and started to build a people's army, recruiting citizens. After a grueling training period he would retire them to a reserve army.
Conrad and Herman five years apart in age had seven years of schooling. They had to help with the farm and the animals with their father so much in the bierstube. The family owned four beautiful draft horses, but as times grew worse they had to be replaced by oxen.

In his middle or late teens, Conrad went to work as a coal miner, and soon his brother Herman joined him. Early 1855 his father sold the farm and notified the boys the whole family was going to America. At first the boys were reluctant. The most likely reason for their father leaving was the harsh life for all except the top nobility and the growing power of the Prussian army with compulsory military service that would soon reach for his sons. He had heard the tales of the free and rich farm land of America, the egalitarian social structures and great tolerance for the religious. They knew a Father Pierz and his followers in Minnesota. (See my notes on Father Pierz)

Early summer of 1855, Casper and his wife Elizabeth with their seven living children age 29-2 set off for the land of the brave and the home of the free. It is not known if they took a river boat down the Rhine to board a sailing vessel at a Dutch port or came by way of Liverpool. After a 53 day voyage, their ship landed in New Orleans. From New Orleans they boarded a river boat to St. Louis where they stayed for a few days. There, a hotel manager hired Mary (29) and Theresa (20) to work for him. The rest of the Schaefers moved up the river to Dubuque, Iowa where they stayed a while.  

They sent Conrad ahead alone to look over the situation and get them some land to settle on. When Conrad arrived by boat in St Paul, a town of 1500, he found crudity and embattled ignorance rampant. Lice and bead bugs figured prominently, so Conrad went north to St Cloud and filed on a homestead two miles northwest of Torrah, now Richmond, on the pretty Sauk River. He cut and hauled logs all fall and winter to build a shanty for the family.

Early spring he went to Dubuque to get his father Casper, mother Elizabeth and siblings Herman, Margaret, Henry, and Casper Jr. They took their possessions, including barrels of pork, flour and likely whiskey, they bought a team of oxen and a wagon and went by steamboat up the Mississippi. Traveling by riverboat was a challenge in those days. Possessions had to be watched closely for robbers and pickpockets. 

Leaving their boat at St Paul, they drove their team of oxen and heavily loaded wagon to Sauk Rapids and crossed the river into St Cloud. They were met by a Mr. Resseman and escorted to the Edelbrock Hotel. They came to Minnesota in the middle of a two year grasshopper plague (1856-1857). 

Minnesota was admitted to the Union May 11, 1858 and soon started recruitment for State militiamen. President Lincoln called for 75,000 militiamen on April 15, 1861. This was three days before Fort Sumter was fired upon. There was also an Indian outbreak in 1862 and several years after. Settlers took refuge in churches etc in respective towns. 

The first wedding in the family took place took place in 1862-1863 when Margaret, the only daughter who came to Minnesota, married Jacob Becker Sr. He was 38 and she was 22. They at once moved to what was called Becker's Island southwest of Richmond. It was so called because in order to get to the farms of Jacob and his two younger brothers, creeks and brooks had to be crossed. Her brother Herman married Gertrude Troun 03 Feb, 1873.

According to Declaration of Intention Book A page 123, Jacob Becker arrived from Prussia in New York on May 14, 1857. He came to Minnesota June 29, 1857. Jacob served through two wars in the Prussian Army. his latest stint was to care for his commander's boots, and keep his and his commander's horses and saddles in A1 shape so all would be ready at a moment's notice. He was barely home two days when another war was declared.

Knowing full well he would have to serve again he gathered a few clothes and bade his mother good bye. He told her he just couldn't serve in another war. His words were that the last war was so savage and bloody. When they drove to victory the horses would sink almost leg deep into bodies of men. He resolved that was was too horrible. He fled by night across the border into France. At the harbor he obtained passage on a ship, taking care of the cattle on a lower deck. The weather was so hot the stench from the cattle was unbearable, but somehow he survived. He landed in New York with very little money so he obtained employment in the home of an Englishman. The rations were meager, but he learned some English. As soon as he had money enough he ventured west to Minnesota and laid claim to a section of land.

On October 14, 1877 Margaret died in childbirth at age 37. She was only married 14 years and left nine children, four boys and five girls. The oldest was Elizabeth, 11, and the youngest was Josephine, 2 1/2. Jacob Sr. never remarried, so Elizabeth took over as her father's help. As a widower Jacob was good to all nine children. All had chores to do, even little Josephine. She would carry coffee and cream to the older ones working in the fields. The father Jacob would have a daily songfest in the evening when the chores were done. Card games could be played, and there was much rivalry in this.

Sister Mary who stayed in St Louis married a Mr. Budde there. Theresa died in St Louis and never married. After the death of Jacob Becker Sr, Joseph married Mary Rothstein. Jacob Jr, Mary, Catherine, Elizabeth and Anna had already married, so Joseph brought his bride into the family and claimed the farm as he was the oldest (oldest left at home?).

Henry and Josephine were still at home. Joseph made both work very hard and Mary ruled with an iron will. Anna and Henry left, and for years no one knew Henry's whereabouts. Josephine was the only one left at home and was treated very harshly by brother Joseph and wife. One day Joseph vented his anger and threw a pitchfork at her. Josephine jumped off the hay wagon to miss being hit and injured her side. It bothered her for the rest of her life. Also Mary forbade her to take the feather blanket, but Josephine took it and a few more items and went to live for two years with her sister Catherine and her husband Joseph Lamar (St Martin, later St Joseph) until she married Peter Meinz. 

Shown above are Casper and Elizabeth's children with information that was attached to the story above. I haven't found much documentation to confirm anything. I have entered the correct marriage date for Margaret and Jacob

Shown above is the family of Jacob Becker and Margaret Schaefer.

I am in the process of confirming the Meinz marriage date. Jacob Becker Jr's spouse's name is listed in the story as Mary Schlangen. The marriage record from the church shows her name as Helen Schlangen. Also, the story did not include Venna Becker, the youngest child. I assume that Venna is the child that caused Margaret's death.

The following information from the story I marked as incorrect.

• Jacob Becker and Margaret Schaffer were married on October 26, 1857.
• Margaret was 17 and Jacob was 33.
• Venna was the youngest child when her mother died, and there would have been 10 children, although Venna may have died at the same time.

I found an Iowa census showing the Casper Schaefer family. I am assuming they were living in Iowa over the winter of 1855-1856 while on their way to Minnesota.

The following are censuses I have found to show where Josephine lived and who she lived with after her mother died.

Above, Joseph, Henry, Josephine and Venna had not been born at the time of the 1870 Census.

Above, after Margaret's death. Shows Venna as the youngest child. I suspect that the person who talked to the Census taker used the wrong name for Josephine.

Above, the 1885 Minnesota Census shows Josephine, but no Venna.

I do not know what happened to Venna Becker. I found an unsourced death date on ancestry.com of 16 April 1922. I will look into this.

Note that the 1890 Federal Census was destroyed.

Above, Henry and Josephine are living with Joseph and Maria Becker.

Above, Josephine living with her sister and her sister's husband. Josephine Becker married Peter Meinz in 1901.

Above, the census shows that Josephine and Peter have been married for 8 years. Josephine also had two children at this point, but only Theresa was living.

For Jacob Becker's grave: http://seymourtree.blogspot.com/2015/01/meinz-graves.html

For more on the Meinz story: http://seymourtree.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-meinz-family.html