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The Haidle Sisters and Johann Weiss, 1842 to 1899

On 15 November 1842 Katharina Haidle married Johannes Reichert at Ochsenburg. He was a smith, newly admitted as a citizen of the village, and had been born at Neuenstadt on 2 March 1812. Their sons were Johann Wilhelm, born on 13 July 1844, and Friedrich August, born on 18 January 1847 and baptized on 31 January. Sixteen days after the baptism, on 16 February 1847, Katharina died. The clerk’s words for the illness are hard to read but tie it to childbed. She was buried on 19 February.

On 16 November 1847 the widower married her sister, Auguste Charlotte, who was eighteen. Because she was his late wife’s sister, they needed a dispensation for affinity in the first degree. Auguste Charlotte became the stepmother of her sister’s two small sons and had three children of her own with Johannes. Johannes Reichert died at Ochsenburg on 12 March 1851, aged 39, and was buried the next day.

A note on the Reichert family page, in words hard to read, says that Johann Wilhelm went to North America in 1871 and Jakob Friedrich in 1866. Both departures are possible but not certain.

On 16 November 1851, four years to the day after her first wedding, Auguste Charlotte married again. Her husband was Johann Weiss, the son of Johann Friedrich Weiss and Margaretha Schuele, born at Ochsenburg on 22 May 1825 and a citizen and master smith of the village. Their family page lists six children.

The year 1856 took all three of the couple’s first children. Caroline was born the next winter, on 23 February 1857, at five in the morning. Her baptism, entry 5 of 1857 in the Ochsenburg register, names her father as Johann Weiss, citizen and master smith of the village. A brother, Christian Friedrich, followed a year later, and a sister, Auguste Elisabeth, in February 1859. The baby was baptized at home, and a week later, on 11 March 1859, Auguste Charlotte died, aged 29. The clerk’s words for the cause are hard to read but describe an inflammation of the abdomen after a birth, so she possibly died of the confinement. She was buried on 13 March. Caroline was two. Of the six children, she, Christian and the younger Auguste Elisabeth grew up. Caroline was confirmed in 1871, Christian in 1872 and Auguste Elisabeth in 1873. Beside Caroline’s and Christian’s names the family page notes “Amerika.” Auguste Elisabeth stayed, married a Fischer on 29 January 1885 and went to Leonbronn.

On 23 January 1862 Johann Weiss married Friederike Haab at Ochsenburg. She was born at Kleingartach at noon on 7 July 1836 and baptized there on 15 July, the daughter of Jakob Friedrich Haab, blacksmith and citizen, and Elisabetha, whose maiden name is hard to read. Her father, a smith born in 1793, was the son of Jakob Haab, a smith at Güglingen, and Juliana Magdalena, whose surname may read Winter. He married first, on 29 June 1819, Sabina Schwarz (1793 to 1831), and second, on 2 February 1832, Friederike’s mother, Elisabetha (1801 to 1880). He died in 1847. His family page at Kleingartach lists twelve children, Friederike the last of them, with a note of her marriage to Johann Weiss of Ochsenburg.

Johann and Friederike had eleven children between 1863 and 1878, and five of them were stillborn or died as infants. Among them were Carl Johann Friedrich, born on 18 March 1867, who died on 24 August 1867; Johanna Katharina, born on 17 June 1868 and baptized at home on 23 June; and Rosina Sophia, born on 18 August 1869. Two notes on the family page, not tied to a row, belong to these two daughters by their place on the page. Johanna Katharina probably married Ludwig Dürst, a farmer, at Pfaffenhofen on 6 February 1902. Rosina Sophia probably went to Philadelphia on 19 August 1889, the day after her twentieth birthday.

Johann Weiss died at Ochsenburg at three in the morning on 15 March 1891, aged 65, and was buried on 17 March. Friederike died at Ochsenburg on 8 June 1899.