Tuemmler
In our family tree, we could never trace the Tuemmler branch beyond 1857, when Karl Tuemmler left Weimar to become a minister in America. In April 2025, I went to Alton, Illinois to find out more about Karl Tuemmler and his life. After a few days of searching in the town cemetery, with the help of a map from a local library, I found his grave stone.
Karl was an evangelical preacher and his church in Alton was on 8th and Henry Streets. He served as pastor from 1870-1875. When I visited in April, it was called the Living Stones church, but it did not appear to be active.
Before coming to Alton, Karl served as pastor in several churches in Indiana, including in Brookville and New Philadelphia. He also met his wife Marie Elizabeth Wilhelmine Hahn in Indiana. They were married in Cincinnati in 1863.
Karl described this first years in America in a letter to his father, published in a German historical journal:
Karl wrote journals that included some of his sermons, and also his German translations of short stories from magazines. Here is an example of the handwriting in his journal, in this case a baptismal meditation:
With the help of Transkribus, a website that can read old German handwriting, I began to translate Karl's journals and letters to see what I could find about his life before America. I also contacted Susann Pfeifer of tinyfamilytree.com in Weimar, and hired her to do some digging in old church records in and around Weimar. Here is some of what we found: