The Hyphen Family Lineage

Note: Researching Amelia (Stargard) Weber

The first mention I had of Amelia as a daughter of Carl Stargard came from some notes I had received from Carl's great-grandson Robert Stargard, most of which seemed to stem from some census records and early online searches. In the course of trying to sort out the various daughters of father Carl L. Stargard, I began with the obituaries for Carl and his wife Augusta (Schoen) Stargard, along with the obituary for their youngest son Carl F., and matched up the married names of the daughters with the records I could find. Carl F.'s obituary is the only one of those three that gives Amelia's full married name (as Mrs. Amelia Weber). Her parents' obituaries name her "Mrs. Weber" or "Mrs. Charles Weber."

Mrs. Amelia Weber is buried in section "F" of La Belle Cemetery in Oconomowoc, Waukesha Cty, Wisconsin, near to her brother Julius Stargard and much of his family. (Younger sister Helena (Stargard) Kitzrow and her husband are buried nearby in the same section, along with some of their family.) There was no Charles or Carl Weber buried in the same section at La Belle, and the only other candidate in that cemetery was thirty years her senior, making him unlikely to be Amelia's husband.

Looking further, I found a burial listing in Lowell Cemetery in Lowell, Dodge Cty, Wisconsin for a Carl Weber, d. 1902, buried with his wife Anna, d. 1898. This suggested to me that Amelia's father's obituary (which gave her place of residence as "Loyal") may have contained a phonetic mistranscription, and that the residence place should have been Lowell, assuming Amelia was married to Carl "Charles" Weber after the death of his first wife.

This lead to finding "Mrs. Amelia Weber's" obituary in the Oconomowoc Enterprise, which stated that she and "Karl A. Weber" were married in early 1900, and that they resided in Lowell until his death, at which point she moved back to Ixonia, Jefferson Cty, Wisconsin. The obituary did not give her maiden name, but did name her surviving siblings (Julius Stargard, Louise Brede, Wilhelmine Sennhenn, and Helen Kitzrow), solidifying her identity in the Stargard family. The obituary did not mention any children nor any earlier marriages, suggesting there were none.

It is interesting that there seems to be such a large gap in available records found thus far for Amelia, as she is last found in her parents' household in the 1875 Wisconsin State Census and then not again until her marriage in 1900 in Lowell. She was counted that same year in her husband's household in Lowell in the US Census, while in the 1905 Wisconsin State Census and again in the 1910 US Census, she was found listed as widowed and living with her step-son John Weber and his family in Lowell. Youngest brother Carl's obituary in 1920 reports that he made his home with surviving sister Amelia, though I've not yet found a federal census record for either of them for that year; the visual records are highly faded and illegible, and the resulting indexed records are incomplete. I've also not found a US Census record listing for her in 1930, though it's presumed she was still living in Oconomowoc.

It's not known where she spent her young adult years prior to her marriage to Carl Weber in 1900 - perhaps as a domestic employee somewhere near Lowell in Dodge Cty, which may have been connected to her meeting and marrying Carl Weber. Some years after she was widowed, she most likely left her step-son's household and returned to her parents' farm in Ixonia before moving to Oconomowoc around 1920, likely to care for her younger brother Carl. After Carl's death, she continued to live in Oconomowoc.

[Obituary for Mrs. Amelia Weber, from the Oconomowoc Enterprise, 22 Apr 1932.]

Mrs. Amelia Weber, widow of Karl A. Weber, died Sunday at her home on Third Street after a long illness.

Mrs. Weber, whose maiden name was Amelia Wilhelmine Theresa, was born April 30, 1861, in the town of Ixonia, her marriage to Karl A. Weber of the town of Lowell, Wis., occurring on Jan. 4, 1900. Mr. and Mrs. Weber resided in Lowell until his death, Mrs. Weber then moving to Ixonia where her parents resided and 12 years ago she came to Oconomowoc to make her home, continuing to reside here since.

Mrs. Weber is survived by three sisters and one brother: Mrs. Henry Kitzrow of Milwaukee; Mrs. George Sennhenn and Mrs. Fred Brade of Columbus, Wis., and Julius Stargard of this city.

Funeral services took place Wednesday afternoon at St. Paul's Ev. Lutheran church with interment in La Belle Cemetery. Rev. Theodore Kissling officiating.