There is a question in today’s story that I cannot answer. How did a farmer’s daughter from rural Cape Girardeau County manage to find her husband, a machinist from Dayton, Ohio? About my only hope for an answer to this question is for a member from that family who would get in touch with us and provide it. We begin with a birthday girl.
Pauline Louise Kromann was born on August 23, 1867, thus making today her 158th birthday. Pauline was the daughter of George and Ernestine (Pensel) Kromann. She was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim. An image of her baptism record from that congregation’s books is pictured here. This document says that the baptism took place at the Kromann house.
Pauline is found in the 1870 census at the age of 2. Her father was a farmer in the Apple Creek Township.
When the 1880 census was taken, the Kromann’s were living in the Byrd Township where Pauline’s father was still farming. Pauline had just become a teenager.
The next census we can view is the one taken in 1900, but I failed to find Pauline in that census. I do know that she got married in 1900, and her wedding took place in Dayton, Ohio. I do know a few things that may have contributed to Pauline moving away from her home. One is that her mother died in 1888. Another is that her father is found in the 1900 census, but he was a resident at a state mental hospital in Missouri.
Now, we will take a look at the man who would become Pauline’s husband. His name was Johann Herman Raffel, who was born on June 23, 1872. He was the son of August and Wilhelmina (Wollmann) Raffel. Herman was born in Germany, and a later census says that his family came to America in 1881. That means we can only view one census prior to his marriage. That was the one taken in 1900. Herman, at the age of 27, was the only child living with his parents in Dayton, Ohio. His father was a blacksmith, and I cannot really tell what Herman’s occupation was. Ancestry.com transcribes it as a “friler”…