Done!

It's done! Fertig! Fini! Bier und Brot is going to the printers, but unfortunately not for about a month. Mary Frances and I will be absent off and on during the next few weeks and I don't want books to arrive and sit on our doorstep, even if for only a few hours until found by our house sitter. Those of you promised copies will receive them in a couple of months. Meanwhile, watch this site to find when the printing is started and finished.

Alex D. Palmer

I was sorry to hear of the death of Alex D. Palmer, husband of Marian L. Wehner (granddaughter of John George and Theresa (Vaeth) Wehner and great granddaughter of Nicholas and Clara Wehner. Alex passed away 1 Apr 2013. His obituary can be found at http://legacy.pioneerlocal.com/obituaries/pioneerlocal-barrington/obituary.aspx?n=alex-d-palmer&pid=164166185#fbLoggedOut.  Marian passed away earlier in Nov 2012.  Our deepest sympathies to his children Jan (who has been generous with her help on the Wehner book) and Kelvin.

Work on Bier und Brot continues. I am about 3/4 of the way finished with the final proofing.

At Last

The indexing is done.Thirty seven pages of indexes. 659 descendants of the first Wehner (or at least the first that we have a name for), Johann Georg Wehner, plus 435 spouses of those descendants. And roughly 800 relatives of those spouses. And another 400 or so names of friends, colleagues, etc. Mary Frances is now reading the book and then to press! The book Bier und Brot is just around the corner.

The Tallent Connection

Where have I been and how is the book coming along? With due diligence I have been indexing away. With roughly 1500 people (along with numerous cities, towns, mountains, streams, boats, cemeteries, etc.) mentioned, I am only about 1/3 of the way done, much to the disgust of Mary Frances, who wants this project completed. I say "due diligence" with hesitancy, as my "diligence" has recently been anything but "due." You can blame Matilda ("Tillie") Wehner, daughter of Lorenz, who was not very careful in choosing her three husbands: John B. Tallent, Arthur E. Cooney, and David Colburn Shelton. She had a knack for picking grooms who did not long survive-less than 4 years of marriage with John, two or three years with Arthur, and an incredible (for Tillie) 15 or so years with David. Short marriages mean few records, loads of research, and lots of uncertainty. Husbands 2 and 3 died at respectable ages, 65 and 76. But Husband 1 died at a very young 24. He was shot multiple times in Jacksonville, Florida, by James M. Kelly, an off-duty policemen, but surprisingly died of his wounds in St. Louis. James Kelly was charged with and convicted of murder. (His story is told in the book Vivien M. L. Miller, Crime, Sexual Violence, and Clemency, University Press of Florida, 2000, pp. 218-225. Anyway, after a lot of difficult, time-consuming, frustrating work, I have finally been able to write about the life and death of Husband 1, John B. Tallent, though not without a number of doubts. The story of John, his father, Thomas Tallent, his mother, Lavina Elizabeth Eaves, and all the other people involved (Enoch McFarland, Walter McFarland, Ed Gunn, Mary Tallent, Pearl Tallent, and others) are presented over three pages of the book, too long to put here. To all those to whom I promised copies of Bier und Brot, the Wehners of Southeast Missouri, you will get them, but not as soon as I had hoped. Then you will be able to find out exactly what happened to John B. Tallent in Jacksonville. Now, back to indexing.

Finishing Up

Lots of new things have come up, and the book has expanded by several pages, but I can't keep going forever. Bier und Brot, the Wehners of Southeast Missouri, is going to press soon, come hell or high water. Keep your eye on this site.

Frank Bernard Cooney Sr.

I have succeeded in contacting some of the descendants (or their spouses) of Frank Bernard Cooney Sr. (son of Theresa Wehner and John Richard Cooney and grandson of Lorenz Wehner and Flora Glisner). This is helping finish up the section of the book on the Cooneys.

You may wonder where I've been for the last several weeks. I've actually been working on the book, or should I say, THE BOOK, or perhaps THE BOOK. It just keeps getting longer and longer. Editors state that newsworthy articles must have three things - facts, persepective, and relevance. Mary Frances and I have just returned from three weeks in the Mississippi River area, part of which was used in looking for more Wehner facts and perspective (i.e., history). We spent part of the trip on another riverboat cruise up the Mississippi, seven days from St. Louis to Minneapolis. But we also spent some time in the St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve area following up on leads for the book. We visited the St. Louis church where Julius Martin Wehner and Mary Ann Oces were married. I was successful in finding what happened to Eulalia Margaret Baumstark, daughter of Mary Wehner and William Baumstark (she married Vernon Jones and the couple are buried in what may be a pauper's grave in St. Matthew Cemetery, St. Louis). But I had no success at all in finding out anything about the homicide of Franklin Charles Hoeckele, husband of Dora Ann Wehner. The Festus police files do not go back that far and a thorough search of regional libraries found no extant copies of Festus newspapers for the appropriate time period (he was killed 10 Mar 1928). An attempt at the Ste. Genevieve courthouse and the Church of Ste. Genevieve to find death dates for Nicholas Wehner's two children, Joseph and John, who died young, was also unsuccessful. It may be that the church at River aux Vases, which may have been Nicholas's church before he came to Ste. Genevieve, could provide the information. I did get some new photos, at least two of which, Plattin Creek, where the glass industry started at Festus and Crystal City, and the present mining along Plattin Creek, re now in the book. And I got a lot of additional history. All in all, it was a successful trip, I added to facts and perspective. I hope that relevance will not be forgotten. I also made some new Wehner contacts. The book is not receiving its final editing and indexing. I will keep you posted.