The Snethkamp-Meckstroth Family Reunion

The following article about the 1936 Snethkamp-Meckstroth family reunion was published in the Evening Leader on June 16, 1936.  Although the author is not named it was presumably written by Mr. George H. Kattman, who was a correspondent with the Leader for many years.

New Knoxville, June 16 – The Snethkamp-Meckstroth Family Clan on Tuesday, June 16, 1936 held their family confab which was of special interest to them, in as much as the village is making preparations to celebrate it centennial during the summer — this gathering too had a centennial all of their own.  Families that can boast of having resided one hundred years in a community are without a doubt very few.  The sire Herman Heinrich Meckstroth and wife Christine Elizabeth and son, Herman William, then a lad of fourteen summers arrived here December 15, 1836 and settled south-west of the village, among other members of their family including William Meckstroth, Herman Heinrich Meckstroth, Jr., and several sisters, who had found a home in America several years ahead of their parents and younger brother.

The Snethkamp-Meckstroth family clan is traced back to Ladbergen, Germany.  Mrs. Meckstroth, wife of Herman Heinrich Meckstroth became ill during their long and tedious travels of 14 weeks, and is said never to have enjoyed a healthy day in America, passing to her reward several months after their arrival, probably during February 1837.  As there was no burial ground locally her remains were laid to rest in a New Bremen cemetery, likely the one west of that city.  The sire Herman Heinrich Meckstroth died December 26, 1841 and is the first adult interred in the old part of the “Old Cemetery.”

Along about this time, during the early 40’s Henry William Snethkamp and wife Christine Elizabeth, nee Quiller, with their two children, Henry William and Christine Elizabeth, later Mrs. W. B. Lutterbeck, and Adolph Meckstroth and wife, Maria Quiller arrived, but the hand of fate fell rather heavily upon these new comers soon after their arrival.  The church chronicles tell us that Mr. Snethkamp and Mr. Meckstroth while felling trees on January 31, 1843 were unfortunately pinned under a tree and their lives snuffed out.  They left their wives widows, the one with two small children and the other with one child.

From traditional hearsay we have it that Grandmother Meckstroth, then Mrs. Snethkamp had only one thought in mind – that as America had nothing to offer her and her sister, to go back to the Fatherland.  But things in those days were not so readily done as said, so these widows clung and lingered on.

It has also been related that marriageable women were not so plentiful, not many lassies to look to, and that men of which there seemed to be an over-supply often married widows and so it happened that H. W. Meckstroth, who had by now gained majority, married the widow Snethkamp on August 29, 1843, and the late Rev. F. H. W. Kuckherman married the widow Meckstroth March 18, 1844.

The church chronicles disclose an amusing incident in connection with the marriages of these widows.  It states that H. W. Meckstroth married widow Snethkamp and that Henry Kuckherman married Maria Quiller.  It is believed that it was a clever ruse by the late Rev. F. H. W. Kuckherman that records should not disclose that he had married a widow, but traditional knowledge did not hide it.