Domsch Head Stone

This is in the St. Paul's Lutheran Cemetery, Concordia, Missouri.

The Lutheran Parsonage at Dunksburg FOUND!

Seek and ye shall find! Looking through some pictures today, I found one of a house that I thought might have been one of my mother's growing up. I scanned and sent it to her. Her reply was swift, "Couldn't  believe my eyes, that is the parsonage in Dunksburg where I was born!!"

So here it is, family. The home of Rev. Karl and Martha Domsch and their family from 1919 to 1936. Lydia Domsch Ziegelbein gave birth to her first three children here: Esther, Elvira and Edith.

Enjoy! Now, where is that church?

Dunksburg 1995 #3

I don't know if any of this is still there seventeen years later. But in 1995, you could push through the branches of the bushes at the right spot and see the old concrete steps that went from the road to the parsonage. And, part of the white picket fence was still there, as was the gate! How many times did our ancestors walk these steps and open and close this gate? Is it still there?

Dunksburg 1995 #2

This is where Karl Domsch's church and parsonage stood. For how long, I do not know. I also have no picture of the church and only 'parts' of the house. Family - please search and send if you find something. The first 3 Z girls were born here at this site.

Dunksburg 1995 #1

My first and only trip to Dunksburg was in August of 1995. You can see from the picture that there was a sign for the town. I wonder if there still is today, seventeen years later?

Seminary Graduation

Great-grandpa Domsch graduated from the Hermansburg Institute August 2, 1889. It's in Germany in the town of the same name and is there to this day! You'll find him in the picture, the very middle and to the left, with the beard. Why the boat? Because they were trained to be missionaries outside of Germany.

Marriage

On September 1, 1891, Rev. Karl Domsch and Martha Schmidt were married in Altamont, Illinois. Here is their marriage certificate.

Lydia's America

Must have been geography class? Wish we knew what year these were drawn. Since she was married in 1924, these drawings must have been done in the teens of the nineteen hundreds. What do you think?

Lydia Domsch and South America!

Did you know our Grandma Z (Lydia Domsch) was quite the geographer/artist? Here's one for the family, date unknown.

Death Certificate

More and more information appears almost daily on the Internet. The State of Missouri has posted death certificates and here is a link to our Karl Domsch.

Karl Domsch Death Certificate

The Domsch House In Weifa

Karl Traugott Domsch was born in Weifa, Saxony, Germany, near the Czech border. A family member visited some 5-15 years ago and brought back a picture of the house in which Karl grew up. He and his father were both weavers until Karl was allowed to go to the seminary.

Where is Dunksburg?

As you can see from the old map below, Dunksburg was shown to be entirely within Pettis County. But I'm quite sure it was 'officially' in Johnson County:

"Dunksburg is the only village in Grover (Johnson County) township. It is located on the Pettis county line on section 1. Doctor Dunkley opened a store here in 1858 and the village was named for him."*

* Source: "History of Johnson County, Missouri" by Ewing Cockrell, 1918.

Where is Dunksburg #2?

Dunksburg was, I believe, about the only town ever to reside in Grover Township of Johnson County, Missouri. Below is a link. I'm not clear yet whether or not Dunksburg ever crossed the county line into Pettit County. I also don't yet know where the church and parsonage were located.


Dunksburg on Google Maps

The Pastor from Dunksburg

Few have heard of Dunksburg, Missouri. Until the mid-1930s, a small white German Lutheran church and parsonage stood there and a Pastor from Germany spent his final twenty years or so at that place. Children were married there by their father, and grandchildren were born in that house. This is an outpost on the Internet to find that place and those people and to remember their lives.