Tombstone Tuesday–John Ed Hoehamer

John Ed Hoehamer, Mount Hope Cemetery, Adams County, Indiana. (2013 photo by Karen)

John Ed Hoehamer, Mount Hope Cemetery, Adams County, Indiana. (2013 photo by Karen)

This is the tombstone of John Ed Hoehamer, located in Mount Hope Cemetery, Adams County, Indiana. The marker is inscribed:

John Ed
Son of
N. & F. Hoehamer
Died Aug. 6, 1889
Aged 27 Ds.

John Edward Hoehamer was born 11 July 1889 in Adams County, Indiana, to Nicholas and Fredericka (Kniesel) Hoehamer. John was baptized 4 August 1889 at home, probably by the pastor of Zion Lutheran Chatt at the time, Carl G. Reichert. John died 5 August 1889 and was buried on the 6th in “a township churchyard in Indiana,” according to Zion’s records.

John’s mother Fredericka was the second wife of Nicholas Hoehamer. She had also been married before and her surname was Pfeifer when she married Nicholas in 1882.

John Edward is buried south of his father and in the same row. His mother’s tombstone is in the row immediately to the west but it has fallen over.

According to Zion Chatt’s records, John’s mother Fredericka died 5 March 1896 at the age or 50 years and 5 months. She was born 5 October 1845, as calculated from the records.

2 comments

    • Waldo on August 8, 2013 at 11:07 am
    • Reply

    It seems so trivial that so many of the men in the family had two wives. Yet when you stop and thiink about it, the point stands out that life for women in those days (not so long ago) was truely risky. These were not second wives due to divorce (virtually unheard of in those days), these were women dying in childbirth or related conditions. Jacob Miller, Andrew Kallenberger, Wes Kallenberger and Nicholas Hoehammer all had second wives, as I recall from the histories presented here.

    1. I believe many women died of complications from childbirth in those days, often leaving their older children behind and sometimes the newborn infant. It would have been difficult for her husband, the widower, to take care of the children and maintain the farm at the same time. I think that is why the widowers usually remarried, sometimes fairly quickly.

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