Charles Henry Wetterman and Anna Amelia Wachsmann (45 and 46)

Charles, the oldest child of Heinrich and Karoline Wehring, married Anna Amelia Wachsmann in 1899 in Lee County, Texas. Anna's parents, Johann Wachsmann and Caroline Neutzler, were German immigrants (as were Heinrich and Karoline Wetterman). Her family immigrated through the Port of New Orleans in 1873. Caroline Neutzler's birth announcement, a family heirloom, is dated the 29th of August in 1840. It also lists Caroline's parents, Johann and Eleanora Neutzler.

Anna was born March 8, 1872 in Brenham, Texas.  There is a beautiful birth certificate for her:

Anna was a strong-willed woman, who had many beliefs that were before her time.  She believed that women should receive a full education and she would read as many books as she could.  Her mother believed that women did not need such an education, and refused to sent Anna to school, but did send her brother, Adolf.  Anna would often read at night to Charles, who was illiterate.  Anna realized that for her children to succeed in the United States, that they needed educations, as well as needing to be fluent in the English language.  Following the anti-German sentiments of World War I, she discouraged her children from speaking German, and required that they only speak English.

As a girl, Anna kept a book that she would have friends and relatives sign a message in when they visited.  Most of the entries were signed between 1895 and 1896.  Today, unfortunately, only a few pages remain.  Most of the entries were written in German, though some are in English.  The names help us identify many of the people she knew growing up.  Such as Richard Leubner, Mary Boyach, Wilke Muske, her cousins Emil Neie, and Ida Neutzler, and S. Neutzler.

Several copies of some of the existing pages follow:

Anna's father, Johann Wachsmann, whom she reportedly was very close to, died in 1895 in Lincoln, Texas.  Anna had only one sibling, an older brother, Adolf, and probably lived with him and her mother until she married Charles Henry Wetterman in 1899.

Here is a picture of the entire wedding party in 1899 in Manheim, Texas:

Charles Henry was a master craftsman, who worked with his hands building and creating, though he also was a farmer and rancher, and for a time ran a diner.  He worked hard and Louise (Edgar's wife) remembered him as being a "gruff, German."

More to come...