Archives for WEILER / WAGNER
Pearl Plank’s Roadtrip 1967
Pearl Plank was born in 1902 in Canton, Missouri. She was Henrietta Wagner’s granddaughter (Henrietta was Old Bill’s sister). Trip Summary: Pearl left Canton, Missouri by bus on July 23, 1967 to Washington, Pennsylvania, where her 2nd cousin Homer Wagner met her. She stayed with Homer and his wife Louise at their home in Houston, Pennsylvania, and then they drove to their trailer camp on Cheat Lake near Morgantown, West Virginia. She slept in their…
Wagner Children Memorial Service and Family Gathering
Forest Grove Cemetery — Canton, Missouri | June 2026 When my mom, Lois Thornton, passed away in May 2025, I knew I wanted to her stone to be in Forest Grove Cemetery on the bluff overlooking Canton, Missouri and the Mississippi River alongside her parents Homer and Louise, her grandparents William and Lilly (Giegerich) Wagner, and her brother David. Even though David died of leukemia at just six years old when Lois was only 18…
Wagner Family Home Movies
These are the Raw unedited videos from the Super 8 Transfer. There is no sound or captions. The number corresponds to the DVD/chapter. Here's a link to the folder that contains all the videos, or click on individual links below. It is password protected. Same password as for the photos. Email me to request. Please email me with details / memories / stories about these. 1-1a Wagner Family vacation in New York City, 1955. Homer,…
Wagner Boys’ road trip of 1931
This is a fun journal by Arnold Wagner who was 16 about the road trip he and his parents and brothers William, Homer and Russell took to Pittsburgh, Akron, Washington DC and Niagra Falls in the summer of 1931. DOWNLOAD "Wagner Boys 1931 Trip" PDF
Rev. Weiler’s Louisville church to become whiskey bar and Bob Dylan art gallery
In 1933 my great great grandfather Rev. Weiler, wife Addie Hanning and their last child Pearl moved to Louisville, Kentucky to serve the church at 604 East Market Street. Cindy Ward sent me this article about the church being turned into a whiskey bar and Bob Dylan art gallery. Pretty sure Rev. Weiler would not approve of his pulpit becoming "the high church of bourbon." It was from this building in 1937 that Rev. Weiler preached…
Lois Ann Wagner Thornton – 1938-2025
My incredible mother, Lois Ann Wagner Thornton, born on October 7, 1938, in Bellevue, Pennsylvania, passed away on May 15, 2025, at home with me and her cat. My mom was a nurse through and through, dedicating her entire life to caring for others. She started out at Presbyterian Hospital nursing school in Pittsburgh, worked decades of night shift, and cared for her parents and uncle in their final years. For her last 15 years…
Frank Funkenbusch – his life after moving to Montana in 1905
When writing the foregoing biographical life of Father and Mother it was intended the story should end with their activities and demise. But now since some have read it and commented it has been suggested that an addition be appended depicting my own life and activities after coming to Montana in 1905. Reflecting on the avidity with which I would read such a story written by my Grandfather of his early life in Germany, crossing…
My ancestors helped found Santa Claus, Indiana
by Diana Thornton My 3rd great grandmother, Susan (Aegerter) Freyhofer, was born in Switzerland on Christmas Day, 1805. She died 57 years later in Santa Claus, Indiana, a town she and her husband Jacob helped found. Susan and Jacob Freyhofer and their two young children immigrated to the US in 1834. They landed in New Orleans and made their way up the Mississippi River to Indiana where they received a land grant of 160 acres…
The Court Martial of William Wagner
January 9, 1865 was a rainy Monday in Corporal William Wagner’s Union Army camp at Clarksville, Tennessee. He and his Company had been stationed there for a couple years. They were bored and impatient for the war to end so they could go home. Earlier in the day, William had quarreled with Charles Walster over a pistol. (Walster was a survivor of Company M transferred to Company H after a third of his Battery was…
Old Bill Wagner
Jacob William (later dubbed "Old Bill") was born in 1840 in Elleringhausen, Germany. At the age of 6, he and his family joined the waves of German immigrants after their friends in Quincy, Illinois, kept writing for them to come. Six-year-old William took his little sister Henrietta by the hand and led her up the gangplank onto the ship. She never forgot the smell of tar coming from the cordage coiled on deck. They had…