In December 2011, I wrote a post about my hunt with Michelle, Paula, and Sandy for my great great uncle Peter Konzen, otherwise known as bad Peter to us (to distinguish him from his cousin Peter Konzen who was also a lawyer). Bad Peter was my great grandpa John Charles Konzen’s younger brother and he became notorious amongst the four of us when we discovered newspaper articles detailing his disappearance and reappearance. To sum it all up, bad Peter faked his death on a business trip to Chicago and disappeared for months, leaving his wife and children behind in New Hampton. Bad Peter was eventually found in Valparaiso, Indiana, going to school under an alias. Over two years after bad Peter’s disappearance, his wife, Elizabeth, was granted a divorce from him and then he disappeared from records again.

During our hunt for bad Peter, we ran across many different possibilities to be him. We found a Paul Konzen, a P.H. Konzen, and more, but none of them seemed to match up with what my great aunt Kay (Kay Konzen Anderson) had told me about him. According to Kay, we were looking for someone who had remarried, had more children, lived in Wisconsin, and later left his second family. Every time we tried to stop focusing on him, one of us kept going back and trying to find him again. This year at Christmas time, Michelle was desperately trying to “find” bad Peter as a present for all of us, but it still didn’t happen.

Then during the beginning of the new year, Michelle reread all articles and records that were possible bad Peters. She realized that one article linked bad Peter to a P.H. Konzen and we were able to connect him from there to almost all the bad Peter possibilities we’d run across! An article published in the Mason City Globe-Gazette on May 24, 1917 linked P.H. Konzen to New Hampton. According to the article entitled “Martin is Dead,” P.H. Konzen had gone by the alias Joe Martin, but Martin was dead. The article said that “Martin and Konzen, originally from New Hampton, were warm friends in Martin’s lifetime. New Hampton men whom Konzen asked to go his bond have refused to do so.”

What we now know about bad Peter is that according to his World War I draft registration card, Peter Hubert Konzen was born on December 15th and I believe he was born in 1872 (Citing the 1880 census, 1885 census, 1895 census, and 1900 census.). His obituary, under the name Paul Konzen, says he died in Arkansas on January 8, 1953, at the age of 81 (hmmm!). He was remarried to Marie Dreyer (11 Mar 1885-May 1966) and they had five children together Carleton Konzen (1908-1975), Ronald Paul Konzen (1909-2000), Clarice E Konzen Dummermuth (1911-2001), Merle V Konzen (1921-2004), and Elvin E Konzen (1923-1986).

From newspaper articles, censuses, and directories, we’ve compiled a timeline of bad Peter’s escapades. Elizabeth Leichtman Konzen divorced him in 1905 and between then and 1908, we don’t have any records of him. According to an article entitled “Konzen Slated for Pen,” Peter lived in Sioux City and then Rock Rapids before moving to Bijou Hills, South Dakota, where he farmed for a year or two. His second wife Marie gave birth to his son Carleton on March 1, 1908, in South Dakota, so he probably married Mamie between 1905 and 1908. He then returned to Iowa where his son Ronald was born on September 22, 1909. In the 1910 census he was in Rock Rapids where he unsuccessfully ran for county attorney.

On November 1, 1911, Peter’s daughter Clarice was born in Eldorado, Arkansas, so I assume he had moved to Arkansas at that time. He returned to Sioux City, Iowa, by 1914 and he was listed as Paul H Konzen of the firm Kephart & Konzen in the Sioux City Directory. Peter continued to be listed in the Sioux City directory through 1916. On January 1, 1917, his residence was listed as Stillwater, Minnesota, in his mother’s obituary. There’s no record of him living in Minnesota, so maybe that was just a ploy to throw people off his trail or he could have temporarily lived there.

In 1917, Peter’s luck ran out and his schemes started to unravel. He was caught in Mason City, Iowa, and arrested for defrauding a railway company. Peter falsely claimed to have injured his back by slipping on a banana peel while stepping from a train. He used the alias Joe Martin He was sentenced to seven years in the state penitentiary. But according to the penitentiary records, Peter ended up being paroled on August 18, 1920, after less than 18 months in the state pen. That’s the luck of Bad Peter.

After his parole, we don’t have an idea of where Peter might have lived until his son Merle was born on September 23, 1921, in Dubuque, Iowa. So Peter could have also lived in Dubuque in 1921. Then on July 18, 1923, his son Elvin was born in Wisconsin, so Peter might possibly have lived in Wisconsin in 1923. In 1929, Peter is back in a Cedar Rapids newspaper ad as “Paul H Konzen, Lawyer, 20 years experience.”

He drops back off the radar until April 25, 1942 when the World War II Draft lists him as a self-employed resident of Amberg, Wisconsin. In 1947, he’s the newspaper again in Manchester, Iowa, as Paul Konzen, a lawyer filing a $4000 lawsuit against the United Benefit Insurance Company. Peter claimed that after he took an insurance policy out with the company in 1938, he was soon after injured in a streetcar accident “and was hospitalized after becoming totally disabled for a time.” He believed he deserved $830 since he’d been disabled and $4000 in damages “because of false statements made against him by the defendant company while refusing to allow his just claim.”

Peter disappears again until 1952 in Springdale, Arkansas, where he shows up in the newspaper for owing taxes. And on January 8, 1953, Peter died in Springdale. The obituary for Paul Konzen says he was 81 years old, which supports our belief that his birthday was December 15, 1872. His obituary makes no mention of his first marriage or of any children from that marriage. It also doesn’t mention his second wife Marie who was still living, so maybe they had gotten divorced or were just separated or estranged. With Peter anything is possible.

I love mysteries – which is why I love genealogy – but when I can’t solve them it makes me a little crazy. And despite what we’ve found about Peter, his story is nowhere from finished. If anyone happens to know any more about Peter, I’d love to hear from you. Or if you have any good Konzen family stories or family stories, feel free to share them.

Our last day in Dubuque, the three of us went from Bankston to Balltown and then on to Sherrill and back to Loras College in Dubuque. At the St. Clements Cemetery in Bankston, we found William Conrad (Grandson of Catherine Konzen & Anton Meyer) & his wife Anna Loutsch (Granddaughter of Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen), Robert J Conrad (Great grandson of Catherine Konzen & Anton Meyer) & Mary Eileen Hagerty, David William Klostermann (William Conrad & Anna Loutsch’s grandson), Elmer Link (Grandson of Maria Josephine Breitbach & William Link) & his wife Irene Hoffman, Michael Wolf (His daughter Margaret Wolf married Louis Link) & his wife Mary, Carolina Breitbach (Jacob Breitbach’s daughter) & her husband Peter Wolf, Frank Schmitt & his wife Margaret (Their grandson Joseph Schmitt married Lucille Jaeger), and Clarence Schmitt (Son of Paul Schmitt & Catherine Breitbach).

William Conrad, the grandson of Catherine Konzen & Anton Meyer, married Anna Loutsch, Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen’s granddaughter.

Elmer Link, Maria Josephine Breitbach & William Link’s grandson, & his wife Irene Hoffman.

Paul Schmitt & Catherine Breitbach’s son Clarence Schmitt.

We met up with Paula, her husband, and two sons in Balltown where her Konzen ancestor Angela Susanna Konzen lived with her husband Peter Hansen. Paula and her family took us to the St. Francis Assisi Cemetery and led us around the cemetery while she told us stories about her family.

In Balltown’s cemetery not only did we find Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen, but we also found Peter P Breitbach & his wife Anna C Schmitt (Their son Benjamin Breitbach married Katherine Meyer, the granddaughter of Catherine Konzen & Anton Meyer); Jacob Breitbach & his wife Philomena Sigwarth; Rose Marie Habel (Great granddaughter of Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen); Anastasia Hansen and her brothers Anton M Hansen & Leo F Hansen (Grandchildren of Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen); Anna Maria Hansen & her sister Frances Catherine Hansen (Grandchildren of Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen); Anton Hansen (Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen’s son) & his wife Mary Theresa Neises; Clemens Hansen (Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen’s son) & his wife Elizabeth Mary Neises; Alfred Jaeger (Mathias Jaeger & Regina Meyel’s son); Eva Meyer (Daughter of Catherine Konzen & Anton Meyer), her husband John Jaeger, and his second wife Margaretha Conrad (Catherine Konzen & Anton Meyer’s granddaughter); Henry Jaeger (Nicholas Jaeger & Mary Blide’s son) & his wife Mary Meyer (Granddaughter of Catherine Konzen & Anton Meyer); William Jaeger (Son of John Jaeger & Margaretha Conrad); Andrew Link (His great granddaughter Mildred Mary Link married Anthony Jaeger); Frank J Link & his wife Catherine Mary Sigwarth (Louis Sigwarth & Catherine Hansen’s daughter, Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen’s daughter); Francis Link (William Link & Maria Breitbach’s son) & his wife Margaret Thul; Silverius Link (Son of John Link & Cecilia Hansen, Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen’s granddaughter); Matthias Loch & his wife Mary Hansen (Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen’s daughter); Francis Sigwarth & his sister Irene Sigwarth; and George Steger & his wife Mary Sigwarth (Daughter of Catherine Hansen & Louis Sigwarth).

The mysterious Angela Susanna Konzen & her husband Peter Hansen.

Anton Hansen & his wife Mary Theresa Neises had eleven children together.

Eva Meyer married John Jaeger and they had two sons together before her death.

Mathias Loch & his wife Mary Hansen had three children.

After the cemetery, we drove just down the street to Breitbach’s Country Dining restaurant (does that name sound familiar? The owners are distantly related to Paula) and had lunch together. Afterward, we took our pictures with a copy of an advertisement for Anton Hansen’s (Paula’s great grandfather) estate auction. We drove past Balltown and Paula showed us where Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen lived. Sadly, Michelle, Sandy, and I had to eventually say goodbye to Konzen cousin number four because they were only so many hours left in the day to hunt for ancestors in graveyards.

In Sherrill’s Sts. Peter & Paul Cemetery, we found Mathias Neises & his wife Maria (Their daughter Mary Theresa Neises married Anton Hansen, Angela Susanna Konzen’s son), Peter Breitbach & Caroline Sigwarth (Their son Peter Breitbach married Anna Katherine Ries) and her parents Ludwig & Dorothea Sigwarth, and Mathias Brimeyer (Great grandfather of Marie Margaret Brimeyer who married Herbert Hansen, Angela Susanna Konzen’s grandson).

Ludwig & Dorothea Sigwarth, parents of Caroline Sigwarth Breitbach.

After Sherrill, we drove back to Dubuque and went to the Loras College Library and worked for hours in the library’s obituary card catalog index and in copying microfilms of obituaries. Even with all three of us looking it was impossible to find every obituary we were looking for, but we left the library with a huge stack or two of obituaries to add to our stack of obits from Chickasaw county.

On May 6th, we left Dubuque and went back to New Hampton to search for some more obituaries and to copy some probate records. Our six days together were filled with lots of fun, genealogy, and enough good memories to last us until next time. Hunting through cemeteries, records, and libraries for information about family members with my cousins helped me understand that the more I learn about my family, the more I want to learn. And the more I understand my living family.

On our third day in Chickasaw, we started at the Chickasaw County Courthouse in New Hampton.  We wanted to look for birth, marriage, death, land, and probate records at the courthouse, but because of time constraints and the abundance of records for Konzens, Pitzes, and Rieses there was no way we could’ve gotten all of those records even if we had the whole day to spend there.  But thanks to the wonderful help of the county recorder’s office, we still managed to come away with copies of dozens of records.  We’d sent Sandy to another office to search for wills and probate records and she found some for John G. Konzen (Mathias’s son) along with some of our other relatives.  However, that office closed early on a Friday so we had to return on Monday morning and take the microfiche of the records to the New Hampton Library to make copies.

New Hampton County Courthouse built in 1929

After the courthouse, we took on the New Hampton’s St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery and we also did a drive through of Graceland Cemetery/New Hampton City Cemetery.  At St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, some of the people we found were:

Alfred & Caroline Roths

Alfred M. Roths (grandson of Peter Pitz [1836-1885] who was the brother of Catherine Pitz Konzen my great great grandmother) and his wife Caroline.

Lavern J Roths (son of Alfred M. Roths).

Reynold P Ries (grandson of Michael M Ries [1833-1911] from Johann Ries’s first wife) & his wife Adeline.

Elmer J & Hazel M Pitz

Elmer J Pitz (grandson of Joannes Pitz [1842-1925] who was the brother of Catherine Pitz Konzen) & his wife Hazel.

Gregory H Pitz (Elmer J Pitz’s brother) & his wife Lorraine.

Lawrence Joseph Leichtman (great grandson of Mary Konzen & Casper Leichtman).

Lloyd M & Marie V Leichtman

Lloyd M Leichtman (father of Lawrence Joseph Leichtman and grandson of Mary Konzen & Casper Leichtman) & his wife Marie.

Robert Gilbert (great grandson of Peter Pitz [1836-1885]).

Le Roy, Alma, and their daughter Emily Sue Gilbert

Le Roy Gilbert (great grandson of Johann Ries’s [1794-1867]), his wife Alma, and their daughter Emily Sue.

John Peter Pitz Jr. (son of Joannes Pitz [1842-1925], the brother of Catherine Pitz Konzen), his wife Josephine Walentiny, & their son Gallus V Pitz.

Paul Pitz (son of Joannes Pitz [1842-1925], the brother of Catherine Pitz Konzen) & his wife Mary Wermen.

Peter Blankenheim

Peter Blankenheim (father of Josephine Blankenheim [1876-1968] who married Anthony Konzen) and his wife Louisa.

After we finished with St. Mary’s Cemetery, we took a quick drive through Graceland City Cemetery searching for possible relatives.  Sandy or Michelle barreled out of the car when ever someone would shout out “Found one!”  I took pictures from the car and pretended to leave the girls a few times – since jumping in and out of a car at a cemetery wasn’t exciting enough : )

Sylvester & Verna Leichtman’s headstone

In Graceland we found, Sylvester Leichtman (son of Mary Konzen & Casper Leichtman) & his wife Verna.

After our cemetery drive through, we picked up some copies at the courthouse and headed towards Dubuque.  We stopped in Farley at St. Joseph’s Catholic Cemetery and despite all of our searching, we couldn’t find Michelle’s great great grandpa Mathias/Mathew Konzen and his wife Katherine Schmitt.  Well, Michelle and I searched.  For most of our time at the cemetery, Sandy was actually bonding with an angel.

Sandy’s Angel

We found James Konzen (Theodore Konzen’s [1823-1905] son Mathias’s grandson) and his wife Lois.

Clarence Konzen (James Konzen’s brother).

John & Hilda Conrad

John Conrad (Catherine Konzen Meyer’s daughter Anna’s grandson) and his wife Hilda.

Frank, Elizabeth, & baby Konzen

Frank Konzen (Theodore Konzen’s [1823-1905] grandson), his wife Elizabeth, and their baby.

At the end of our search through Farley, we finally gave up on finding Mathias/Mathew Konzen and his wife.  Later we realized that his grave had not sunk or disappeared, but they were buried at Holy Cross Cemetery.  So he’s one Konzen that isn’t really lost!

Our second day in Chickasaw county was much more complicated than we expected it to be.  We started our day at Calvary Cemetery (also known as St. Joseph’s) in New Hampton.  There we found my great great grandparents (also Sandy’s great great grandparents) John Konzen and Katherine Pitz Konzen and we also found Katherine’s brother John Pitz (1842-1925), Mary Konzen and Casper F. Leichtman, Emma A. Konzen and William J. Smith, and their families.

John Konzen was born in Jun 1825 in Kruchten, Germany, and he died in Jan 1885 presumably in Chickasaw, Iowa.

Katherine Pitz Konzen was born May 1828 in Mettendorf, Germany, and she died in 16 Jan 1917 in New Hampton, Chickasaw, Iowa.

Katherine Pitz & John Konzen’s headstone

Mary Konzen Leichtman was born 14 May 1862 in Chickasaw, Iowa, and she died 25 Oct 1936 in Chickasaw, Iowa.

Mary Konzen Leichtman’s headstone

Casper F. Leichtman was born 27 Mar 1860 in Iowa, and he died 28 Jun 1941 in New Hampton, Chickasaw, Iowa.

Casper F. Leichtman’s headstone

From Calvary Cemetery, we headed to Alta Vista’s Union and Calvary cemeteries.  In Alta Vista Union we found some Joachims, but nobody directly related to us.  At Alta Vista Calvary, we found some goats that must be descended from goats that our ancestors owned : ) and some Roethlers, Kramers, Hentges, and Mishaks.  We all realized during that morning that camera batteries don’t last long at all when you take pictures of hundreds of graves!

Then we moved on to Ries central – St. Mary’s Catholic cemetery in North Washington.  From North Washington we headed back to New Hampton for lunch and then out to Lawler for Lawler Cemetery or Utica Township Cemetery, also known as “the cemetery on diagonal road”.  The cemetery was supposed to be on the 1800 block of the road, but we spotted it on the 1900 block and I veered off the road like we were never going to see it again (only hardcore genealogists  – or hardcore Konzens – drive like crazy people to cemeteries).  According to Iowa’s WPA graves and Chickasaw County Genealogical Society’s cemetery indexes, Mathias Konzen’s son John Konzen is buried in Lawler Cemetery so we were seeking his grave and maybe his wife’s.

Lawler Cemetery – not in mint condition

Once we managed to open the gate to the cemetery, we started exploring the fairly sparse cemetery for John Konzen.  The ground was kind of bumpy and there was a large open area between a few graves where we decided the cemetery could definitely expand with many more graves.  We found some recent graves and some very old graves, but we didn’t find any graves with familiar names let alone John’s grave.  The three of us weren’t sure what to make of this and we had to look over some of the graves again before we finally decided that we must have the wrong cemetery.  Maybe the cemetery we were at was a private cemetery – after all it didn’t have a sign – and there was another cemetery on the diagonal road that was actually on the 1800 block and not at the corner of the 1900 block and the 1800 block.

Michelle, Sandy, and I jumped back into the car and continued down the road, once we got to about the 1400 block we agreed the cemetery couldn’t be any farther and we turned around to head back toward Lawler.  We kept an eye out for the cemetery, but we didn’t see any new ones.  Once we returned to Lawler, Sandy asked at City Hall if they knew where Lawler Cemetery was, they had no idea, but directed us to a private cemetery (we weren’t willing to trek through somebody’s field to it).  They also told us that the courthouse in New Hampton would probably know the location of our cemetery.  While Sandy was asking questions she managed to ask some guys talking on the street if they knew any Pitzes – and of course they knew where some lived.  We decided to pursue the cemetery instead of chasing after long-lost relatives.

The three of us headed out to Little Turkey in case that was the Lawler cemetery that John was buried in.  The first cemetery in Little Turkey that we stumbled upon was an abandoned Methodist cemetery and the grass was so high that we didn’t want to search through it.  A little farther down the road was Little Turkey’s St. Mary’s Cemetery.  And John wasn’t there either, so we went back to New Hampton to dig through the library obituaries again and to look through the Chickasaw Genealogy cemetery books again.  And there it was, John Konzen buried in Lawler Cemetery, “the cemetery on diagonal road”.

I found the phone number for a member of Chickasaw Genealogy and called her and quizzed her about John.  She told me that the cemetery we found was Lawler Cemetery and once she looked through her records she informed me that she hadn’t been able to find his grave when she was at the cemetery in 1999.  What does the mean?  She continued to tell me that the cemetery had been neglected and basically abandoned at that time and the grass had been above her knees.  So I asked if the fact that John had been at the cemetery when they indexed it in the ’80s, but wasn’t there when she’d gone through the cemetery in 1999, did that mean that his grave had been moved?  She replied, “It probably sunk.”  What?  Apparently it’s very common in Chickasaw County (I don’t know about anywhere else) for graves to sink.

This lady then told me that they’d done restoration at a few cemeteries, but they hadn’t gotten around to Lawler Cemetery yet.  How do they do this restoration?  Well, this couple walks around with a big metal stick and they poke it in the ground until they find a headstone.  Yep, that’s really how they do it!  I was expecting her to tell me that they use radar equipment or a metal detector or something, but they just really use a metal rod.  I was floored by that whole conversation and when I told Sandy and Michelle everything that the lady had told me, they couldn’t believe it either.

At the Lawler Cemetery, we probably stood right on top of John’s grave when we were talking about how many more graves they could fit into the cemetery.  Maybe that’s why the ground was so uneven?  Then we started thinking that maybe my great great grandfather John’s children Katherine and Theresa are also buried next to Frank and Ellen at Reilly Ridge, but that there graves maybe sank.  Who knows?

So my new plan is to get a big stick and start poking around for graves and then digging them up.  Just as soon as I can get back to Iowa…  It infuriated me when we were in Iowa and it still makes me angry now that the caretakers of these graveyards allowed any graves to sink.  You’d think they’d be able to stop the process with much less money and effort if they did something as soon the graves started to sink.

I’ve always thought we should exhume my great great grandfather John Konzen and maybe Angela Susanna or Catherine Konzen and do DNA testing to see how they are related to each other.  So Michelle and Paula always tease me about wanting to do exhumation and now I’m the “exhumation expert” thanks to Michelle : )  It’s very ironic that I now have some graves that need to be dug up.  If you ever drive by a graveyard in Iowa and you see someone walking around with a big metal stick, I guess you’ll know what they are doing – and I could be the person with the stick!

I met up with Sandy Sedam and Michelle Huss at the Cedar Rapids airport.  Sandy and I are both great great grandchildren of Joannes/John Konzen and Katherine Pitz Konzen and great great great grandchildren of Peter Konzen and Theresa Wolff Konzen, but Peter and Theresa are Michelle’s fourth great grandparents and Theodore Konzen and Maria Demuth Konzen are her great great great grandparents.  The three of us headed out to Chickasaw county in a Ford Focus that wasn’t nearly large enough for our suitcases and cemetery supplies (doesn’t that sound scary?).

In Chickasaw, we decided Reilly Ridge Cemetery (also known as St. Ignatius Sacred Heart Cemetery) would be our first cemetery to mark off our list, but on our way from New Hampton we ended up stopping at the Jericho Lutheran Cemetery and taking pictures (we’ll call that a practice).  As far we know, we aren’t related to anyone buried at the cemetery, but we’ll eventually put the gravestone pictures that we took there up on Find a Grave.

What St. Ignatius Sacred Heart Church at Reilly Ridge looked like before it burned down.

Then down a gravel road, we went to Reilly Ridge.  From the Iowa WPA graves index we knew that John & Katherine Konzen were buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery (also known as St. Joseph’s Cemetery) in New Hampton, but we were hoping that their kids who died in childhood were buried at Reilly Ridge.  Sandy had heard a rumor that Frank Konzen was buried in Reilly Ridge, so before our trip I wrote to Reilly Ridge and I received a reply from Jack Sabelka, one of the cemetery directors.  Jack sent me a partial map of the cemetery showing the Konzen plot, but no records of who is buried in the plot.  At Reilly Ridge, we wandered around for a bit (because of course I left the map in the car) before one of us finally stumbled upon Frank Konzen and then Ellen Konzen, but no Katherine or Theresa Konzen which is confusing.  It’s a little odd for someone to be buried in a different cemetery than their children (who died during childhood) are buried, but is much stranger for them to have only two of their kids buried together.  At the time, we didn’t think about this too much, believing that we’d probably find Katherine and Theresa together somewhere else.

Frank Konzen, son of John Konzen & Katherine Pitz

Ellen Konzen, daughter of John Konzen & Katherine Pitz

New information we learned about the Konzens at Reilly Ridge:

-Frank Konzen was born 5 Aug 1874 and he died 12 May 1875, he was nine months and seven days old.

-Ellen Konzen was born Nov 1866 and she died in 1872 (this is our best guess from the stone’s condition).

Then we headed to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cemetery in Lawler for Mathias & Sophia Konzen and Margaretha Konzen Kout & her family’s graves.  At the back of the cemetery, the Konzens and the Kouts are buried right next to each other.  Margaretha & Mathias Kout’s son Peter Kout and his wife Anna Gilbert and some of their kids are also right next to Margaretha and Mathias Kout.

Mathias Konzen & Sophia Conrad Konzen’s memorial

(Johan) Mathias Konzen was born Jun 1818 in Kruchten, Germany, and he died 10 Oct 1900 in Lawler, Chickasaw, Iowa.

Sophia Conrad Konzen was born 4 Nov 1832 in Bundenbach, Germany, and she died 13 Sep 1905 in Lawler, Chickasaw, Iowa.

Margaretha Konzen & Mathias Kout’s memorial

Mathias Kout was born 24 Jul 1822 in Kruchten, Germany, and he died 27 Feb 1906 in Chickasaw, Iowa.

Margaretha Konzen Kout was born 30 Aug 1820 in Kruchten, Germany, and she died 26 Dec 1898 in Stapleton, Chickasaw, Iowa.

Peter Kout’s gravestone

Peter Kout was born 14 Mar 1851 in Kruchten, Germany, and he died 9 Dec 1918 in Lawler, Chickasaw, Iowa.

Anna Gilbert Kout’s gravestone

Anna Gilbert Kout was born 19 Feb 1862 in Chickasaw, Iowa, and she died 29 Mar 1931 in Chickasaw, Iowa.

Infant son of Peter Kout & Anna Gilbert Kout

Peter Kout & Anna Gilbert Kout had an infant son that died 6 Dec 1894.

John Almon Kout’s headstone

John Almon Kout, son of Peter & Anna Kout was born 29 Oct 1901 in Stapleton, Chickasaw, Iowa, and he died 26 Mar 1902 in Chickasaw, Iowa.

Victoria Susanna Kout’s headstone

Victoria Susanna Kout, daughter of Peter & Anna Gilbert Kout, was born 2 Sep 1900 in Stapleton, Chickasaw, Iowa, and she died 1 Oct 1900 in Chickasaw, Iowa.

Henry Joseph Kout’s headstone

Henry Joseph Kout was born 27 Aug 1897 in Chickasaw, Iowa, and he died 19 Oct 1901 in Chickasaw, Iowa.

The Kout & Lensing plots

Margaret J. Kout Lensing’s gravestone

Margaret Kout Lensing was born 27 Sep 1892 in Lawler, Chickasaw, Iowa, and she died 10 Dec 1918 in Utica, Chickasaw, Iowa.

George Peter Kout, son of Hubert & Mary Meyer Kout

George Peter Kout, son of Hubert & Mary Agnes Meyer Kout, was born 6 Mar 1887 in New Hampton, Chickasaw, Iowa, and he died 22 May 1890 in Chickasaw, Iowa.

After our visit to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, we drove down Brush Street (across from the cemetery) to Pitts Street.

Even though the street name wasn’t spelled correctly – hey, it maybe was named after one of our Pitzes and not that annoying Dr. Pitts – we took pictures in front of the sign while some locals watched and some guy shouted at us.  That sent us scrambling back into our rental car and continuing down Brush Street to Lawler’s most visited tourist attraction E. Konzen Street.

E. Konzen Street and me. I was plotting how to take the E. Konzen Street sign back to Montana with me.

Mathias Konzen, according to his obituary, once owned all of the land occupied by the town of Lawler (that was in 1900, odds are Lawler hasn’t grown much since then).  In the 1892 plat map of Lawler, the area just beyond E. Konzen Street was called the Konzen addition.  Mathias & Sophia also once lived on E. Konzen Street.

Ready to escape the heat, the three of us headed back to New Hampton and the library’s genealogy section.  Pure heaven!  Their obituary files allowed Michelle & I to look up many obits that we didn’t have – or even knew existed – while Sandy searched through church records and cemetery indexes.  If your family lived in Chickasaw or Dubuque counties before 1900, odds are Sandy or Michelle are related to you!  And while we were in Iowa, Sandy and Michelle realized that they are related in more ways than just through the Konzens.

After a ton of research, we finally drug ourselves to Klunders Kafe – delicious! – where we told the waitress what we were doing in New Hampton and she told us that Paul Pitz comes to the cafe a lot (of course he does).

Theodore Konzen and Catherine Schuler had eight children (Anna Maria’s a new addition) – that we know of – Anna Maria (1781), Peter (1782), Wilhelm (1783), Elizabeth (1787), Peter (1789), Joannes (1794), Marie (1795), and Wilhelm (1797).  Peter (1789) is my great great great grandfather and we’ve always had high hopes for where Wilhelm (1797) might lead us, but a while ago Paula found a German genealogy site with a family tree for their sister Elizabeth.  According to the site, Elizabeth married Mathias Michels in Sirzenich, Germany, on October 26, 1809.  Sirzenich is part of the Trierweiler, Germany, parish so I ordered microfilm 0560647.

That microfilm contains a large range of baptism, marriage, and death records for Trierweiler parish so I was able to trace Elizabeth and Mathias’s descendants into the 1880s.  Elizabeth and Mathias’s children were Catharina (born 23 Sep 1810), Johann (3 Apr 1813), Anna Maria (9 Apr 1815), Mathias (22 Jul 1817), Catharina (22 Feb 1820), Bernard (17 Feb 1824), Anna Maria (17 Jan 1825), and Lucia (1829).  Catharina Michels (22 Feb 1820) married Joannes Braun on 21 Jan 1833.  Catharina & Joannes’s children were Elisabeth (20 Jan 1835), Maria & Margaretha (18 Feb 1841), Anna Maria, and Matthias (13 Jul 1848).

Anna Maria Michels married Theodore Schilz (13 Feb 1842) and Anna Catharina Michels married Joanne Ernzen (15 Feb 1848).  Mathias Michels married Catharina Harz (18 Jan 1849) and Anna Maria Michels married Matthias Horsch (18 Jan 1849).  Lucia Michels married Michaele Elsen (1 Sep 1852) and Joannes Michels married Margaretha Schilz (12 Mar 1853).

There are a couple of very cool things (besides all of the genealogical info) that I found in these records.  First of all, we know that Catharina Schuler Konzen was still alive in 1810 according to her granddaughter and god-daughter Catharina’s baptism record.  In Anna Maria Michels’s (17 Jan 1825) baptism record, her godfather is Wilhelm Konzen of Ollingen.  We’re hoping this Wilhelm is Elizabeth’s brother and there is a Ollingen, Germany, and a Dillingen, Luxembourg, that we’re searching for him in.

Also, Elizabeth’s daughter Catharina’s (1810) daughter Margaretha Braun was named after Elizabeth’s brother Peter’s (my great great great grandfather) daughter Margaretha Konzen (could you follow that?).  Margaretha and Catharina were first cousins and I love knowing that they were close enough that Margaretha was Catharina’s daughter’s godmother.  Another interesting fact is that Elizabeth’s grandson Mathias Braun married a Margaretha Kuhn who may be related to our Konzens since Kuhn is a common variation of Konzen.

Elizabeth Konzen lived to be 91 years old and she died 26 Mar 1878 in Trierweiler, Germany.

I’m working on making a family tree page for Elizabeth’s family.

Sometime this summer, I noticed that both Mathias Konzen and his brother John Konzen (my great great grandfather) had sons named Peter.  Mathias’s son was Peter Henry Konzen (1857-1935) and John’s son was Peter H Konzen (1872-?).  At the time, I dismissed this as not very weird at all since I’ve seen much stranger things in the Konzen’s genealogy.

One day, I skimmed some news articles on Ancestry about Peter H Konzen and I didn’t really read the full extent of them, but I saw that his wife was granted a divorce from him.  That still wasn’t anywhere near weird enough for me to look deeper into Peter H Konzen’s history.  Around this time period, I found some great information on Peter Henry Konzen’s life (at this website http://www.minnesotalegalhistoryproject.org/assets/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Kittson%20Cnty.pdf).  It turns out that Mathias’s son Peter Henry seems to have been an all-around good guy, he was a lawyer, mayor, and judge.

Soon after this, Paula found a bunch of newspaper articles on Peter H Konzen who was also a lawyer.  And we discovered that John’s son Peter H wasn’t an all-around good guy like his cousin Peter Henry.  In fact, Peter Henry was probably very glad that he moved to Minnesota from Chickasaw County, Iowa, and I bet he wanted to change his name a time or two.  Peter H was the ultimate bad Peter.  As my great aunt Kay Konzen Anderson says, “he was always a schemer.”

According to a newspaper article that Paula found, bad Peter “a real estate dealer and justice of peace at New Hampton, started for Chicago Sept. 26 [,1903] and has not been heard of since.”  On October 15, 1903, the Evening Gazette published an article entitled “Was Iowan Murdered by Chicago Thugs?”  The article states “Chicago, Oct. 15 – Murdered for the purposes of robbery is believed to have been the fate of P. H. Konzen, a wealthy justice of the peace of New Hampton, Iowa, who disappeared on his way to this city during Centennial week.  The police were asked today to solve the mystery surrounding his disappearance.  Konzen, who is 35 years of age, left his home September 29, and came to Chicago to attend the centennial celebration, after which he intended to sell here a large piece of land in South Dakota.  His friends believed that he made the sale and received in payment a large amount of money, for which he was held up and probably murdered.”

The Elgin Echo reported on Nov. 12, 1903, in a piece called “Lost in Chicago” that “Five weeks after the disappearance of P. H. Konzen from New Hampton a trace was secured last week.  One was from Chamberlain, S. D., reporting the deposit of a deed to lands in Brule Co., S. D., which deed was sent from Chicago, Ill., Sept. 29th, 1903.  Another trace was from letters found on Adams street bridge in Chicago on the morning of Sept. 29th.  This came in a letter from Valparaiso, Ind.  This shows that Mr. Konzen did go to Chicago as he intended to do when he left home; but Chicago is a pretty large hole in which to hunt a lost man.”

Right now you’re probably wondering why we call him bad Peter…

In the Jan. 21, 1904, issue of The Nashua Reporter it was written that “A telegram to a party here brought the news of the safety of P.H. Konzen but does not give the location of the man nor any facts relative to his disappearance.  We are glad he is found and hope there will be some reasonable explanation of the seeming cruel abandonment of a loving wife and chidren.  We always liked P.H. Konzen and still persist in the belief that this last matter will be explained.”

The Nashua Reporter reported in the Feb. 18, 1904, issue that “W.L. Darrow accompanied Mrs. P.H. Konzen to Marshalltown Sunday where Mrs. Konzen was notified she would meet her husband and fix up their business matters.  For some reason Mr. Konzen failed to keep the appointment but informed them that he would be there very soon.  Both Mr. D. and Mrs. K. are still, at this writing, in Marshalltown and but little is known about the matter at this time.  Later: A telephone message from Mr. Darrow informs us that he has met Konzen and will be home Thursday.  No facts as to any settlement of business has yet been received.”

In an article entitled “Konzen a Wife Deserter” The Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette reports “New Hampton, Iowa, Feb. 19 [,1904] – A meeting between Mrs. P. H. Konzen and her husband, the New Hampton business man, who left here on September 29, and who was for a time thought to be dead, took place a few days ago at Marshalltown.  [It] now develops that Mr. Konzen has been at Vaiparaiso, Indiana, at school ever since he left here.  He shaved off his mustache and entered the school under the name of Carl Meyer and all of the evidence which tended to show that he might have been killed was manufactured by him and it was through the alleged transfer of Dakota land that his brother John discovered his whereabouts.  The details of the meeting between husband and wife are not known.  It is sufficient to say that Mr. Konzen refused to be reconciled to live with his wife, that he transferred his property here to her and that she will have the custody of the children.  The curtain now goes down on this affair.”

According to the Dec. 21, 1905, issue of the Nashua Reporter, Elizabeth Leichtman Konzen was granted a divorce from P.H. Konzen.

It seems hard to imagine how a 31 year old man could pass himself off as a student – or why he’d want to do so – but that’s just bad Peter for you.  Last month, I visited my great aunt Kay Konzen Anderson and I asked her about the Konzen side of her family because I’ve never heard any stories about my great grandfather’s family.  Kay told me that she didn’t know that her dad had a brother named Peter until she was about ten years old and she asked her mother about the man in a picture that they had in her house.  Her mother (Ella Kuske Konzen) told her that he was John Charles’s brother Peter and since John Charles no longer considered Peter his brother, he wouldn’t talk about him.  Then Ella told Kay this story of Peter (which contradicts the newspaper accounts a bit).

According to Kay, bad Peter’s wife Elizabeth Leichtman Konzen (her brother Casper was married to bad Peter’s sister Mary) was waiting at the hospital for Peter to pick her up after the birth of their last child and he never showed up.  When she got home, he’d left a note saying he didn’t want to be married anymore and that he’d set up an account of money for her so she wouldn’t have to work and he’d disappeared.  My interpretation of this and the newspaper accounts is that Peter probably “left for Chicago” soon after the birth of their last child (their daughter Bessie was born Aug 4, 1903 and he disappeared in September 1903).  Then when Peter was found he told Elizabeth he didn’t want to be married anymore and gave her money when they met in Marshalltown or she got the money from him when they divorced.