Wolterman Genealogy - Week 21

Mathias John Pfeffer, my husband’s great-grandfather, was born 3 January of 1864 to Martin and Rosalia (Madl) Pfeffer. He was baptized in the Catholic church on 4 January 1865 in Szentandras, Moson, Hungary. This area was later called Mosonszentandras, and is now part of Austria.

According to information he provided on U.S. census records, Mathias emigrated to the United States in 1886, making his way immediately to Minnesota. He would have been 21 years old. At some point he met Filomena (sometimes spelled Philomena) Riechel and they got married. Though I have found no record, it would have been after 1892 when Filomena entered the U.S. and before 1895.

Mathias and Filomena on their wedding day

They had the following children: Annie born 1895; Rosella born 1898; Joseph born 1900; Philomena born 1902; Mary born 1904; Katherine born 1907; Frances born 1909; Martin born 1913; and Edward born 1916.

photo on left about 1898 and the one on the right about 1920

In the 1910 census for Wellington Township in Renville, the family was living on a farm which they rented. By 1920, they were renting a farm in nearby Cairo Township, a township with an area of 34.2 square miles.

Mathias Pfeffer stone

 Mathias died at the age of 64 on 3 November 1929. The cause of death was listed as toxemia resulting from chronic myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle. He was buried in Saint Andrew’s Catholic Cemetery in Fairfax, Minnesota.

*Note that his stone indicates a birth year of 1865. I chose to go with the birth year 1864 as that is the what the Catholic church in Hungary recorded as the birth year. If records have conflicting dates, it is customary to use the date on the record closest to the event in question, in this case, Mathias birth year.