Stoehr, Dorothea (Mrs. Friedrich), 1844-1929

STOEHR, BABE, BABA, RABE

Posted By: Lydia Lucas - Volunteer (email)
Date: 6/13/2021 at 20:33:34

From the Sioux County Index (Hull), February 8, 1929:

Dorothea Stoehr, nee Rabe, was born on the 3rd of September, 1844, in Sarvgast near Poutlitz, Brandenburg. In 1866 she came to America and for 17 years lived in Burlington, Wisconsin. On the 3rd of March 1867 she was married to Mr. Friedrich Stoehr and 44 years of married life were given them. In 1883 they came to Sioux County, Iowa, and bought their farm 3½ miles northwest of Hull where Mrs. Stoehr lived to her end.

The greater part of Mrs. Stoehr’s long life was one of almost continual suffering. The last 15 years of her life she was not able to leave the place, while in the last 6 or 7 years she never left the house. But she was a patient sufferer, always willing to submit to the Heavenly Father’s will, longing and praying for her final deliverance, rejoicing in the fact that through faith in her Savior she was a child of God, thankfully enjoying the comfort which was offered her in God’s word. Her faith and patience was put to a specially severe test in the last 2 months of her life by being confined to her bed in an entirely helpless condition. But she kept faith and gave expression to her faith in the words of the 73rd Psalm: verses 23-26.

While the parting with this aged mother had, no doubt, caused pain to all her children, she is missed especially by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Stoehr, who in her many years of suffering and in the time of her complete helplessness have faithfully and tenderly nursed her.

Mrs. Stoehr died on the 28th of January. Her age was 84 years, 4 months and 25 days. She leaves four children, nineteen grandchildren and 21 great grandchildren. The children are Mrs. L. C. Fie, of Redfield, South Dakota; Mrs. Albert Witt, of Akron, Iowa; Mr. Henry Stoehr, of Hull, Iowa; and Mrs. Wm. Saeger, of Rock Rapids, Iowa.

Funeral services were held on the 1st day of February, in St. Paul’s Lutheran church and interment was made in the cemetery near the church. Sincere sympathy is extended by all the friends and neighbors to the bereaved relatives.

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RESEARCH NOTES

Her death certificate has Dorothea, widow of Friedrich Stoehr; resident of the U.S. and Lincoln Township 62 years; born in Germany; died at 11:45 a.m. January 28, 1929, of pneumonia, contributory cause flu; buried in the German Lutheran Cemetery at Hull. No indication of what her long-standing illness or condition was.

The 1925 Iowa state census gives her parents as Joe Baba, born in the Netherlands, and Friada [Frieda?] Coop, born in Germany [although this seems to be a census-taker error, since Friada Coop is also listed as the mother of all of Dorothea’s son Henry’s children, and was probably Henry’s wife’s (Freda) maiden name].

There is a Sioux County marriage register entry (January 31, 1900) on Ancestry.com for Hulda Stoehr (age 23) that gives her parents’ names as Fred. Stoehr and Dorothea Babe.

Also on Ancestry.com is an entry for her in the death register for St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hull, giving a birth name that also looks like Babe.

The name “Rabe” in the SCI obituary may be “Babe” with the lower part of the “B” fuzzed off.