Louis Mesenbrink

Louis was a brother to my immigrant ancestor. Apparently he was the subject to a bit of controversy, at least among my family. My mother told me the story about how she and my dad and other relatives spent several hours trying to find the location of Louis' grave. And then, to my mom's great surprise, they said "There's that SOB!". They explained to her that he had been married several times and killed his wives.

No doubt that was their belief, but I wondered what reason they had for thinking that. After all, he doesn't seem to have been a bad person. In fact, he seemed to have been well liked and prosperous. He was an immigrant and a veteran.

Louis and Sophia Mesenbrink ca 1890

Louis was married three times. His first wife was Sophia Harms. They married in Jackson county Iowa in 1867. Louis and his family were the first settlers in Hanover township, Crawford county, Iowa, Louis naming the township for his old homeland in Germany. But Sophia died in 1881 and he remarried the following year to Minnie Keyser. After just a year of marriage, she died of an accidental poisoning. The circumstances are described in the Denison Review of July 6, 1884.

Death of Mena Mesenbrink

The article describes how she ate some cookies that had been contaminated with rat poison spilled from the shelf above. I suppose that suspicions were high given that none of the other family members ate any of the cookies. Nevertheless, Louis did a lot for his neighbors and was well-liked. He held a well-attended July Fourth party at his home just a couple years later as described in the Denison Review of July 10, 1885.

Fourth of July at Lous Mesenbrink Home, 1885

By that time, Louis had been married a third time, in 1884, to Sophia Krohn. She died in 1891.

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