Eugene and Mary Anne Miltenberger:

Up and Down with St. Louis

Eugene Miltenberger c. 1872 (1819–1879)	Mary Anne Bogy c. 1872 (1829–1908)

The story on my Great-Grandparents reflects well the fortunes on the City of their family life. It starts with them as children raised (far) away from St. Louis but fated to share in the destiny of that city on the banks of the Mississippi during its heyday, from about 1840-1910.

Eugene Miltenberger (1819-1879) was one of six children born and raised in Erstein, (Bas Rhin), Alsace. Many would mistake his nationality as German, but in fact the Miltenbergers were French as only Alsatians can covet that nation and culture. Indeed, the Miltenbergers can trace their lineage in Alsace to the sixteenth century and probably before. The town of his birth goes even deeper into French history with a royal monastic foundation in 850. But the truth of the matter is that Alsace itself is thoroughly of mixed culture, where German and French blend into a unique language, cuisine, and way of life.

Detail of a 1750 map of Alsace, France showing Strasbourg at the top and Erstein in the bottom left.	1750 map of France with a red box showing the location of the map at left.

Eugene was the oldest of four sisters and one brother: Pauline, Camille, Clemence, Elise and Charles. Their father, Pierre, was a local tax official and their mother, Barb Terese Krast, the daughter of a former mayor during the French Revolution. In fact the Miltenberger-Karst relationship occurred frequently during earlier generations and culminated in the parents‘ generation with four sister/brother marriages.

Barb Therese Karst

(1802–1892)

Jean Pierre and Eugene both arrived in New York in August, 1838, in company with Jean’s sister Catherine and her husband, Aloys Karst. Jean had been appointed French vice counsel in St. Louis—one wonders what politics such an appointment involved back home. Whether Eugene went straight to St. Louis or detoured in Vincennes, Indiana, is uncertain as family tradition says he spent a time in that old French settlement before coming to St. Louis. As vice counsel, apparently, Jean Pierre had to earn part of his living as the official fees for consular work was insufficient. It also suggests that he was not yet able by 1843 when he died to bring his family to the United States. A relative (Cretien Miltenberger) had emigrated much earlier and had settled in New Orleans in 1809 but had kept in touch with the Erstein families over the years. It appears that some members did arrive in New Orleans but quickly moved on to St. Louis.

St. Louis in the 1840s was a natural magnet for immigrants as it became the departure point for western expansion, as well as the trading partner with New Orleans in serving the south. The other fact is its emergence as a hub for German immigrants who created an important element in its industrial development such as brewing, as well as a community passionately committed to liberty. While the Miltenberger-Karsts were French speaking, they were literate in German and carried names easily taken as German. That fact helps explain the success of Eugene Miltenberger’s career in his adopted city.

Eugene shows up on the records in St. Louis in 1841 as an immigrant seeking American citizenship. At about the same time, he begins the study of law with Judge Logan Hunton, who was in practice with Lewis V. Bogy. Bogy will represent the link to the now fading French elite who had founded and managed St. Louis for four generations. After Eugene is admitted to practice, he becomes Bogy’s partner. In 1848 marries Bogy’s niece, Mary Anne Bogy, daughter of his brother, Joseph from Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. Thus, the professional relationship turns into a lifelong familial one where Miltenberger and Bogy create many ties in real estate, banking, finance and politics.

Lewis Vital Bogy c. 1873

Mary Anne Bogy (1829-1908) was the daughter of Joseph (1806-1881) and Eleanor Valle (1810-1878), the second child in a family of thirteen. Both the Bogy and the Valle lines came from Beauport, Canada near Quebec and carried fertility to (for modern eyes) ridiculous lengths, like families of thirteen! Both families represented powerful elites in Ste. Genevieve of their day so they were well able to raise and educate large families. Mary Anne went to school in St. Louis where she no doubt visited in the home of her uncle, Lewis V. Bogy. It was here that she met the engaging, handsome and well-educated Eugene. It did not hurt that he also played the violin. They were married on Mary Anne’s nineteenth birthday, October 10, 1848.

Joseph Bogy

(1808–1881)

The 1840s represented a transition of sorts for the city and its professional classes. Prior generations of St. Louisans had depended in great part on the rich harvest of furs and pelts and settlers streaming through the city on their way west. Not that this stopped abruptly, but gradually industry began to replace the natural product of the wilderness. This is reflected in the shift of Lewis Bogy from the practice of law to the development of lead and iron mining in his native Ste. Genevieve and the creation of a railroad from the Iron Mountain site in Jefferson County to St. Louis where unrefined ore could be processed and shipped east.

Eugene Miltenberger never abandoned the law, but even while practicing with Bogy in the 1840s he developed interest in real estate. This interest led naturally to banking where much of the financing for development began. From early documents Eugene’s facility with English is evident, making him a triple threat with both German and French at his command. As Bogy moves away from the St. Louis scene during the 1850s, Miltenberger takes on other partners in both real estate and banking, demonstrating the fact that while Bogy gave him his start, he was more than capable of making it on his own.

Mary Anne and Eugene lived near the downtown area during these first years where the first five of their thirteen children were born: Lisa, Mary, Charles, Emma and Eugene. About 1855 the family moved into a house southeast from the old city along the Mississippi in the newly developed Carondelet area. This community soon became part of a largely German neighborhood which developed around the Miltenberger home site (now at 3218 Osceola). It was at this address that the remaining eight children were born: Rita, Harriet, Alice, Anna, Julia, John, Albert and William.

1903 Map of St Louis showing the location of the 3218 Osceola House.	Modern photograph of the Miltenberger’s house at 3218 Osceola in St. Louis.

In 1850 the remainder of Eugene’s family emmigrated from Alsace. His father, Pierre, had emigrated in 1841 but had died in 1843 in St. Louis. His mother and the five siblings remained in Erstein for a decade after his departure so that by the time of their arrival, he was most thoroughly American. None of them were married at the time and no doubt depended greatly on Eugene for direction and support. While Eugene was already well established financially, the family appears to have had its own resources. Brother Charles went to work for Eugene at some point, but the sisters remain somewhat house-bound as far as I can tell. Of the five other children, only Clemence married in 1852 to a widower, William Robyn, who shared an interest in classical music with Eugene. He later became a noted St. Louis musician and director.

William Robyn	Clemence Miltenberger Robyn

The decade of the 1850s created a robust and exciting city in St. Louis. Politics began to have increasing importance, not only because it helped drive industry, especially railroads, but also because it brought contention over slavery. Missouri’s role in the evolving debate over slavery had historical precedent in the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and its demise in the Compromise of 1850. As the Civil War approached, it seemed likely that the State would side with the Confederacy, but the presence of the German community stood in the way. At this point, I am not sure what role Eugene Miltenberger played in keeping Missouri in the Union, but his presence in a German community, his strong professional ties and his social activism suggest that he could not remain neutral. Clearly Lewis Bogy leaned heavily to the side of the South—and paid a price for that.

Bogy returned to St. Louis in the late 1850s as president of the Iron Mt. and St. Louis Railroad which terminated at Carondelet where there was a developing metal industry. He appears to have taken up the practice of law again but then in 1861 forfeited it in the face of an oath of fidelity to the Union which he felt he could not honor. In 1860 he appears as president on the E. Miltenberger Bank, another indication that the two partners were still on good terms. These are years, apparently, when Eugene’s financial accounts are growing robustly. While I don’t have the facts to detail this rise in fortune, later evidence points to his interest in real estate, banking and finance, insurance, and wholesale liquor. Further, he retires in 1867 at age forty-eight while still raising a family of ten children.

But together with his business acumen, Eugene played a strong civic role as well. His association with Bogy drew him into politics. He served as alderman for the newly annexed Carondelet in 1860 and then was elected to the City Council in 1879 at the time of his death. He served as president of the Mulanphy Immigrant Relief Fund and helped found one of the City’s largest parks, the Carondelet Park. He was one of the founders of St. Anthony of Padua parish on the south side in 1863 and seems connected to the donation of Mulanphy property to the Catholic Order of the Sacred Heart for the founding of Maryville College in the 1870s.

Some of the men who helped to found St. Anthony of Padua parish in St. Louis.

Eugene Miltenberger at table, standing, facing left.

As Eugene settled into “retirement,” Eugene and Mary Anne looked for larger quarters after the birth of their last child, William in 1870. While three children had died young, ten remained, together with servants. Their solution was to build a house just west on Stringtown Road close to both St. Anthony’s parish and their old home on Osceola. It was a handsome Italianate home in an appropriate garden setting and may have served as a silver wedding gift to Mary Anne when completed in 1873.

The Miltenberger’s house on

Stringtown Road, completed in 1873.

It was shortly after that the family began to disperse. The first to leave (and oldest) was Lisa who entered the Sacred Heart Order in 1875 to go on to a career as superior and treasurer. She was followed by Mary who married Joseph Cain in 1876. Emma married T. Caroll Taylor in 1878. It was at this point in family affairs that the sudden and tragic death of Eugene occurred on April 1, 1879. Mary Anne was just fifty years old and in charge of seven children, a new home and an estate which was no doubt largely unknown to her. Thoughtfully, Eugene had provided for a family plot in the newly developed Catholic cemetery at Calvary on the north side a few years before. It would be there that many of the family would rest together over the years.

Mother Elizabeth Miltenberger c. 1893

(1848–1929)

It is impossible, perhaps impractical, to give an assessment of character from this distance in time, but I’ll offer a brief one of Eugene Miltenberger. First, all my family tradition speaks of him as “loveable,” not always offered for other relatives, I would add. His countenance appears open and affable. To be sure, he was also an excellent businessman which involves a possible opposing virtue of shrewdness. He was well educated and intelligent and perhaps a gifted musician. He was generous with his time and a contributor to the public welfare. The one notable flaw was his relationship with his sister Pauline who fought vigorously with him (and others, I might add) over their mother’s estate. Was Eugene being avaricious since he already wealthy? I have no answer to this, but everything points to a deep resentment on Pauline’s side.

Mary Anne was a nominally wealthy widow. The value of the estate was estimated (in the press, to be sure) at $125,000. The children were to get a mere $100 apiece, indicating that Eugene wished the estate to stay intact and leave benevolence to his widow. The thing about this plan was that the estate was a vast collection of assets which was created by an active commercial intelligence no longer present to direct the future. There were a number of city lots and houses beyond the home place, shares in an insurance company, a whole sale liquor business, mineral properties elsewhere and bank accounts, as well a accounts payable and other measures of debt. Complicating this was the still active estate of her late mother-in-law, Therese Karst Miltenberger, and the contentious Pauline. In the event, Eugene’s estate was settled rather quickly by 1881 while Therese’s went from 1877-1883. Family relations between the formidable Pauline and the mild youngest sister, Elise, and Eugene’s family were no doubt strained.

Mary Anne lived for another almost thirty years. During this time, the fortunes of St. Louis rose and gradually declined as its larger neighbor, Chicago, drew off many commercial resources. Decline was also reflected in the fortunes of Mary Anne Miltenberger. The competitor here was both her poor business judgment and family sentiment. In the end, she listened to a younger son (John) who lacked his father’s sure commercial instincts and helped his mother lose probably half of her holdings. We have a much better insight into Mary Anne as a person as well as a personality because of a cache of letters she left at her death. Her generosity of character is reflected in her withholding judgment against the errant Johnnie in her many letters referencing him.

After Eugene’s death, the exodus of children continued. Eugene B. (never called junior, thank God) married in the same year as his father’s death (1879) to Louise Franciscus, daughter from a local banking family. Eugene B. was already in the commercial world prior to marriage and went on to establish his own real estate and financial firm, but death cut short his career in 1887 at 33. The remaining girls, Rita, Alice, Anna and Julia all married local men of considerable commercial standing, though considerably below their father’s level of achievement. The two youngest boys, John and William, were just kids when their Dad died but finally got launched in the 1890s. Both married socially prominent women in their first attempts. Both remarried (Willie twice more) and had other tribulations. As mentioned, Johnnie declared bankruptcy in 1906, owning much of his $111,000 overhang to his mother and the unlucky Willie.

William H. Miltenberger c 1910

One precipitating event in the decline of fortune for the Miltenbergers and assorted spouses was the Panic of 1893. The clearest evidence of the impact of this financial disaster on the family was Julia’s husband, Emile S. Guignon. He had married into a family of cousins in 1884 (his mother and Mary Anne’s were first cousins) and at first partnered with the ill-fated Eugene B. After the latter’s death in 1887, he started his own firm and went on to major success as a real estate developer. But 1893 caught him and partners with leveraged real estate deals that resulted in ruin. Mary Anne may have lost money as well, either through her own investments, or through lending money to Johnnie for his schemes.

Emile Simon Guignon (1856–1941)	Julia Guignon neé Miltenberger (1864–1949)

For the next fifteen years, Mary Anne went from rich through well-to-do to poor--and it seemed for many of her family as well. Her letters are full of bad news on the economic front, coupled with remarkable restraint on the self-pity side. After the Miltenbergers moved out of the Stringtown Road house, Mary Anne took in several married children for weeks, perhaps months in a series of new locations. Sometime after 1890 when Mary Cain lost her husband—and her money—her mother moved in with her, at first to support, but then to be supported by her daughter. During that time, Mary took in boarders, though she also always maintained one or several servants. It’s not clear who owned the house on Taylor Street, Mary Anne, Pat Cain or Mary herself. They were next door to Annie and Joseph Darst whose fortunes seemed to have held during the last decade chronicled by Mary Anne’s letters. The same is true of Alice and Pat Cain. As for the others, most suffered reverses of fortune just like Mary Anne herself.

The Guignons are also the subject of a series of letters dating from as early as 1879 through 1912, so we have a fair read on their ups and downs. After the disaster of 1893, they linger in St. Louis for the next five years before pulling out for the fringe of culture in Kansas City, Missouri. Emile Guignon’s relation with Johnnie stem from a partnership in 1888 and then employment in the Guignon firm into the 1890s. Johnnie’s financial profligacy is never mentioned by Emile save on one occasion, and then only obliquely. But clearly Johnnie had nothing to do with Guignon’s losses. Emile always promised himself—and his wife—that he would make it back to the “top.” While he never did, his real estate business in Kansas City was developed by his son, Barat, to an equivalent level of success in the 1930-60s.

The younger Miltenberger boys led more disastrous lives, both matrimonially and economically. Johnnie, as mentioned, married twice; first to the daughter (Grace) of an old line St. Louis family, the Papins; and later to a divorcee, about the time of the bankruptcy. Willie did better on the commercial side—save for his poor judgment in lending money to his brother. But his first marriage to a socialite from Chicago ended in abandonment (by her); his second ended in a sudden death; his third try was the worst of all when he “eloped” with a sixteen year old who later divorced him in a much publicized affair. This last venture pushed him over a brink that had perhaps lurked in a compulsive nature. He entered a mental institution for several years after his public fight with his wife over the children and alimony. Despite these dark episodes, Mary Anne stuck by her sons.

The sheen of success which Eugene Miltenberger created in his own career, the rest of his immediate family suffered eclipse not dissimilar to the city that fostered him. St. Louis was at one point the fourth largest city in the United States and prosperous with its size. But hesitation, competition, and the expansion of the west drew it down. An ironic family bookmark was placed in the history of the city when Joseph Darst, Jr. became mayor of St. Louis in 1948 and instigated the building of the emblem of St. Louis’ rebirth, the Eero Saarinen Gateway Arch.

End Notes

Most of my documentation for this article is found in any earlier version entitled “Eugene and Mary Anne Miltenberger: St. Louis Lives, 1842-1908” (2009) 23 pp.

This is archived along with the letters referenced above in the Miltenberger-Guignon file at the Missouri Historical Society.

Erstein is located sixteen miles south of Strasbourg on the Ill River. I visited in 2010 and met the last cousin bearing the Miltenberger name, Margurite. She is a local historian and provided me with an extensive family genealogy detailing the Miltenbergers back to about 1600 in Alsace, now part of the MHS archive. For a recent history, see Armand Graff, ed. Erstein: regard sur le passé. Associaition Culture et Loisirs, 2000.

Miltenberger-Karst relationships. There were several marriages in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries between these families, see Miltenberger genealogies cited above. The four interfamilial marriages took place in Erstein as follows: Jean Pierre Miltenberger (1787-1843) m. Therese (Barb) Karst (1792-1877); Francois Joseph Miltenberger (1798-1879) m. Marguerite Genevieve Karst (?-1849); Catherine Elizabeth Miltenberger (1800-1893) m. Aloys Karst (1793-1865); Marie Louise Miltenberger (1805-1851) m. Michel Karst (1789-1859). See Val E. Miltenberger, “The Miltenberger Family of Alsace,” Kirksville, MO, 1954. MHS Archive. All of these families emigrated in the U.S.

The family of Jean Pierre and Therese Karst: Eugene (1819-1879); Pauline (1822-1891); Charles (1824-1889); Camille (1825-1867); Clemence (1826-1901) m. William Robyn in 1852; Elise (1836-1897). All were born in Erstein and died in St. Louis.

The date and place of arrival in New York is given by Bill Cross, “Joseph and Josephine Schmitt, Alsatian Immigrants to the United States,” as well as the information that Jean Pierre was appointed French vice counsel. Josephine Schmitt was a sister to Jean Pierre.

The record of emigration. Both Eugene and his father, Jean Pierre’s records are in St. Louis Genealogical Society, vol. 4, pp.44 and 55. The Miltenberger family emigrated in 1850 through New York. My sources are Julie Sekellardiadis, a Miltenberger cousin. Testimony of Eugene in a deposition contained in the estate papers of Therese Miltenberger, Probate Court of St. Louis, 1877 No. 12694 confirms the year and gives the date as October, but not the port of entry . Charles’ immigration was through New Orleans in 1852 (Skellardiadis). The other Miltenberger-Karst families are found in St. Louis records; the earliest date of 1838 is given for Catherine and Aloys Karst in an obituary for Catherine in 1893.

Cretien Miltenberger (1765-1829) was Eugene’s great uncle and a medical doctor in St. Domingue during the Revolution. Val Miltenberger gives an extensive genealogy on this family. Another record is contained in “The Christian Miltenberger Papers 1739-1841” in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C.

The St. Louis German community. James Neal Primm, Lion of the Valley 1764-1980. St. Louis, Missouri Historical Society Press, 3^rd ed. 1998. This is a basic resource for all my historical assessment of St. Louis, as well as its German community. The city grew from a few scattered Germans in 1835 to over half the population by 1858. It was the strong sentiment among the Germans against slavery that supported resistance to a pro-Confederate takeover of the federal arsenal. See also Steve Rowan, ed. Germans for a Free Missouri: Translations from the St. Louis Radical Press. Columbia, MO, University of Missouri Press, 1983.

Lewis Vital Bogy (1813-1877) had a distinguished career in business, politics and public service, serving as U.S. Senator from 1872-77. See Dictionary of American Biography, Scribner’s 1927. He was a descendant of a French Canadian family whose grandfather immigrated to Kaskaskia, Illinois about 1770 but raised his family at the Arkansas Post, near today’s Pine Bluff. His son, Joseph, married a Ste. Genevieve woman in 1805 and moved there where he raised his family, including both Lewis and his older brother, Joseph, who was Mary Anne’s father. For more on the Bogy family, see a future posting on my web site: w.w.w.mcananyfamily.net.

Eugene and Mary Anne Miltenberger Family.

Elisa Eleanor (8.9.48-3.9.29); entered Sacred Heart Order 1875.

Marie Therese (9.8.49-11.30.39) m. 2.22.76 Joseph Cain (6.2.35-3.31.90).

Charles Louis (4.16.51-3.14.62)

Emma Louise (8.10.53-_.6.31) m. 2.12.78 T. Carroll Taylor ( .50-2.22.28).

Eugene Bogy (12.22.54-7.5.87). m. 10.22.79 Louise Franciscus (6.22.57-1944).

Rita Emilie (10.31.56-2.26.27) m.6.7.82 John J. Mauntel ( 1842-1.10.11).

Harriet Emma (8.22.58-11.24.60).

Alice Josephine (11.16.60-7.31.64) m.9.13.83 Patrick Richard Cain (3.1.42-9.10.28).

Anna Agnes (10.30.62-3.8.54) m.10.13.86 Joseph Charles Darst (5.24.58-1.10.30).

Julia Rose (3.2.64-1.15.49) m. 9.24.84 Emile S. Guignon (4.16.56-2.25.41).

John Joseph (7.28.68-7.4.48) m.4.30.94 Grace Papin (5.9.74-5.4.57); m. 1907 Octavia Primm Dancy ( -1951).

Albert Frank (4.8.69-8.30.69).

William Henry (9.2.70-3.22.38) m.2.10.94 Lillian G. Clarke ( ); m. Adelaide E.M. Green ( -4.30.04); m. 1905 Jeanette O'Brien (1889- ).

The commercial relationship between Miltenberger and Bogy begins with law practice in the 1840s, a banking partnership in the State National Bank of St. Louis in 1855, the E. Miltenberger Bank in 1860. The Iron Mt. and St. Louis Railroad was a function of Ste. Genevieve interests, although Miltenberger shared in some of the finance. See Ziegler-Guignon papers, MHS and Sylvester Waterhouse, The Resources of Missouri, St. Louis 1867. Bogy also served as president of the Wiggins Ferry company in the 1860s, see Primm, cited above. William Richard Cutter, ed. American Biography: a new encyclopedia, New York: American Historical Co., 1922, p 233; and in National Registry of Historic Places: "3218 Osceola House" by Karen Bode Baxter, March 20, 2002. www.dnr.mo.gov/shp/nps-nr/2000471.pdf.

William and Clemence Robyn Family. There is a family website which contains biographical information about both William and Clemence Robyn. William Robyn was a prominent musician in St. Louis and founder of the music department at St. Louis University, as well as several symphony orchestras. Eugene Miltenberger shows up in his first orchestral venture in the 1840s as a violinist See, Paulouiserobyn.com. The children are as follows: Paul (1853-1953); Louise (1855-1897); Alfred (1857-1935); Noel (1858-1916); Camille (1860-1864); Clemence (1863-1949); Clara (1866-1915); and Marie Therese (1868-1943). The oldest four married; the others did not. Val Miltenberger p. 9 et seq.

The Osceola house is described in detail in the Karen Baxter submission, above. It also contains a great deal about the Carondelet area. Miltenberger began developing real estate in the area as early as 1845. See Miltenberger file in MHS. He also purchased the Chatillion House with Dr. DeMenil in 1855 but eventually sold his interest to DeMenil in 1860.

The slavery debate in the 1850s, as well as the onset of the Civil War in the 1860s caused Democrats sympathetic with the South to take different paths. Senator Thomas Hart Benton moved to the Union side after 1850, while L.V. Bogy remained on the Southern side, though he supported the Union without abolition of slavery after 1861. An issue unexplored at this point is whether Bogy lost any property under the “Southern Sympathizer” confiscations during the war. See, Primm, above.

Bogy was restored to power after the conservative Democrats won back the state legislature in 1871, at which point he was elected to the U.S. senate.

Cutter indicates that Miltenberger retired in 1867. See Cutter, above. Several of the civic efforts are detailed in Baxter, above. His serving as a founder the Catholic parish of St. Anthony of Padua is contained the Centenary booklet, published in 1963 which features a picture and names of the founders.

The Stringtown Road house of the Miltenbergers is described and its history detailed in Baxter above. It was torn down to make room for Cleveland High School which stands on its site.

Miltenberger Gravesites. Apparently sometime before 1877, Eugene Miltenberger bought a large section of gravesites in Calvary Cemetery in northern part of St. Louis. These gravesites lie at the northern end of the teardrop shaped Section 13, with the southern end occupied prominently by the Lucas family circle, backed by a smaller but still significant Choteau circle. The Miltenberger plot is occupied by the following graves in sequence from 1877 through 1975: Theresa Miltenberger 1.24.77; unidentified child; Eugene Miltenberger 4.3.79; Lisa Cain 12.10.83; child Guignon 11.5.85; Joseph Mauntel 3.20.86; Eugene B. Miltenberger 7.8.87; Alice M. Cain 8.31.88; Marie Cain 9.19.88; Kittie Cain 9.22.88; Pierre J. Mauntel 3.5.89; Joseph Cain 4.2.90; Richard P. Cain 4.19.02; Adelaide E.M. Miltenberger 5.2.04; Mary A. Miltenberger 7.30.08; Patrick R. Cain 9.12.28; William H. Miltenberger 3.24.38; Mary T. Cain 12.2.39; John J. Miltenberger 7.6.48; Dr. Phelps Hurford 12.14.53; Alice J. Cain 8.1.64; Edward J. Cain 12.18.71; Francis X. Cain 2.14.75. Camille's grave is marked by a stone, but not listed among those of Eugene and family

Broken down by generations:

Mother Theresa Miltenberger

Eugene and Mary Anne Miltenberger

Children: Eugene B. Miltenberger

Mary and Joseph Cain

Alice and Patrick Cain

John J. Miltenberger

William and Adelaide Miltenberger

Grandchildren: Lisa, Kittie and Marie Cain (Mary and Joseph Cain); Joseph and Pierre J. Mauntel (Rita and John Mauntel); Richard, Edward and Francis Cain and Phelps Hurford (Alice and Patrick Cain); Child Guignon (Julia and Emile Guignon).

And unidentified child was buried between 1877 and 1879.

Just yards south are the Robyn-Kilgen graves. Among them are the remaining graves of Eugene's sometime estranged family: Pauline, Charles, Clemence (and husband William Robyn), and Elise. There is even a stone for Camille, though she has her own next door, as it were, in Eugene's plot.

Death and Estate of Eugene Miltenberger. A letter from Joseph Guignon date April 3, 1879 to his Father and Mother describes the death in some detail. See Letters above. Miltenberger had a will in which he made his wife, Mary Anne, his sole devisee, with legacies to his living children of $100 apiece. A newspaper account of the estate evaluated it at $125,000. In the end, Mary Anne netted $23,768 cash after retiring considerable amount of debt, plus real estate and stock. It is unclear from the documents what value the real property had at the time. The $5,000 note given to his mother was finally settled, but it's unclear whether the $3,500 settlement with Pauline and Elise Miltenberger covered any remaining debt.

Estate of Therese Karst Miltenberger. The estate was administered by Eugene until his death in 1879 with remittances to Pauline and Elise over the years in amounts of $25. The relationships would have been frosty. Pauline refused to accept defeat after the Missouri Supreme Court ruled against her version of the will, and was then going to contest the 1871 will. It was only the new administrator, I suspect, who pointed out the futility—and cost—of such further action. One learns from the documents that Paul Robyn had an insurance company which paid into the estate and that Clemence Robyn appeared to take rather less from the estate than her sisters. The fact that Eugene had put up as collateral on his note Spanish Railroad bonds suggests the broad ranging finances he indulged in at the time.

Both of these estates are found at:

Probate Estate Papers www.sos.mo.gov/archives/stlprobate

Estate of Therese Miltenberger 1877. No.12694 Probate Court of St. Louis.

Estate of Eugene Miltenberger 1879 No. 13328 Probate Court of St. Louis

Archive of letters and documents in Missouri Historical Society

141 from Mary Anne Miltenberger to her daughter Julia Guignon 1897-1908

69 from Emile S. Guignon to his wife, Julia Guignon 1895-1912

8 from Sisters of the Sacred Heart to Julia and Emile Guignon 1886-1904

32 letters to and from Simon and Carmelite Guignon and sons Emile Guignon and Joseph Guignon 1879-1890.

Much of the detail on the lives of Willie and Johnnie are contained in a research paper of Patricia Walls Stamm of St. Louis. The bankruptcy of Johnnie is found in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 26, 1906, p. 9. It states that John Miltenberger owed $111,796 of which he owed his mother and brother, Willie, $88,000.

The story of the Guignons is on my website: w.w.w.mcananyfamily.net.