Obituary — John Michael Wildermuth, The Marietta Times, 9 February 1903

Four sentences in a small-city newspaper, transcribed by Robert Earl Wildermuth off microfilm at the Marietta College Library — and they close a question he had been asking since 1978.

JOHN WILDERMUTH

Mr. John Wildermuth died at his home on Washington Street, Saturday afternoon. The causes were heart trouble and asthma. His end came very suddenly as he was not known to be in serious condition until a short time before he died.

Mr. Wildermuth was born in Germany on August 23rd, 1830. He had been a resident of Marietta for forty years. He was a shoemaker by trade and last worked at Rickert’s store.

His wife and several children survive him.

— The Marietta Times, Monday, 9 February 1903

The forty years

In January 1978 Robert Earl wrote to the Washington County Probate Court about the death certificate, which gave the dead man’s age as forty — impossible, since his son William was thirty-eight. He guessed at the cause of the error:

“Perhaps he was in this country only 40 years.”

The obituary shows the number he was reaching for. “He had been a resident of Marietta for forty years.” Forty is in the record, and it is a residence, not an age — near enough to his guess that he had effectively solved it before he found the proof.

(A second possibility stays on the table. On one of his own worksheets Robert Earl wondered whether the certificate belonged to his son instead: “John C. Wildermuth — born 1863. May have death certificate for this man who died in 1903 at the age of 40 years.” A man born in 1863 would indeed be forty in 1903. The archive has John Charles born September 1865, which does not quite fit, and there is no other sign he died that year.)

What else the four sentences carry

• He died at home on Washington Street — not at the shop, and not in hospital.
• Heart trouble and asthma, and it was sudden: “not known to be in serious condition until a short time before he died.”
• Born in Germany on August 23rd, 1830 — the Familienregister date, printed in an Ohio newspaper the week he died. Two records seventy-three years and four thousand miles apart, agreeing.
• He was still working. At seventy-two he “last worked at Rickert’s store” — a shoemaker at the end, though by then employed rather than running the shop at 134 Front Street he had kept for thirty years.
• “His wife and several children survive him.” Catharina would outlive him by thirty years.

And the house has a number. The Marietta city directories for 1899–1900 and 1902–03 both put him at 611 Washington Street — the house he moved to from Sixth Street in the late 1890s, and the one he died in.

He was buried two days later at Oak Grove Cemetery, Section 11, Lot 1 — with no stone on the lot.

“Heart trouble and asthma”

Both phrases sit on a list Robert Earl compiled at Oak Grove Cemetery on 29 June 1984 and filed under Background — “a list of causes of death used in the 1800’s … compiled from causes of death listed in cemetary records at the Oak Grove Cemetery.”

Apoplexy · Asthma · Blood Poisoning · Bright’s Disease · Cholera Infantum · Congestion of lungs · Consumption · Dropsy · Dysentery · FITS · Heart Disease · Heart Trouble · Hepatitis · LaGrippe · Myelitis · Pertussis · Paralysis · Pneumonia · Spinal Meningitis · Tuberculosis · Ulcer of the stomach · White swelling · Whooping cough · Brain Trouble · Bronchitis · Cancer of the bowels · Croup · Inflammation of the womb · LOCK JAW · Old Age

It is a vocabulary list for reading his own family’s records — Bright’s disease for kidney failure, consumption for tuberculosis, dropsy for the swelling of heart failure, cholera infantum for the summer diarrhoea that killed babies, and Old Age as an accepted diagnosis. “Heart trouble and asthma” was not a doctor’s precise finding; it was the register’s available language.

Source: The Marietta Times, 9 February 1903, transcribed by Robert Earl Wildermuth from the Microfilm Section (Newspapers), Marietta College Library; filed DOCUMENT #117 / WILD-8. Photographed 2026.