Adelaide Kloepfer 1856 - 1948

The following references to Adelaide Kloepfer are from "Joys and Tears of Yesteryears" by Anna Luneman Baldwin ,1975:

We will learn much more about Frank (Lunemann) as this story unfolds. We will learn of his early life in Saint Louis and later on when he came to El Dorado County, and still later when he married his stepmother’s daughter. She was Adelaide Kloepfer, the first child born in El Dorado in the pioneer Kloepfer family of 1852. She was born in Pinchem-Tight on the northern edge of Jay Hawk, now Rescue. The exact location is now unknown, but we do know that it was on Pinchem-Tight Creek, near the old pioneer store of Conrad Etzel’s.

A Waterly Temptation

To continue on with those memorable days in Pinchem, Louis and Elizabeth’s second child was born November 20, 1856. They named her Adelaide after her grandmother who was Adelaide Leusbrock Lunemann in Saint Louis. When she grew up and married in 1879, she became the second Adelaide Luneman, having married her grandmother’s stepson. He was none other than Francis Xavier, the youngest in the family of three boys that we have already learned about.

When Adelaide was a toddler she was more than a handful to keep in tow. She was a healthy and active child. The water in Pinchem Creek which ran near their place was a continual source of temptation for her. She was constantly on the edge of it, if not wading in it . Her clothes were always wet and no amount of scolding had a lasting effect on her. After getting soaked she would play around the place cold and shivering until her clothes dried to avoid her mother and any possible scolding or punishment. Adelaide was apparently imitating her father and her uncles who often worked knee deep panning for gold. Her mother must have found it frustrating and very difficult to keep a complete surveillance on her and still carry on her many chores around the place. Fred, the next child, was born 13 months later. Watching Adelaide and caring for the two was quite a task, especially with her little girl’s affinity for the water.

This activity may have had an adverse effect on Adelaide’s health considering that for several years later when the family moved from Pinchem she was subject to continual sore throats accompanied by fevers. This continued intermittently for several years. Whether or not this affected her heart is questionable today, but Adelaide felt that it was, so talk around a possible heart problem was often brought up in later life. Thus, Adelaide always felt that she had a cardiac condition. When the folks moved to their new home she spent many months at a time in bed with aches and pains. Pains in children were considered growing pains, but these were recognized as something more serious. When Adelaide did get up she had a few hard falls, one in which it was thought that her hip bone was loosened from its socket. She suffered excruciating pain and someone went for consultation with a doctor -and the needed medication. The good man said that he would look in on her when he had occasion to be down that way.

Adelaide’s schooling was greatly curtailed. She attended when the weather was good, but the pain that she endured when walking up and down the steep hills on each side of Weber Creek only added to her problem. She never learned to write, even her own name (if she did she forgot how later). She did read a great deal, going over and over any paper that came to the house. Since education is gained by repetition one might say that she educated her memory and this stood her well since in her advanced years her recalls were exceptional.

Adelaide, the oldest daughter, married first, this being considered as it should be. The fact that she overcame her early affliction was almost a miracle. We have learned previously that she was confined to bed for long periods of time with rheumatic fever which affected her heart, and when she did get up she would lose her balance causing her to fall. She was unable to attend school for any length of time. In one of her early falls she dislocated her hip and this was her big problem in later life. When Adelaide was 16, a doctor in Placerville was consulted. On examination, it was found that her cardiac condition had completely cleared. Having lived with a heart problem for so long, she never became fully reconciled with that diagnosis. The doctor assured the family on that score, but for the rest of her life Adelaide constantly complained to her family of an impending heart failure. It apparently had become psychosomatic with her. However, when visiting friends she thoroughly enjoyed herself and never burdened others with her aches or pains or her unfounded fears. The sympathy she sought was from her own.

Adelaide walked with a limp and as she got older the pain and discomfort was more acute. The trip to Placerville was a long and tiresome ride in a buckboard over a rough and ruffed, and not to mention an extremely dusty road the entire length of I 1 miles. One can only imagine the disappointment that was felt by the family when the doctor explained that he could do nothing to help her, but recommended a bone specialist in that far away town of Oakland. A trip to that city was out of the question considering that the short trip to Placerville was pain inducing enough without traveling 160 miles (at that time) over equally rough roads and to a strange city where they had no friends. It would have amounted to a long day’s journey or perhaps two days so the trip was postponed indefinitely. Years later, when a bone specialist who was then located in Placerville, was consulted, he advised that it was then too late to correct the condition as the muscles covering the hip had atrophied to some extent and that it would continue to do so until the skin would cover the bone making walking extremely difficult and very painful.

Today, with all of our medical knowledge and know-how, we truly live in a beautiful time, not withstanding all its problems of pollution, litter, smog, traffic accidents and the myriad other problems that keep our doctors, nurses and hospitals busy. Imagine to what long distance one may travel today, sometimes halfway around the world for a particular cure.

Bell, Book and Candle

The beautiful early spring of 1878 came into life with God’s glorious array of wild flowers, flowers that the pioneers never laid eyes on in their country across the sea. Flowers that made one wonder where and how all that beauty started. Even the birds felt wonderfully alive and demonstrated it by flitting from tree to tree, chirping all the while-their mating call-and then tiny bits of dry stems and light feathers could be seen, held tight in their beaks indicating that the paramount thought in their minds was homemaking and the love that went with it. The summer came and then the fall. But it might as well be spring as we find Frank Luneman and Adelaide engaged to be wed as soon as Frank can finish a small house that he is building just over a knoll to the south.

Frank had ridden to Placerville where he had selected some lumber and returned with an engagement ring, a wide gold band designed with a hand clasp in relief on top. This ring served as the bride’s wedding ring later on. Adelaide also shopped for some white muslin, laces and other material for her wedding gown. Fancy work had a great appeal for young ladies in those days and so she could not resist the lure of a stitchery set she chanced to see in a dry goods store. It was a 9 by 21 inch piece of heavy lacquered paper with many tiny pinholes in it, through which colored worsted was sewn to make a pattern of clasped hands, below which was the motto, Forget Me Not in large letters. This is a cherished item in the family today.

Adelaide was 23 and another spring was in the offing when she and Frank were married in her parent’s home in Webber Creek February 23, 1879. Rev. Patrick O’Conner officiated. Her sister Mary and Mary’s beau, Fred Rahmer, were the sponsors. This was one of the highlights in the family and there were more to come. Adelaide, with the help of her sisters, made her wedding outfit of white muslin. It was floor length with pleats around the bottom and a shorter overskirt also had pleats. It was laced trimmed and the long sleeves had lace at the wrists. Adelaide’s long dark hair was draped in curls over one shoulder. Mary’s dress was somewhat the same but plainer. Their head coverings were flower tiaras. The couple made their home a short distance away on 160 acres that Frank was in the process of homesteading. It was located to the south and adjacent to Kloepfer’s ranch.

Frank’s carpentry skill came in handy when he built a four room house consisting of two rooms downstairs and two above. Two more rooms and a porch were added later. As was the custom of the time their parents and some close friends gave them some livestock to start their farming. No bridal showers and very little other gifts were given. The young brides of today might reflect on that. However, her mother made a very beautiful blue and white patch quilt which she presented to Adelaide.

Adelaide was very happy in her new home even though their earthly possessions were meager. She would often walk over the knoll that separated the two homes and help her mother with the chores since her father was now unable to do any work and Louisa and Mary were working away from home. It was soon spring and Elizabeth’s garden was her biggest concern. The older boys, Fred, Bernard and Louis would be working in the fields. There was ground clearing to be done, also plowing and then sowing of the ground with wheat and oats, building and repairing of sheds and barns and much other work to do. Much time was spent shoeing the horses and sharpening and repairing farm implements in the blacksmith shop that stood alongside of the stream of water up toward the garden. (In about 1908 Bruce McBeath, who was Mrs. Stronach’s (a neighbor) son, lived for a time in a cabin on the same spot.) Frank Kloepfer helped with the chores after school. George was only five and he needed watching, too. So there was a great deal to be done around the home and in the fields.

During the next winter months, a child was born to the Lunemans - a girl. Louis was extremely happy as she would take the place of the little girl that they had lost in 1872. Louis had suffered so long with the ever increasing pain in the gunshot wound that he realized that he would not be around when the child grew up. He often held her in his arms, a sort of baby-sitter, when he was confined to a chair and Adelaide was helping with the chores.

The baby named Adelaide was a few months old when Louis, suffering intensively, passed away. He was 53. He was the first one to be buried in the family plot in St. John’s Cemetery in Coloma. Louis was the first in the family for whom the tower bell on the church grounds tolled. It reverberated from Mt. Murphy across the river to awaken the friends and villagers in the little town of Coloma and apprise them of the passing of a pioneer. A pioneer who arrived there when the town was booming-at least booming to the extent that there was no room for him and his family in 1852; but that proved to be a blessing as it forced them to go on to Lotus where they met some old and dear friends who took the injured man and his ailing wife in under their protection and cared for them until they could join the rest of their party. Adam Lohry, the friend, also died in 1880.

In 1924, my sister, Mary, took mother down to the city as she was unable to stand for any length of time. Her hip and side caused her much pain. My husband, James B. Newman whom I had married in 1920, and I met them when the Southern Pacific pulled into the Oakland Mole. A redcap took mother the short distance from the train to the ferry that transported us to the Ferry Building in San Francisco. We then took her in our car to Mary’s. She lived with Mary for the next 24 years before she passed away April 22, 1948. She was 91 years and five months old at the time. Mother was buried at Coloma, El Dorado County.

Adelaide Kloepfer is buried St. Johns Catholic Cemetery - Coloma State Park. Per Francis Carpenter.

Obituary:

Luneman - In this city, May 22, 1948, Adelaide, beloved wife of the late Francis X. Luneman, loving mother of Arnold and Fred Luneman of El Dorado County, Mary O'Toole, Katherine Stone, Anna Newman, Margaret Carpenter, and Sister Mary Hermias of the Holy Name Order, loving sister of George Kloepfer, loving grandmother of 15 grandchildren and great grandmother of 12 great grandchildren: a native of El Dorado County, California, aged 91 years.

Friends may call at the Comisky-Roche Funeral Home, cor. 16th and Dolores Sts., until 2 p.m. Sunday May 23. Remains will then be forwarded to Placerville, El Dorado County, for funeral and interment. Recitation of the Rosary Sunday afternoon at 1:45 o'clock.

Children of Adelaide Kloepfer

1 Adelaide Kloepfer Born: November 20, 1856 in El Dorado County, California Died: April 22, 1948 in San Francisco, CA

+Francis (Frank) Xavier Luneman Born: March 22, 1844 in St. Louis, Missouri Married: February 23, 1879 in El Dorado County, California Died: January 20, 1932 in San Francisco, CA

2 Adelaide Frances Luneman Born: 1880 Died: 1881

2 Mary Agnes Luneman Born: January 05, 1882 Died: July 17, 1978 in San Francisco, CA

+William O'Toole Married: November 04, 1908 in Placerville, CA

2 Louise Josephine Luneman Born: February 23, 1883 Died: July 19, 1970 in Marylhurst, Oregon

2 Henry Luneman Born: October 09, 1884

2 Katherine Frances Luneman Born: March 15, 1886 Died: March 1980

+Joseph Nellis Married: November 06, 1913 in Tuolumne County, CA Died: 1917

*2nd Husband of Katherine Frances Luneman:

+George Stone Married: 1919

2 Frank Luneman, Jr. Born: 1887 Died: April 1911 in Placerville, CA

2 John B. Luneman Born: 1889 Died: July 29, 1903 in Placerville, CA

2 George Albert Luneman Born: January 20, 1891 in El Dorado County, California Died: June 12, 1943 in El Dorado County, California

2 Arnold Protus Luneman Born: September 11, 1892 Died: October 05, 1957 in Auburn, Placer County, CA

2 Frederick Chris Luneman Born: February 06, 1894 in El Dorado County, California Died: October 29, 1973 in El Dorado County, California

2 Elizabeth C. Luneman Born: August 24, 1896 Died: 1908

2 Louis Joseph Luneman Born: November 26, 1897 Died: December 26, 1926

2 Anna Adelaide Luneman Born: December 19, 1898 in El Dorado County, California Died: May 28, 1988

+James B. Newman Married: 1920

*2nd Husband of Anna Adelaide Luneman:

+Leon Byron Baldwin Born: January 06, 1895 Married: 1956 Died: February 1977

2 Clara Luneman Born: 1900 Died: 1905

2 Margaret Regina Luneman Born: February 02, 1902 in El Dorado County, California Died: August 26, 1980 in El Dorado County, California

+Merritt William Carpenter Born: July 12, 1886 in El Dorado County, California Married: September 02, 1928 in Placerville, CA Died: February 20, 1959 in El Dorado County, California

Return to Kleopfer Genealogy