We have a guest author for this post – Anna Kloppenberg Teply Mengers (1G).
This article is copied from “The Kloppenberg / Overwald Family History”, by Ed Kloppenberg.
The article was written in December 1992. I suspect it was really written by Alice Teply Karr, Anna’s daughter.
Anna Bernadette, second daughter of Ignatz and Anna Ross Kloppenberg was born May 2, 1900. She attended St. John’s Catholic School in Hanover, Kansas and graduated in 1915. After graduation she worked in the homes of various people in Hanover and Marysville. In 1919 she married Benjamin J. Teply at St. John’s Catholic Church in Hanover.
Front – Ben Teply and Anna Kloppenberg
Ben served in World War I and was wounded while in service, having been exposed to Mustard gas. This exposure left him with an enlarged heart and resulted in being confined to a hospital on several occasions. His final days were at the Veterans Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri.
After their marriage they lived with Ben’s parents and two brothers on a farm nine miles south of Hanover until they were able to locate a farm to rent. A daughter, Alice, was born to them the following year, weighing only three pounds at birth. It was only because of the expert care of Grandma Teply that she survived.
In 1921 Ben and Anna moved to the Anna Alexa farm and the following year a son, Donald Ross, was born.
Ben’s death in 1925 left Anna a widow with two children, ages 5 and 3, to raise by herself. She and the children moved into Hanover, across the street from Henry and Maggie Kloppenberg, in one of the rental homes of her father, Ignatz Kloppenberg. She and her children continued to live there until July 1941.
Anna was left to cope with many problems on her own – at age six Donald had a ruptured appendix and was in the Concordia hospital for seven weeks. She stayed with Don the length of his confinement and Alice was left in the care of Anna’s sister, Mary and Bill Mika.
For a short time in 1939 and 1940, she and Mary Mika owned and operated the “Maryanna Dress Shop.”
On July 10, 1941, Anna married Frank Mengers at St. Xavier’s parsonage in Junction City, Kansas. Frank was a rural mail carrier in Hanover. In 1945 he retired and they moved to Junction City, Kansas. A short time later Anna became employed at Coles Department Store, in charge of the millinery department. She retired from there in July 1964. Frank passed away in July 1951.
On June 1, 1988, she sold her home in Junction City and moved to the Ridgewood Retirement Center in Beaumont, Texas, and on October 1, 1992 she moved to her daughter’s home as she was no longer able to be alone.
In the year 1992 she had been confined to St. Elizabeth Hospital on five different occasions. The doctors and nurses would always ask her daughter Alice if she had given the correct age, since she was so much more alert than most people at the age of 92, as her face and skin were so free of wrinkles.
She and her sister Bertha, who has just reached the age of 90 are the last two of the family of 10 of Ignatz and Anna Kloppenberg. Bertha was 90 on December 26 and I will be 93 on my next birthday.
I remember my brothers getting married and leaving home — once Frank brought me a comb and brush set and I was elated. After Ben and I married and Ben was in the hospital in Concordia he took me there to see him. In later years after I was a widow on my own, Frank helped me in many ways. So often on a Sunday morning on his way home after Mass he would stop and visit.
Sources
- “The Kloppenberg / Overwald Family History”, by Ed Kloppenberg, 1995
- Photos – Teply family memorabilia
Family Nibbles 