Ebay can be a great place to purchase a variety of genealogical treasures. One simply has to keep track of what one has. This is one that I don’t think I already have.
I’ve seen a postcard similar to this one for the “Churches of Carthage, Ill.,” but I don’t remember them including a picture of the German Lutheran church. There’s a similar postcard with pictures of Carthage schools that I’ve seen as well and it could be that I am simply confusing the two items.
At any rate, I decided to purchase the postcard on Ebay. Part of the postcard is used to illustrate this post.
The German Lutheran Church was actually known as the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church. It disbanded during the World War I era and currently houses the Carthage VFW. Various members of my Habben and Fecht families who lived west of Carthage attended the church from the 1870s until the time it disbanded. The pastor of the Zion church married my great-great-grandparents in 1881 and my great-grandparents in 1907.
There’s a short lesson here on names as well. I could have searched Ebay til the end of time for “Zion Lutheran Church” and never located this item. For a variety of reasons some places, buildings, churches, etc. have more than one name. Always keep yourself open to the possibility that something could be pictured in a book or photograph with a name other than the one you think it is known by.
One never knows what will turn up on Ebay.
One response
I’ve started to figure that issue out recently.