Georgia Lydia Rupprecht, c. 1861–1940

Georgia Lydia Rupprecht was the last of eighteen children fathered by Rev. Dr. Georg Moritz Gotsch. Her mother was Emilia Josephine Friederika Strobel. Lydia was born during the Civil War in Memphis, Tennessee, during her father’s pastorate at Trinity Lutheran Church. Only two months after her birth, an older brother died in the war.

Georgia Lydia was named for her father and endured the teasing of boys who called her George. One day she went home from school for lunch, crying at the boys’ relentless taunts. Her father told her she could be called Lydia instead. After lunch, she ran back to school and wrote on the chalkboard, “My name is Lydia” and, from then on, she was called by that name.

As an eight-year-old girl in Memphis, Lydia was in the city schools’ May Day parade. As the smallest, she was placed on the first float. President Andrew Johnson attended the parade, saw Lydia, and was taken by how cute she was with her curly blonde hair topped with a wreath of flowers. He later sent her a book called True Stories for Little People.

When her father retired from the ministry in 1875, he took his family aboard the steamship Grand Tower and traveled up the Mississippi River to St. Louis to live. Lydia completed her education at Lyon School, which is now part of the Anheuser Busch complex.

On the day she was confirmed, it was snowing very hard in St. Louis. Always tiny in stature, when she entered the room where her class had gathered, the boys teased her that they considered going to her home to carry her back to the school in a wash basket.

Lydia moved to Springfield, Illinois, with her mother and two sisters after her father’s 1878 death. The family lived with an older brother. Springfield was the location of one of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod’s seminaries. Lydia met a student at the seminary named Philip Martin Ferdinand Rupprecht and married there on 29 September 1885. Eventually they became the parents of eleven children.

Ferdinand, who was born on 10 November 1861, in what is now called Bay Village, Ohio, graduated from the seminary as a pastor and pastored congregations in Missouri and Michigan before being employed with Lange Publishing in St. Louis until 1900. He then took a position at Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis where he was the senior editor for forty-one years. He had “competent knowledge” of English, German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Norwegian.

One son of Lydia and Ferdinand entered the ministry, and one daughter married a Lutheran minister. Another son, Larry, was co-owner of Beiderwieden Funeral Home, now called Hoffmeister. A grandson, Sonny, owned Bicycles of Kirkwood. He represented the U.S.A. in the 1948 Winter Olympics, racing in the 10,000 and 5,000-meter speed skating events. Lydia died in St. Louis on 12 April 1940; and Ferdinand died on 5 July 1942, also in St. Louis. Three sons preceded them in death. Burial for Lydia and Ferdinand occurred at Concordia Cemetery in St. Louis.

Written by Cheryl Gross
May 2018

© 2018 St. Louis Genealogical Society