Selma Alwine Weidner Proske, 1865–1954

Selma Weidner was born on 19 March 1865, in Dresden, Saxony. She was the oldest child of Friedrich Ernst Weidner and Alwine Auguste Gäbler. Her brother Paul was born in 1867 but died of diphtheria at age five. Her sister Clara was born on 7 August 1869 in Dresden. Selma graduated from the equivalent of high school, having studied to become a milliner. In a few family photos, Selma is wearing a hat.

At age seventeen, Selma, her sister, and their mother boarded the ship Westphalia sailing from Hamburg to New York City, arriving on 24 October 1882. They were robbed on board ship, thus Selma never wanted to talk about the journey. Her father had already arrived in Moberly, Missouri. Her maternal grandmother, Louisa von Genthe Wagomann, also travelled to the U.S. The family home in Moberly was at 1031 W. Burkhardt. Selma’s father, a stonemason, laid the first stone foundations in town.

Selma was working in a bakery when Louis Herman Proske came in. They were married in the Weidner home on 18 November 1890. (For an extended biography of L. H. Proske, see Getting Ahead, Getting Along, Getting By, by Jana Proske.) The couple’s first two children were born in Moberly: Louis Ernst, on 21 September 1891, and Alma Selma, on 18 August 1893.

In the fall of 1894, the family moved to St. Louis, where Louis worked as a motorman on a streetcar line. The family moved from one rental to another along Manchester Road, Compton Avenue, St. Vincent Avenue, and Rutger Street. Selma became a member of a ladies group called the Helping Hand Club. Soon, two more children were born: Harold Valentine on 14 February 1896 and Clarence Walter, on 8 February 1900. About 1901, Louis became a carpenter. In 1902, three of Selma’s children were baptized at Christ Lutheran Church at 3504 Caroline Street. The oldest child was baptized in Moberly. Selma’s sister, Clara Rupp, died on 13 January 1909. In 1911, the family acquired their own home at 4177 Burgen Avenue, and Selma’s parents moved from Moberly to live in Selma’s home.

The first of Selma’s ten grandchildren was born in 1915. About 1924, the couple downsized and moved next door to 4175 Burgen Avenue. Selma’s father died on 6 May 1917. Her mother fell and broke a hip, then died on 20 December 1927.

Louis and Selma celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary on 18 November 1940. She became a widow on 22 March 1943. In 1944, she downsized and moved in with her daughter in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. In 1953, she lost a son, Louis E., apparently to suicide. In 1954, Selma fell and broke a hip thus causing her death at age eighty-nine, on 12 June 1954, in Oshkosh. She was a lifelong Lutheran affiliated with St. John’s Lutheran church on Morganford in St. Louis. The church death records include Selma’s name. Burial occurred next to her husband in Lakewood Park Cemetery in Affton, a suburb of St. Louis.

Jana Proske Brazeal
May 2024

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