To be published in Heritage 2024, Perry County (Missouri) Historical Society
An unexpected email I received from a Perry County, Missouri, cousin in Spring 2024 led to my solving a decades-old family mystery.
In 1987, I had come across a 1941 photo of a Kenner family reunion held in Murphysboro, Illinois. I recognized only my grandparents George F. Kenner Sr. and his wife Laura and my great-grandfather George A. Kenner and wife Ida, all of whom had passed away by then. Over the years, distant Kenner cousins I found online helped me identify almost everyone else in the photo – except for two people, a woman and a man (above).
I have Kenner roots in nearby Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, from the early 1800s and in Southern Illinois beginning in the late 1800s. When I was younger, I was told about Kenner relatives, a sister and brother, who once lived on a large farm near Lithium, Missouri. Years later, I learned they were Helen Kenner (1897-1964) and Lorenz Kenner (1894-1973), children of Charles Kenner (1860-1943) and Louise Lorenz Kenner (1866-1950) of Lithium and my first cousins three times removed.
In Spring 2024, my cousin Barbara Boland Sparkman sent me an email. We hadn’t been in touch for more than 20 years, and she wanted to be sure she had responded to a letter I had sent her. I remember her well and assured her that she did. The conversations that followed inspired me to learn more about Helen and Lorenz Kenner.
I began gathering newspaper clippings, public records, and photographs of them and their family. As I looked at yearbook photos of Helen and Lorenz from Southeast Missouri State Teachers College (above and below), I remembered the 1941 Kenner reunion photo. I realized they were the two mystery people in it. Best of all, I learned from newspaper articles that Helen and Lorenz helped lead the effort to organize Kenner family reunions in Illinois and Missouri, from the 1920s to the 1940s. My great-grandfather George A. Kenner (1870-1967), their first cousin, helped them. (See 1936 article, below.)
At the time, my great-grandfather lived in Herrin, Illinois, where I was born. He had been born in Minnith, Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, the fourth generation of Kenners to live there since 1804. For many years, he gathered family records and stories and made sure they were passed down; now I am doing the same. I have two photographs of my great-grandfather, his uncle James Kenner (1840-1925) of Ava, Illinois, and their wives Ida and Belle visiting Lithium Springs and the original Kenner homestead in Minnith in 1920. Likely they visited other relatives along the way. My great-grandfather was known to stay in touch with even distant family members and relatives by marriage throughout Missouri, Illinois, and other states. (See George, James, Belle, and Ida, below.)
Helen Kenner (full name Marguarette Helen Gould Kenner) was born in Marshall, Missouri. She received a degree from Southeast Missouri State Teachers College in Cape Girardeau in 1947. Helen was a teacher in area schools for many years, including Morey, Cedar Fork, Brewer, Independence, and St. Marys, where she taught home economics in elementary and high school. She also served as principal of Lithium School. She was a leader of the 4-H Seekers of Health Club and coordinated many pie suppers to help raise funds for local schools. She also played the wedding march before at least one local marriage ceremony.
Lorenz was born in Newkirk, Oklahoma, where the family lived for a few years before moving back to Lithium. He graduated from Perryville High School in 1927 in the largest class to date—39 students—graduated from a Perryville school. He received a scholarship to Southeast Missouri State Teachers College, which he attended in 1928; it’s not known if he graduated. He played the cornet and mandolin in high school, was active in band and glee club in college, and played in the Perryville Municipal Band in the 1940s. Lorenz also managed the Kenner family farm and lived there with his sister after their parents passed away.
During his life, Helen and Lorenz’s father, Charles Kenner, sold carriages, cared for horses, and worked as a blacksmith, in addition to farming. He was a son of John Henry Kenner (1818-1885) and Matilda Brown Kenner (1821-1894) of Ste. Genevieve County and a brother of my second-great-grandfather Francis Kenner (1839-1920). In 1801, Charles’s and Francis’s grandfather Francis Kenner (1757-1830) moved to what later became Missouri. In 1803, he bought 640 acres on Cedar Fork of Saline Creek in Perry County. In 1804, he settled in Minnith in Ste. Genevieve County.
Helen and Lorenz’s mother, Louise Lorenz Kenner, was the daughter of John Lorenz (1830-1895), who emigrated from Germany, and Sophia Von Wedelstadt Voelker Lorenz (1836-1919). Sophie’s father, Ernst H. C. Voelker, was born in Germany, and her mother, Dorothea S. A. Voelker, in Poland. John and Sophie were married in 1853 in Perry County, Missouri. According to his 1895 will, John owned a great deal of property, to be divided among his heirs. His daughter Louise was to inherit more than 135 acres in Perry County and a brick house and several lots in Ste. Genevieve County.
Quite a few members of the Kenner and Lorenz families are buried in Cedar Fork Cemetery in Perry County, including Charles and Louise Lorenz Kenner; four of their children, Clell Clarence Kenner (1887-1958), Claude Charles Kenner (1890-1966), Lorenz Kenner, and Helen Kenner (Charles and Louise’s daughter Elsie Dora Kenner Smith died in St. Louis and was cremated there); John and Sophia Lorenz; and their three other children Henry A. C. Lorenz (1854-1936), John P. Lorenz (1872-1949), and Anna Margaret Lorenz Jones (1874-1960).
In Spring 2024, I discovered photographs of Kenner and Lorenz markers at Cedar Fork Cemetery, all with flowers. I thought they might have been placed by the cemetery for a holiday. I learned that family and friends put them there. I’m happy to know all these family members are remembered, and I’m grateful that Helen, Lorenz, my great-grandfather, and others helped organize so many Kenner reunions, keeping our family connected over the years.
Special thanks to Barbara Boland Sparkman for renewing my interest in learning more about Helen and Lorenz and the Kenner and Lorenz families of Perry County.