EIGHT LIVING CHILDREN OF WILHELM AND THERESIA WESTHUES IN 1932

When Father Joseph Westhues, founding pastor of St. Catharine of Alexandria Parish in Riverview Gardens, St. Louis, celebrated the Silver Jubilee of his ordination as a priest, all but two of his siblilings were able to attend and to pose for the photo below. Front row: Theodore (farmer in Glasgow, MO, 1880-1967), Joseph (Catholic priest, 1884-1938), Fritz (farmer in Glasgow, MO, 1901-1985). Middle row: John (farmer in Glasgow, MO, 1895-1970), Ben (farmer in Moberly, MO, 1890-1988), Anna Oidtman (grocer in Jefferson City, MO, 1898-1986), William G. (farmer in Glasgow, MO, 1881-1959). Back row: Henry (judge in Jefferson City, MO, 1888-1969). One of Wilhelm and Theresia's ten children had died by 1932: Theresia (1886-1917), a victim of tuberculosis. Illness likely explains the absence from the photo of Father Joe's one other sister, Mary Flaspohler (1893-1934), the seventh of the ten children, who would succumb to tuberculosis two years later.