Pastor and Frau Pastor

Spotted in a rural cemetery just south of Menomonie Wisconsin.  It is a "Tree Shaped Tombstone" in what I call the Rugged Cross style.  

These tend to be a bit more common in Catholic cemeteries, which this was certainly not, and among those of German (and Czech) descent.   Hoerig is a very German name.  

Let's take closer look....over next to Pastor Hoerig we find....Frau Pastor!

An interesting pairing, and I wondered if this meant a husband and wife team where both were pastors.  That's fairly common these days.  But no, the story is a bit more conventional.

Henry Hoerig  was born in Bavaria and after seminary actually served in a German congregation in Lyon France for a couple of years before coming to the US in 1877.  After long service in Watertown Iowa he came to Menomonie in 1900, serving a German congregation for the next 17 years.  Newspaper articles about him are numerous, generally the sort of thing you'd expect...weddings, funerals, baptisms.

But no mention at all of his wife, Maria, memorialized as "Frau Pastor".  Yes, she died soon after his arrival, but lesser events are described in such detail.  I'm assuming that she carried out the functions of "Pastor's Wife" as expected in that era.  Maybe directing the choir, or playing organ.  Certainly heading up a few women's groups and doing a bit of cooking at church suppers.   Although now uncommon this sort of role was still the norm when I was a young Lutheran lad.

He moved away in his last years, living with a daughter in Arcadia Wisconsin.  But upon his death he came home and was buried next to his wife.  As the inscription says - in rather colloquial German - they are now "At Home with the Lord".