Friday, April 11, 2008

JOHN D. FECHT AND MARY EFFIE THOMAS FECHT

John David Fecht was the second child of Elizabeth (Walsh) (f-28) and William Charles Fecht (f-27). He was born on the 5th of August 1891 in Mexico, Audrain County, Missouri. He, like his brothers and sisters, attended Maple Grove School, a one room institution near his home outside of the town of Mexico. John, who was called “Jack” by family and friends, was baptized a Roman Catholic Christian and was Confirmed in the Catholic Church on the 7th of June, 1905. The presiding priest was the Most Rev. John J. Glennon, Archbishop of Saint Louis. (church records acquired for this history by Carl and Thomas Fetterhoff in 2002.)
He went to Montana, with his sister Anne, brother-in-law Harry Candy and brother William to establish a homestead as a young man. Jack may have lived near his maternal Aunt Hannah Walsh in Montana. The effort to homestead the prairie was a disaster, and the humiliation of failure loomed great in 1917.
Jack volunteered to serve his nation when World War One was declared in 1918. He was assigned as a military policeman in the military and was stationed in Florida. When he was discharged, Jack returned to his earlier life as a farmer in Missouri, an occupation he pursued without much success for the remainder of his life.
The first wife of Jack Fecht was Mary Effie Thomas, but nearly everyone called her Effie. She was a sister to Lena, who married Jack's younger brother Lawrence. Effie and Jack were married on the 14th of May 1924 at Saint Brendan's Roman Catholic Church in Mexico, Missouri.
Often in the evenings after preparing a huge Sunday dinner for visitors and family, Effie would set aside her vast apron and sit down to play. One of the favorite stories of her nieces and nephews was a time when they got her to sing over and over again a song she had been practicing for a women's choir, called the Jube Laute (“Let Us Rejoice.”)
Mildred Fecht nursed her sister-in-law Effie in the last days of her life. Effie is buried next to John David Fecht at St. Brendan's Cemetery in Mexico. After Effie died Jack Fecht married a widow by the name of Willa Barnes. The ceremony was held on 2 April 1956 at Saint Brendan's Church in Mexico.

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