Hecker, Josephine (Josefine)

Born: 1821-05-07 Germany

Died: 1916-07-04 Illinois

Flourished: St. Clair County, Illinois

Alternate name: Eisenhardt

The daughter of a prosperous Mannheim, Germany, merchant, Josephine Eisenhardt married Friedrich K. F. Hecker in October 1839. The couple had nine children, five of whom survived infancy. Josephine Hecker remained in Germany when Friedrich fled to the United States after the abortive German Revolution of 1848. Friedrich returned to Germany in 1849 upon news of a new revolt, but left again with Josephine and three small children, arriving in New York City in September 1849. Josephine Hecker lived in St. Clair County, Illinois through the 1850s and 1860s. She lived to be ninety-five years old, and at the time of her death was survived by her son Arthur, her daughter Malvina, fourteen grandchildren, and eighteen great-grandchildren.

U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), St. Clair County, IL, 281; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), St. Clair County, IL, 574; New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2010); St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO), 6 July 1916, 11:1-2; Sabine Freitag, Friedrich Hecker: Two Lives for Liberty, trans. by Steven Rowan (St. Louis: St. Louis Mercantile Library, University of Missouri–St. Louis, 2006), 50, 126; Steven Rowan, "Hecker, Friedrich Karl Franz," American National Biography , ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 10:486; Gravestone, Summerfield Cemetery, Summerfield, IL.