21 March 2015

Dr. Charles Augustus Hillweg

1865 — 1913

Obituaries

DIED

Dr. Charles A. Hillweg 1  died at his residence in west Corning Sunday morning, January 26, 1913, at about 12:40 o'clock, after an illness of perhaps a year, the result of spinal trouble caused by a fall near the Bacon hotel.  A short funeral service was held at the home Tuesday evening at 8 o'clock under the auspices of Olive Camp M. W. A., of Corning, of which Mr. Hillweg was a charter member.  B. J. Gibson gave the ritualistic work of the order.  The body was taken to Chicago on train No. 12 Tuesday for interment accompanied by relatives of the deceased.  Dr. Hillweg, son of Rev. and Mrs. Peter Hillweg, was born in Muscatine 56 years ago last June. 2   He spent some time in Chicago where he graduated from the Hannaman [sic] Medical school. 3   In Chicago he was married about 32 years ago to Miss Ella Hastings. 4    He and his wife spent a few years in Milwaukee, Wis., then came to Corning some 25 years ago. 5   Dr. Hillweg was a homeopathic physician and had a large practice in this locality.  He was a good doctor and will be missed by many, in fact Dr. Hillweg was the only physician of the homeopathic school in Corning.  To Mr. and Mrs. Hillweg three children were born.  Irene, who died in Chicago 24 years ago the 19th of the present month; 6  Charles, who is a dentist located in Chicago, and Miss Aileen, who resided at home with her parents.  Besides his wife and children deceased leaves three sister [sic], Mrs. Etta Snyder, residing at Garner, Iowa; Mrs. Dr. Snyder and Mrs. Feigenbaum [sic]; 7  also two brothers, Ed Hillweg, of Minneapolis, who visited here the latter part of last week, en route to western points, and John H. Hillweg, of Wisconsin.  Mr. Hillweg was a member of the Court of Honor lodge as well as a charter member of the Modern Woodmen.  The son Charles Hillweg, of Chicago, also Mrs. Hillweg's sisters, Miss Elizabeth Hastings and Mrs. John Herron, of Chicago, came to attend the services here and to accompany the relatives to Chicago, where the remains will be laid to rest beside the daughter who had preceded in death.  Deepest sympathy is extended to the bereaved ones in their sorrow.

Source: Adams County Union-Republican (Corning, Iowa); Wednesday, 29 January 1913; page 1, columns 7-8.

Notes

  1. In documents related to the Hellweg family, researchers will encounter a wide variety of spellings of the family name, above and beyond the errors commonly created by town clerks, census enumerators and other creators of "official paper work." Newspaper editors, biographers and church officials also seem to have suffered confusion, occasionally employing more than one variant of the surname in the same document. I believe Rev. Peter Hellweg, "patriarch" of the family branch I am documenting on this web site, spelled his surname Hellweg and this is the form of the name I use by default.

    Charles Augustus or August Hillweg was the eighth of nine children known to have been born to Peter and Martha (Danker) Hellweg. Throughout his adult life he made a conscious decision to spell his surname Hillweg. According to John H. Hellweg, a descendant of Peter and Martha Hellweg, there was a feeling among some in the family, especially as they became more distant from their German language roots, that spelling the family name Hell... might give offence in some circles.

    Selected pages from the Hellweg-Danker family bible on this web site contain records of marriages, births and deaths.

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  2. Charles A Hillweg was born on 26 June 1856, the eighth child of Rev. Peter and Martha Hellweg. According to the published register of the German Methodist Episcopal Church at Muscatine, Iowa, Charles was baptized on 20 July 1856 by H. Fiegenbaum. This is almost certainly a reference to Rev. Heinrich Hermann Fiegenbaum. At the time he was a Presiding Elder in the German Methodist Episcopal Church, serving an area that stretched from Galena, Illinois, where he was probably residing, to St. Paul, Minnesota.

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  3. Charles graduated in 1878 from the Hahnemann Medical College, at Chicago, Illinois, after completing a course of study in homeopathic medicine.

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  4. Charles A. Hillweg and Anna Ella Hastings were married on 1 January 1878 at Chicago, Illinois. Miss Hastings was born at the village of Thorold, Ontario, Canada, located on the edge of the Niagara Escarpment at the western end of Lake Ontario.

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  5. Charles and Ella's first two children, Irene and Charles U., were both born at West Bend, Washington County, Wisconsin.

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  6. Irene Hillweg died at Chicago on 19 January 1889 of malignant diptheria.

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  7. The two instances of the family name Snyder in this passage are an Americanization of a family name of German origin. One of Charles' sisters, Henrietta, married Adam Schneider in 1889. Obituaries for both Adam and Henrietta (Hellweg) Schneider may be found elsewhere in the Documents section of this web site.

    Another sister, Louisa, married Herman Theodore Schneider, one of Adam Schneider's brothers. Herman was a doctor of homepathic medicine having studied on different occasions at Hahnemann Medical College, at Chicago, Illinois, which Charles also attended. According to Adam's obituary, Herman also joined Adam at Garner, Iowa in a general merchandise business which expanded to include hardware and grociers. By the time of Charles' death in 1913, Dr. Herman T. and Louisa Schneider had moved on to Missouri.

    Feigenbaum is not the incorrect spelling. Mrs. Fiegenbaum was Charles' elder sister, Maria Elisabeth. On 27 January 1878, she became the second wife of Rev. Heinrich Rudolph Fiegenbaum, a younger brother of the Rev. Heinrich Hermann Fiegenbaum who had baptized Charles.

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Friends in this city were saddened on Sunday morning when the words flashed through town that Dr. C. A. Hillweg had passed away the previous night at 12:40 at the family residence.  The funeral services were held at the home Tuesday evening at 8 o'clock under the auspices of the Order of Modern Woodmen of America, and the body taken to Chicago on No. 12, where it was placed in a vault.  The funeral will be held later and interment will take place at Calvary cemetery beside his little daughter, Irene who died in Chicago in 1889.  The body was accompanied by his son Charles Hillweg and two sisters-in-law, Mrs. Kittie Heron and Miss Elizabeth Hastings all of Chicago.  Mrs. Hillweg and Miss Aileen will remain here until the funeral is arranged for when they will join the relatives at Chicago.  Charles A. Hillweg was born June 20, 1857, at Muscatine, Iowa, and was next to the youngest child of Rev. and Mrs. Peter Hillweg.  He entered the Hannaman [sic] Medical college at Chicago where he graduated in 1878 at the age of 21 years.  He was married to Miss Anna E. Hastings of Chicago January 1, 1878.  They immediately went to West Bend, Wis., where the doctor practiced his profession of homeopathy.  In 1887 the family removed to Corning where he enjoyed a fine practice for many years.  Three children were born to Dr. and Mrs. Hillweg.  Irene, who died in 1889; Chas. of Chicago and Miss Aileen, who resides at home and is engaged in teaching.  Besides his wife and two children the [word is missing] leaves two brothers, John Hillweg of Hayward, Wis., and Ed of Minneapolis.  The latter was here Friday to see his brother.  He also leaves three sisters, Mrs. Etta Snyder, Mrs. Dr. Louise Snyder and Mrs. Lizzie Fiegenbaum of Garner, Iowa.  His fatal illness was caused by a severe fall 3 years ago which gradually developed into locomotor ataxia.  None knew better than he that his days were numbered, and when he was taken to Chicago a few weeks ago to a noted specialist he diagnosed his case in every detail to the noted doctor, and told him that his race was run.  Dr. Hillweg was a member of the Court of Honor and the M. W. A. and held life insurance to the total of $5,000, leaving his family well provided for.  He was a very genial gentleman and very much enjoyed a friendly visit and had a wonderful memory for names, dates and faces, places and events and often regaled his friends with stories for which he was especially entertaining.  Dr. Hillweg leaves many friends in Corning who will long remember him with [pleasure?].

Source: Adams County Free Press (Corning, Iowa); Saturday, 1 February 1913; page 7, column 3.

There were at least two instances in the latter half of this document where the clarity of the digital copy of this obituary prevented me from making a confident transcription. I have indicated these problems with the use of square brackets [ ].

The two obituaries on this page should be read in comparison. Also, the footnotes I have provided for the first obituary will often provide the same clarifcation and correction for the second.


Deaths

Charles A. Hillweg, M.D. Hahnemann Medical College, Chicago, 1878; died at his home in Corning, Ia., about January 26, aged 56.

Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 60, number 7 (February 15, 1913), pages 535-536.


Report of the Necrologist

(Hahnemann Medical Alumni Association, including also Alumni of the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College and the Southwestern Homeopathic Medical College.)

The deaths since the last report in 1912 are as follows: ....

Class of 1878 - Thomas Anderson, C. H. M. C., Watertown Mass., Sept. 18, 1912, aged 75; Charles A. Hillweg, H. M. C., Corning, Iowa, January, 1913, aged 56.

Source: The Clinique: The Official Organ of the Illinois Homeopathic Medical Association, Homeopathic State Medical Society of Wisconsin, and Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago, Volume 34, number 6 (June 1913), pages 340-341.

Brief Genealogy

Charles A. Hillweg's family

Anna Ella Hastings' family

I currently have no information about Anna Ella Hastings' birth family beyond what is available in these obituaries and in the pages from the Hellweg-Danker family bible.

Hillweg - Hastings family

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