Josephine Andre Mueller (her remarried name) lived a life marked by many tragedies. She was the sister-in- law of Indianapolis business giants Herman and Peter Lieber, the latter the maternal great grandfather of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
She was widowed during the Civil War. Her husband Gustav, Peter’s brother-in-law and a fellow soldier with him from Minnesota in the Union Army, died of disease in Georgia near the end of the war.
In March of 1875, Josephine received the news every parent dreads. Her 17-year-old son Carl died suddenly, in a factory accident, and details ran in the Indianapolis Sentinel and Boonville, Indiana newspapers.
Josephine had left her boy in the care of Herman and Peter Lieber as she returned to her former home in New Ulm, Minnesota. Herman gave Carl work as an apprentice in his Indianapolis Picture Frame and Moulding Company. Peter involved him in the local Turnverein society.
Carl Andre was horribly mangled after the inexperienced apprentice caught his arm and clothing in leather stitching machinery at Herman Lieber’s factory basement. The machine lifted him and whirled him, while horrified workers raced to turn off the machinery. Workers transported him to a local surgical hospital, but he died at 4 p.m., the day of the accident.
On his deathbed, Hoosier newspapers reported, his last words were: “Go tell mother I want to kiss her before I die.”
Herman and Peter Lieber buried the boy in their family’s plot at Crown Hill Cemetery.