Gottfried and Johanna Mangold Ginther are the only members of my family buried here at Achenbach Cemetery. They are my great, great grand parents and the first in our family line to immigrate to America from Germany. Their descendants are listed on a family page and a link is provided in the navigation section. You are invited to check it out; You may find someone you know or someone to whom you are related. Most of my family is buried at Buckhart and my father is buried at Grove City.
I should mention that the photo in the header above has no connection to this cemetery, however, a photo of Achenbach Cemetery is used as the background for the site.
In June, 2001, during a visit to the Courthouse in Taylorville, IL, I was informed by a person in the County Clerk's office that this particular cemetery is also known as the Union Cemetery. However, it is known to most of the locals, as the Achenbach Cemetery. I personally have never lived in Christian County, but have spent quite a bit of time there, over the course of 60 years, visiting relatives who have lived there all of their lives. One item that has been of particular interest to me was the church that used to stand in the center of this property where now only the rows of tombstones remain. I'm told, by those many years my senior, that it was a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church and I would love to know its history and have a picture of it if one exists. The researching never ends.
One thing I noticed the very first time I visited Achenbach, was their practice of burying the adults and children on opposite sides of the churchhouse. The children are buried on the west side of the property and the adults on the east. While this has seemed strange to many to whom I've mentioned it, I think I may have an explanation. If this was in fact a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, they may have buried the baptized members on the west and the communicants on the east. I did notice one or two older children on the east side; Probably these were confirmed and had taken at least their first communion. Of course I don't know this to be fact, but I believe it to be probable, being Lutheran myself and understanding the ways of the older, country congregations.