The original portraits and documents, then the published stories of Joe and Ida’s first home, daughters and household.
Photographs and documents
Joseph and Wilhelmina Widmer Bange, identified by the handwritten caption on this mounted studio portrait. Photograph undated. The mount bears the studio imprint “Chas. A. Miller, Moberly, Mo.”
Source: Family photograph with handwritten identification on the mount. The mount bears the Chas. A. Miller, Moberly, Mo. studio imprint. Date unknown.
Joseph Bange and Wilhelmina Widmer Bange, identified on the reverse of this wedding portrait. The reverse gives 1893. A 1943 golden-wedding report gives April 11, 1893, at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Salisbury; this is a retrospective newspaper account, not the original marriage register.
Source: Family photograph with identification and the year 1893 written on the reverse. The owner confirmed the front and reverse are the same original; the wedding date remains unverified against an independent record.
A contemporary marriage-license notice
The Chariton Courier’s April 7, 1893 marriage-license column (page 1) lists Jos. Bange and Miss Wilhelmina Widmer together. This adds a contemporary record to the couple’s wedding portrait, whose reverse is dated 1893. The newspaper reports a license; it does not give the ceremony date or church, and April 7 must not be treated as their wedding date.
Joe and Ida’s marriage certificate
The family’s marriage certificate records Joseph H. Roling and Ida A. Bange’s marriage at St. Joseph’s Church on April 18, 1917. It gives the license date as April 10 and names Francis Bange and Agnes Roling as witnesses. The witness names do not independently identify the people in the separate wedding photograph.
Source: the framed marriage certificate preserved in the family collection, reproduced here in one full photographed view. This is the family’s certificate; a separate civil-register entry has not been added with it.
Joe and Ida’s plans for a first home
A newspaper notice adds a glimpse of the newlyweds’ plans. It reports Ida Bange’s wedding at St. Joseph’s Church on Wednesday morning at nine and says the couple intended to begin housekeeping in the Reppenhagen cottage on Le Fever Street. The Wednesday was April 18, 1917, matching the family certificate. Read the notice in the Chariton Courier, April 20, 1917, page 1.
The paper prints the groom’s name as “Joseph Rollins.” The bride, church and wedding date strongly match Joe and Ida’s certificate. The notice describes a plan; the cottage has not been identified with their later brick home.
A likely birth notice for Ida Mae
In March 1918, the Courier announced that a baby girl had arrived at Joe Roling and his wife’s home on February 21. The notice leaves the mother and baby unnamed. The family’s later record names Joe and Ida’s daughter Ida Mae and gives her birth as February 20, 1918, making her a strong match for this little girl while leaving a one-day difference unresolved. Read the birth notice, March 1, 1918, page 8.
A young family on Second Street
By January 1920, Joe and Ida were raising two little daughters, Ida May, as the census spells her name, and Mildred. The census places the family on Second Street in Salisbury and records their home as owned with a mortgage. Joe was working as a machinist in his own shop. See the original 1920 census, enumeration district 43, sheet 3A, lines 14–17.
The street is written “Second Street,” without a West prefix, and no house number is supplied. This record does not establish whether they had lived in the Reppenhagen cottage or identify the parcel of their 1920 home.
Mildred’s years at Jesse Hall
Mildred Frances Roling Brand, Joe and Ida’s daughter, spent 20 years working as an admissions clerk at Jesse Hall for the University of Missouri, retiring in 1986, according to her funeral-home obituary. It also remembers her as a member of St. Joseph High School’s Class of 1937 who enjoyed visiting relatives.
Source: Mildred Frances Brand’s obituary, published online by Summerville Funeral Home and Patton Funeral Home, recording her death on November 25, 2018. The funeral-home text was checked October 21, 2026. Her university connection here is employment; no college attendance or degree is established by this account.
People’s stories can be linked to photographs and documents, with names, dates when known, captions, and the source of each item. Uncertain identifications will be labeled clearly.