The General Store of Femme Osage

by Bob Brail

     Small businesses are commonly found in cities and towns all across America. In fact, it is probably safe to say that every reader of this article patronizes at least a few small businesses. For nearly the past ten years, more than 500,000 small businesses have opened their doors in the United States. Amazingly, during that time more than 600,000 have closed each year! In fact, only one-fourth of small businesses startups are still in operating fifteen years later.

     From 1845 until 1964, for nearly one hundred twenty years, one small business, a general store in the village of Femme Osage, served the residents of southern St. Charles County. This store opened during the early days of train travel and closed only a few years before America landed an astronaut on the moon! Even more remarkably, the store was owned by just two families, the Knippenbergs and the Pauls/Nienhusers, during its existence.

     In 1845 brothers Herman H. and Friedrich Knippenberg opened a general store in Femme Osage. H. H. Knippenberg, who was born in Germany in 1824, immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1834, coming to the Femme Osage area in 1837. In 1839, upon the death of his father, Knippenberg moved with his mother to St. Louis for six years, where he worked at several jobs, returning to Femme Osage in 1845 to build a house and general store. The same year he married Friedrika Bierbaum; eventually they would have five children, two of whom would die in early childhood. After Friedrika's death, Knippenberg married Catherine Oetting; that marriage produced eight children.

     In 1850 Friedrich Knippenberg died, and about one year later Herman took full control of store. On August 9^th of the same year, he was appointed postmaster of Femme Osage by President Millard Fillmore. He would continue as the Femme Osage postmaster for nearly fifty-five years, eventually becoming the oldest postmaster in the United States. During the Civil War Henry F. Knippenberg joined his uncle in the business, but he would leave only six years later. Herman H. Knippenberg died on January 3, 1905, and his youngest son Walter took over the store.

Two years later, on January 1, 1908, John Paul and Theodore Nienhauser bought the house and store from the Knippenberg estate for $10,000. The store became known as “Paul and Nienhauser.”

     The story of the partnership of Paul and Nienhuser is an unusual one. Both men got their start in the general store business by working for H. T. Gerdeman in the general store he operated at Cappeln. John, twenty-two years old when hired, clerked in the store, and Nienhuser, twenty, drove to area farms to gather produce. Both men lived with the Gerdeman family in their house that was next to the store as part of their pay. Soon Paul and Nienhuser took an interest in the Gerdemans' young daughters, Emma and Laura. Courting soon began, as Theodore and Laura took an interest in each other; John and Emma also courted. After a seven year courtship,on May 3, 1908, the couples were married in a single ceremony at the Gerdeman home in Cappeln, four months after Paul and Nienhuser purchased the store and house.

     The men had combined their savings to make the purchase as partners. Since there was no money for a second house, the Pauls and Nienhusers, two men who had lived and worked together for several years and two sisters who had lived together their whole lives, made an unusual decision: they would live together in one house. Needless to say, this was an unusual living arrangement. As one newspaper reporter stated in an article written during World War II, “It suited the girls to go on living together, for they always had, and being married wouldn't make any difference.” Each family had one room upstairs and one room downstairs to call their own, but the kitchen, living room, and dining room were all shared. While their husbands worked in the store, the wives divided the household duties. Seven children, all first cousins, grew up together in the house. All the kids worked in the store: Raymond, Mabel, Harvey, and Corinne Paul, and Myrtle, Irvin, and Lester Nienhuser. According to John Paul, they “never had a fuss at [their] house.” In a 2011 interview, Myrtle Nienhuser Schnarre, over one hundred years old, remembered that it didn't seem odd to live together as one family.

     For over a half century, Paul ran the store and Nienhuser did the trucking and other outdoor work, leaving at 5:00 AM twice each week to take produce to St.Louis. The store opened at six o'clock in the morning and closed at nine each night. The men worked hard and were known to be “happy at [their] work, kind and smiling, never fault-finding or complaining” Paul also served as Femme Osage's postmaster for a short time, until the post office was closed on May 31,1908.

     John Paul died in 1957, only a few months after Emma had passed away. Theodore Nienhauser continued to run the store until his death in 1964. Five years later, Laura would die. In 1965 the building was sold, and the general store which had opened during the Mexican War of 1845 finally closed as the Vietnam War raged. For the first time in one hundred twenty years, the residents of Femme Osage and the surrounding area had no general store to serve them. Surely there can be no doubt that the Knippenbergs and the Pauls/Nienhusers were very successful in their small business.

Sources: “16 Surprising Statistics About Small Businesses” (forbes.com); 1875 St. Charles County Plat Book; 1905 St. Charles County Plat Book; Cracker Barrel Country, Volume 2, Bill Schiermeier; Femme Osage file, Boone-Duden Historical Society; Knippenberg file, Boone-Duden Historical Society; Missouri Death Certificates (s1.sos.mo.gov); “New Business Statistics” (statisticbrain.com); “Schnarre Grew Up With Two Families Under One Roof,” (Senior Life Times, 2011), Evin Fritschle; “Story of a Perfect Friendship,” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1945), F. A. Behymer.