Dorothea Rasche Beckmann died at 22 of unknown causes, leaving behind her husband Charles and their 2-year-old daughter, Minna (Minnie). Charles went on to marry Dorothea’s younger sister, Ida (a common practice at the time) and they had five children together.

Ida suffered greatly during her life, experiencing  the death of her mother, an illness that left three of her children deaf and mute and an allegedly distant and cold husband. Her grief compounded and led Ida to take her own life at 34. 

The death of infants was not an uncommon occurrence in the mid-19th century. Wilhelmine and Gottlieb Rippstein, the twin babies of Wilhelmine Rasche Rippstein (later Leisner), the third daughter of Heinrich and Dorothea, died within 15 days of one another before either reached two months. The only grandchildren of Heinrich and Dorothea to be buried in this cemetery, Wilhelmine and Gottlieb share a single headstone.