Theodor Acksteiner with his bride Anna Dworschak from Vienna

Happy Wedding Wednesday! Today, I have a lovely wedding photo for you from Vienna, Austria. On the back of the photo, someone has scribbled: “Uncle Theodor and wife Acksteiner,” along with a birth date, “* 1870,” and a death date, “+ 1936,” as well as the name of the wife, Anna Dworschak.

Spoiler alert – I found the couple in the records! Theodor Acksteiner was indeed born in 1870, specifically on July 1st in Great-Stiebnitz in Bohemia (today’s Czech Republic), to parents Amand Acksteiner (1838-1898) and Anastasia, née Kienel (1842-1921). Anna Dworschak was seven years younger, born on July 15th, 1877, in Felixdorf (Neustadt in Vienna) to parents Thomas Dworschak (also Dworak) and Barbara, née Frisch. I assume this was perhaps a workplace romance, as both were weavers by profession. The couple married on October 6th, 1900, in Vienna, when the groom was 30 and the bride was 23 years old.

The couple endured their share of heartache. Their baby girl, Anna Barbara Acksteiner, died at less than two weeks of age in March 1904. Two years later, they lost their son, Josef Acksteiner (1895-1906), at just 11 years of age due to kidney failure. I couldn’t find any other children for the couple in the records.

Theodor passed away from laryngeal cancer in May 1936 at the age of 65. Anna died just a year later from heart failure at the age of 59. With all the grief Anna endured in her lifetime, it seems she may have died of a broken heart.

Theodor came from a family of weavers. His father, Amand Acksteiner, was a weaver. Theodor’s younger sisters—Theresia Brumeik (*1874), Leopoldine Kusinger (*1876), and Wilhelmine Bittner (*1872)—were all weavers, at least before they married. Theodor’s younger brother Josef (*1881) was a machinist, and his youngest sister, Mathilde, was born in 1882.

Perhaps a child of one of the siblings noted Uncle Theodor’s details on the back of this wedding photo. I'd love to reunite it with its family!