I’m sorry I haven’t been able to keep up with writing for Keepa for the past few days; today will be no better, except for this lick-and-a-promise post.

Very often in comments I respond to readers by saying how pleased I am to hear about the unexpected connections some of you find to one post or another. I’ve also written about how the connections that occur all the time in real life need to be reflected in our history – noting these connections is one way I judge whether a historian understands his subject well enough to deserve my attention, or is instead merely connecting whatever dots enable him to tell the story he wants to tell.

Like some of you, I’m always on the lookout for connections. In my case, it’s often a matter of recognizing that this bit of history is connected to that bit of history from a previous Keepa post. That happened again recently, when somehow a name clicked in my memory:

In 2013, Amy Tanner Thiriot located, translated, and posted the brief notices in the German-language magazine Der Stern, reporting the deaths of German Latter-day Saints during World War I. One of those posts carried this casualty notice:

H. Hofer.
From Frankfurt comes the sad news that Mr. Hofer, husband of Sister Elise Hofer, president of the Relief Society there, died on the battlefield. He was a true friend of the Church and a loving, always-conscientious husband and father.

In the Relief Society Magazine of June 1917 – two years after the notice of the death of H. Hofer, the Magazine published a photograph somehow received across national lines (probably through Ella Valentine, wife of Hyrum Valentine of the Swiss Mission; they both attempted to stay in contact with German Saints, who were part of their mission despite the wartime barriers). You’ll see it’s connection to that earlier death notice.

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There is always more to the story.