Origins

My mother was an intelligent, pretty woman of German descent.  Sometime in the last century, probably around 1870, my grandfather and grandmother came to this country from what is now the Wurttemburg part of Germany. I don't know who was the first to arrive, but as each family member get a start in the western Ohio farmlands, he invited brothers, cousins, friends, or was importuned by relations in the old country. They helped him work his farm or business, learning the new language and different ways, until they had enough cash to set up their own establishments. New Bremen, Freibourg, Minster (Meunster) arose beside Spencerville, Sidney, and Buckland. The Lutheran Germans and the Catholic Irish had farms beside each other and churches beside each other. They all sent their children to the one room schoolhouse to learn about America and most learned almost too well; they hardly knew their family origins. Maybe that was good or maybe it was bad, but it made for a peaceful, homogeneous community. It was generally conceded in those days that if you had a reason for leaving your birthplace, you would be willing to assume some responsibility for the good of the country which you adopted.

Grandpa, with his big soft brown eyes, his gentle ways, and somewhat scholarly education "he had learned Latin", was strongly averse to the forced militarism of Prussian-ized Germany: evel village boys and farm boys were conscripted for a period of duty and it was whispered "They drilled until the blood stood in their boots." Grandpa was a draft dodger, I guess. Cousin Conrad Lechner and his brothers probably felt much the same way, Why stay in a country with a fact turned toward military expansion - the Franco-Prussian War was either just ahead or just behind them - when you could go to a new country and make a good living without being a soldier?

Grandma was pretty and small and well shaped, even as an old lady. She always loved pretty clothes. I've often wondered about her antecedents. She had a sister Bertha and a sister named Dora, who was married to Grandpa's cousin Conrad. I've seen a picture f her mother in an elegant black silk dress, taken when she was an old lady, for her daughter's remembrance. She was the same as Grandma, a beautiful little woman with a fine carriage. Aunt Bertha, who was always known to exaggerate, whispered to my mother that they were related to Kaiser Wilhelm. Well, I never heard a word about Mother's grandfather - all I know is that this pretty lady with three pretty daughters came to Auglaize County, where they all married and in due time, she died.

So Grandma and Grandpa were married, bought a 40 acre piece of land, and built what they called a plank house, that it squared logs, as I understand it. They drained the flat, fertile land, and raised a family of seven children, of which my mother was the fourth. She told me how grandpa would sing songs for them (Hi lily, hi lily, hi lo, in German) and on summer evenings the children, with Grandma and Grandpa would play and tumble on the grass until it was  time to sleep.