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7 • • ... ,. ‘ •*. . .. 'L -K. jyears later, after the death of.sthla^ wife, Jacob Swartzendruber recorded.that she, too, had come to Iowa very: unwillingly, and that soon after she arrived here, she became so ill with the ague that he thought she would not live. She recovered, only to break her ankle soon after. This accident caused her severe pain and kept her in bed eleven weeks. After her death in 1856 Jacob wrote truly that she had not experienced many great pleasures in the years of her life. How . similar the experiences of these women must have been to those of the mothers in A Son of the Middle Border’ 'and Giants in the Earth.” /;. ' The Guengerichs and Swartzendru-bers are prominent figures in this history of early days in the Johnson County settlement, hut it must not be assumed that other families played a minor part in the affairs of this • community. The records of these two / ; families are quoted because they were the writers and historians of this group. No other Amish settlement i in Iowa has such complete commun-.! ity records as this one, including rec-i ords not only of church activities but of the social and economic life of thepeople as well.The Guengerichs and Swartzendru- • bers had left Switzerland during, the days of religious persecution'and per-, .haps lived for many years in Alsace and then in the Palatinate; • From ' this last place, it appears, they went • to Wittgenstein, a small district east of the Rhine, where the first definite record of these families has, ■? been-; found. From there they went to the ; Principality of Waldeck. At thatplace, near Menerinhausen, Jacob Swartzendruber was a miller. .vj’v;Peter Gungerich (Gingerich) lived there also and had two sons by. his -first wife, one of whom was Preach-, er John Gingerich, the Iowa = iriimi-. grant of 1851. After Peter's wife died, he married again. His sons byJacob P. Guengerich. the Iowa immi-. grants of 1846 and 1851. After Peter Gungerich died, his widow married Jacob Swartzendruber, the Iowa im-, migrant of 1851, and the one who was the first Amish elder in Johnson 'County. Swartzendruber, his wife sons, and step-sons came to America in 1833; when the sons reached the military age.In time all the Amish left Waldeck either for America from the latterw*-1 • - .* • * —•%***1 place. The Schoettlers, too, were ; members -of this group so long as-1 sociated with each other in the dif-mt localities of Europe. •uthors are very often misquoted to say Booth Tarkington shotAbraham Lincoln is Well, we’ll excuse it this time. Nasty Nox, 1928.his second wife were Daniel P. and
Newspaper Details
Webster City Daily Freeman Journal
Webster City, Iowa, US
Sat, Jun 08, 1957
Page 80
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
IA, USA 19 Feb 2017
Other Publications Near Webster City, Iowa
Hamilton County Journal
Webster City Tribune
Webster City Daily Freeman Journal
Standard Atlas of Hamilton County Iowa
