Thank you, Mary Magdalena Graf-Rose!

I have invited several relatives to my dining room table these last few weeks.  Little by little they have been sharing their stories.  All have all long-since departed, but their stories are very much alive!  As I sort through generations, finding the trails and trials of their lives, I am so grateful for their fortitude and their foresight.  They went through so much... sometimes multiple deaths of spouses and children, and then dared to come to America, bringing many children on the nearly six-week voyage.  And being German, they kept remarkable records!  Today I am most grateful to Mary Magdalena Graf-Rose.  She is the one who obviously had family records and passed them on to her son Henry.  Allow me to digress a moment and trace my lineage back to 1655...

Generation 1

Nikel GRAV, born October 1655, married Anna Christina MULLERS.  They had 11 children.  One of those children was Johann Casper GRAV.  The spelling of the surname varies: Grav, Graf, Graff.

Generation 2

Johann Casper GRAV, born 1691, married Anna Cecilia COLTER.  They had 9 children.  Johann Philip is the ancestor of interest in this generation.

Generation 3

Johann Philip GRAF, born 10 February 1739, married Maria Katarina GEFFINGER.  They had 10 children.  Their son, Johann Casper, will carry our family line to the present.

Generation 4

Johann Casper GRAF, born 11 December 1763, married Katarina Margaretha "Gretchen" PHILIP.  They had 8 children.  Valentine and Mary Magdalena are the brother and sister of interest: Valentine, because he is my 3X Great-Grandfather, and Mary Magdalena, because she must have been the designated family historian.

Generation 5: the daring generation

Valentine GRAF, born 28 September 1799, married Barbara WAGNER.  They had 5 children.  Philip, my 2X Great-Grandfather, and his three brothers (sister Sette did not make the journey), all came to America.  Valentine and Barbara, both 53, wanted to save their sons from military inscription which, in Settie Graf's words, "took seven years of a young man's life."  They sent Henry and John to America to join relatives, sold their home in Rockenhausen, and crossed the Atlantic with their sons Valentine and Philip.  They sailed on the Barc Charles Hill and arrived in New York on 1 June 1853.  In three day's time just before their arrival, about 9,000 Germans had arrived in New York's harbor!  This is 1853... can you imagine?

Generation 6

Philip GRAF, born 07 July 1824, married Caroline SCHAAF.  Caroline had come to America as an eleven-year-old with her family in 1840.  Philip, who had farmed his parents' farm in Rockenhausen, took up farming in Howard County, Indiana.  The story is told that he had funded his younger brothers' emigration earlier to help them avoid the draft.  Caroline and Philip experienced untold grief as four of their children, all sons, died just after birth.  Their grave marker is found in the Greenlawn Cemetery, Greentown, Indiana.  Three daughters made up their family: Emma (b. 14 Nov 1862), Louisa (b. 19 Feb 1864), and Settie (b. 12 Mar 1868).  Philip and Caroline's daughters were born in the thick of our Civil War.  It is hard to fathom how these young German families must have felt.  They had left their country, fleeing the fears of harsh military conditions and economic depression, only to find the chaos of war in their new homeland.

Generation 7

Emma GRAF married Nicholas RICHER.  Louisa GRAF married Augustus FROELICH.  And Settie GRAF married George Luther LOCKE.  Sisters Emma and Louise are the ones who wrote the Graf Family booklet in 1921.  It is a much-quoted document among those who research the Graf family.  Settie wrote a beautiful family narrative in 1954 just one year before she passed away.  (These documents are all on this blog.  Search either 'Graf' or 'Settie.')

Generation 8

To Settie GRAF-LOCKE and George LOCKE were born three children: Ruth Geneva (who died in infancy), Philip Roscoe LOCKE (28 Dec 1892), and Elsie LOCKE (06 Aug 1894).

Generation 9

Elsie LOCKE married Emmett Peter TOUBY (b. 16 Aug 1888) and they settled on Emmett's father's farm in Howard County, Indiana.  They had five daughters: Louise, Dorothy, Frances, Virginia and Joan.  These are my mother (Virginia) and aunts to whom this blog is dedicated.  Their stories can be found on the blog's pages as well as in various posts.

Generation 10

Virginia TOUBY (b. 28 Aug 1923) married Arthur James COAN (b. 24 Feb 1920) just after my mother graduated from Ball State University and my father came home from the service in WWII.  They settled on the farm where Settie GRAF-LOCKE and George LOCKE had built their home and farmed 160 acres.  This is where I grew up.  My parents named it Liberty Grove Farm.  David, Jane, Nancy and Elizabeth COAN are the children of this generation.  All the children of the TOUBY sisters, Louise, Dorothy, Virginia and Joan comprise this 10th generation.

Generation 11

The grandchildren of the TOUBY sisters, Louise, Dorothy, Virginia and Joan comprise the 11th generation of the descendants of Nikel GRAV.  And their children make Generation 12. 

THANK YOU, MARY MAGDALENA GRAF-ROSE!

And now, to my reason for writing this post... In the 1921 Graf Family booklet, sisters Emma GRAF-RICHER and Louise GRAF-FROELICH mention their gratitude to Henry Rose of Amboy, Indiana, saying that the information regarding Generations 1-4 (now Generations 3-6 due to research that has gone two generations further back, from Johann Casper GRAF back to Nickel GRAV) was furnished by Henry.  Henry was the son of Mary Magdalena GRAF-ROSE.  I am so grateful to Mary Magdalena (see Generation 4 above) for having the foresight to save the family history and pass it on to her son.  Her Great-nieces, Emma and Lou, took the baton and wrote the Graf Family history.  I'm a great-niece of Emma and Lou.  I'll never know who might take things from here, but I hope someone will!