Leffler, Mable Frances {I101} (b. 1904, d. 1973)

Given Name: Mable Frances

Death: 1973

Change: Date: 14 Feb 2003
Time: 15:27:40

Note: [Levi Tope.GED]

The John Yost Wagner Family

It was in the spring of 1881 that John and Anna Wagner decided to leavetheir home in Germany and travel with their family to North America. Theywere living in or near Mornhausen, a small village in the Lahn Rivervalley in the Hessian Uplands. The university town of Marburg is closeby. Today the Lahn River Valley is one of Hesse's rich agricultural areas.
John Wagner applied for a passport (1) in the early part of April intheir home county of Biedenkopf which at that time was a part of theKingdom of Prussia. The passport was issued to Johann Jost Wagner,landwirth or farmer, who was accompanied by his wife, Anna, son Juerg, 6,Heinrich, 5, Jacob, 4, Ludwig, 1 Christian, 1/4 (three months old), andhis sister, Maria. Their actual journey probably began around the firstof June of 1881, when John and Anna, the five boys, and John's sisterboarded a train and traveled to the port of Bremen. Because the overseastraffic is handled out of Bremerhaven on the North Sea, they proceeded onby train to Bremerhaven. There they boarded the ship Habsburg.
On June 28, 1881, after a possible four-week journey, the steam shipHabsburg arrived, at the port of New York. What must it have been likespending three or four weeks aboard ship with five boys six years of ageand under, and two of them probably still in diapers. How many times theymust have heard, "I have to go to the bathroom", or "I'm hungry" or "Ithink I'm seasick" and of course, "Are we there yet?" And what awonderful feeling of relief and joy they must have had when the shipfinally docked. The Wagners would not have seen the Statue of Liberty,because it would be four more years before it would be erected in NewYork Harbor. They would go through Castel Garden for their immigrationprocedures. John would have to show their ID Tags, his passport and hisboat ticket. Then at another desk he had to show their birthcertificates, marriage certificate and immunization records. Then on tothe occupation area where he had to prove he was employable, and lastlythey all had to have a physical examination to be sure they did not havea communicable disease. The physical exam was an especially worrisomepart of the immigration procedure. If the doctors found somethingphysically wrong, you could be sent to the hospital or worse yet, not beallowed to enter the country. After passing all the tests, he wouldreceive landing cards. They next moved to the Money Exchange. Herecashiers exchanged gold, silver, and paper money from countries all overEurope for American dollars. For immigrants traveling to cities or townsbeyond New York City, the next stop was the railroad ticket office.Immigrants could wait in areas marked for each independent railroad linein the ferry terminal. When it was reasonably near the time for theirtrain's departure, they would be ferried on barges to the trainterminals. The Wagners must have gone through these procedureswithout incident. I don't remember hearing any stories to indicateotherwise.
From New York they traveled by train to Anna or Sidney, Ohio, whereAnna Wagner's two brothers met them. Anna's older brother George Kramerand his wife, Katherine, and children arrived in the United States inMarch of 1880. Her younger brother,4 Louis Kramer, arrived in June of1880. At this time they were both living in Sidney, Ohio.

WHY DID THEY LEAVE GERMANY?

Many people were leaving Germany at this time. Between 1880 and 1885,797,000 people left for the United States, and in 1881 when the Wagnersleft, 220,000 came to the United States in that year alone. By this timepractically everyone in Germany had an "Uncle" in America. So why werethey leaving? The population in the German states doubled between 1840and 1910. David Blackhourn says in his book The Long Nineteenth Century AHistory of Germany 1780-1918 "Emigration was the 'safety-value' of ruraloverpopulation. It followed the rhythm of rural distress, with a certaintime lag. The greatest volume of emigration occurred during relativeupturns, after the opportunity had been taken to pay off debt and landcould be sold on a more buoyant market. Hence the peaks in the 'good'years. The Great Depression (1873-79) had just come to an end, so by 1880we see the emigration pick up again."
Between 1880-1889 most people left Germany for economic reasons. Theywanted a better job and improve their standard of living. But Anna Wagneralways said she left because she did not want her boys to serve in theGerman army. It was compulsory at that time that every young male servesome time in the military. Members of the German military were veryinfluential and often had special privileges and some were even feared.Mournhausen is in the province of Hesse, a part of Central Germany notedfor their "Hessian" soldiers.

Shelby County, Ohio

The Wagner family settled in Shelby County, Ohio. And the next time wehear about them is in 1883. John's sister, Maria, who is now using theEnglish spelling of her name, Mary, has met and fallen in love withGeorge Fogt. J. M. Meissner, a Lutheran Pastor, married George W. Fogtand Mary Wagner April 10, 1883. Two years later, on April 3, 1885, JohnWagner applied for citizenship papers in Shelby County, stating that hewas a resident of McCartyville, Ohio. McCartyville is a small villageapproximately nine miles northwest of Sidney and nine miles southeast ofNew Bremen, an area in Ohio with a large German population. Interestingthat on, the very next day, April 4, 1885, George Kramer filed for hiscitizenship papers stating that he was living in Sidney, Ohio.
We don't know what kind of employment John Wagner had in McCartyville.It was a very small village. There were a couple sawmills, a generalstore, a blacksmith, a saloon and a creamery run by Kramer & Dickson.Whether there is a Kramer connection, we really don't know. TodayMcCartyville is little more than a crossroad with a few houses.-
Anna was 40 years old when, she gave birth to a daughter, Mary Louise,June 9, 1886, their only child born in America. This must have been avery special event as their first daughter, Anna, born in Germany in1878, died shortly after birth.
On 8 April 21, 1887, John and his family became Citizens. John gave hisoath of allegiance to the United States of America and received hisCertificate of Citizenship from the Probate Court of Shelby County, Ohio.George and Charles Kraft were the two witnesses who attested to the facthe had been a resident of the United States for five years and a residentof Ohio for one year.

Paulding County

In August of 1887, four months after becoming a United States citizen,John bought a 940-acre farm in Blue Creek Township in Paulding County,Ohio. So only six years after arriving in America, he had become acitizen and a property owner. He bought the 40 acres from Joseph andMaria Farcult for $600.00, $15.00 per acre. The farm was near the Hiramand Levi Tope farms. It is interesting to note that although he boughtthe property in August of 1887, the deed was not recorded until October24, 1890. And on the same day the deed was recorded he sold this sectionof land to a William Martin for $600.00. Then one month later, onNovember 20, 1890, William Martin sold this very same section of landback to Anna Wagner for $625.00. Why, do this? I guess only John and Annacould tell us. As we will learn, Anna Wagner was a person with her ownvery definite ideas. By December 22 of that same year, (1887) GeorgeKramer had also become a citizen and bought the 1240 acres next to theWagner farm from the Farcult's for the same price.

THE MOVE TO PAULDING COUNTY

So with this background [see Chapter 1] you can see why, although theWagners arrived in the county 57 years after its formation, very littlefarming was done until the land was cleared and then drained. The men whocame to Paulding County about 1880 were over twenty years in removing thetimber. They were responsible for the doubling of the populationin eight years. They made the county boom. Their lives were one of greathardship and often an early grave. Although Paulding County experienced apopulation growth from 12,485 in 1880 to 25,932 in 1890 it was not due toany increase in farm population. The economy of the county was based onthe removal of timber. The small towns such as Latty, Briceton, Dague andWorstville started as lumbering towns, which is very hard to image today.So this is why we assume the Wagners and the Karmers came toPaulding County because there was employment and land was cheap. Whilethey cleared their land and built their log homes, they worked for lumbercompanies, saw mills or stave factories and sold the trees off theirland. Pictures included at the end of the text were found among theWagners possessions in 1965. They show how lumbering affected theirfamily.
George Kramer lived on his farm just 10 years before he died in Octoberof 1897. After his death his wife Katherine sold the property and movedto Montgomery County Ohio (Dayton) where her two sons, Louis and JacobKramer and brother-in-law Louis lived. George's daughter, Anna, was nowmarried to George Gossman and remained in Paulding County for some time.
By 1890 the Wagner family was settled in their new, and we are assuminglog, home, and the family consisted of the five boys ages 9 to 17 anddaughter Mary, age 4. They were farmers, and were attending a Lutheranchurch in Briceton, Ohio. At least that is where Lewis Wagner wasconfirmed in March of 1894. The first of their children to marry wasHenry. He was nineteen when he was married to Nettie B. Haney, in October1895. According to Henry's nieces, he stayed in the area for some time,but eventually moved west. At the time of Lewis' death, 1963, hewas listed as a survivor and living in Cut Bank, Montana.
Soon other of their children married. Lewis married Edith Belle Tope,his neighbor, July 1, 1902, and lived in Briceton, Ohio. George was 30years old before he married Dortha Myrtle Granger February 26, 1903.George and his family of six children stayed in the area and lived aroundAntwerp, Ohio. Jacob, who the family called 'Jake', was married to MaryRoth from Missouri before 1904. Eventually he moved to Springfield, Ohio,where he stayed until his death. Jake and Mary had seven children. Chrismarried a girl named Leona; I'm not sure when, and had a son, John. Healso lived around Springfield, Ohio. Mary Louise married Frank Finegancirca 1906. They had eleven children and lived in the Akron and CuyahogaFalls area in Ohio, although at the time of the 1910 census they werestill in Paulding County.
In 1913, John then 66 and Anna 67, their children all married, decidedto sell their 40 acre farm, not to retire to a small town, but to buy alarger farm. The idea was that their son Lewis and his family would movein with them and together they would make a living farming. So on January10, 1913, John and Anna bought 100 acres in Tully Township in Van WertCounty which was, approximately two and one half miles west of Convoy,from John D. and Mable
Lamb for $15,100.00 with possession to take place March 1, 1913. Againthe deed was in Anna's name only. They got a five-year loan at 684nterest for $6,200.00 from the First National Bank of Van Wert and onMarch 10, 1913, sold their 40-acre farm in Paulding County to John D.Lamb for $7,500.00. They must have paid the remaining $1,400.00 in cash.The land for which they paid $15.00 an acre was now worth $187.50 anacre. In March of 1913 the two families
moved in together, and John and Anna lived with the Lewis Wagner familyuntil their death in 1930--seventeen years.
What were John and Anna like as people? John Wagner's passportdescribes him as Stature, husky build or strong; Hair, medium blonde;Eyes, blue; complexion, broad; Special marks, none. Helen Wagner says,"Grandpa was a little over 6', walked very straight, had a white beardand was very kind to us kids, also very intelligent. He used to help uswith our arithmetic." About Anna, her grandmother, she says, "Grandma, asfar as my opinion, was a very mean
person. She was about 5'1", a little on the heavy side. If you had blueeyes and was fair and looked like the Wagners, she liked you. If youlooked like the other side of the family, look out.
Ann (Wagner) Hall recalls, "My grandfather, John Wagner, smoked a pipe.The kind of pipe that curls down over the lip. When he was in hissixties, and before he moved to Van Wert County, he developed a canceroussore on his lip and had to go to the Duemling Clinic in Fort Wayne tohave it removed. This surgery left him with a part of his lip removed,and because of this he had some difficulty with his speech. He grew abeard to hide the scar." She describes him, at least in his older yearsas, "A beaten old man with his wife as the one with the whip."
She also remembers him as being kind. She remembers that often on rainydays they would find him in the barn taking a nap--probably to get awayfrom all the family commotion.
Her[Ann] memories of her grandmother are quite the opposite. Shedescribes her as being a domineering, dictatorial person who tried tocontrol the lives of everyone in the family. Ann often disagreed with hergrandmother, and one such time was about finishing high school. Thegrandmother said Ann should stay home and work on the farm. Ann said shewanted to finish high school and get her diploma. And did! Ann had to doall her chores, milk the cows, put the milk through the cream separator,feed the horses and so forth, before she could go to school; and then shehad to walk several miles to get there.
John and Anna preferred to use the German language, and the otherfamily members preferred to use English. So often they would ask aquestion in German and get the answer in English. Obviously,communication could become a problem. Howard E. Good says in his bookBlack Swamp Farm "Some settlements began almost as miniature Germanprovinces. During a long period, few spoke English. Churchservices were conducted in German, and children in school were commonlytaught in the mother tongue. Succeeding generations, due to intermarriageand infiltration from outside areas, gradually abandoned speech andhabits that marked them as Germans. Little now remains except familynames to hint of German origins." These statements are certainly true ofthe Wagner Family. Lewis Wagner could not read or write English very welluntil after he was married. His wife taught him.
Howard Good goes on to say about the people of Paulding county,"Although English Grammar had been taught for a good many years in ruralpublic schools, much of the language heard about us was far fromgrammatical. There were some, including a few ex-teachers, who couldspeak good English, but in everyday conversation they tended to fall backupon the homely lingo of the majority; it seemed that they didn'twant to be regarded as "stuck-up." Ann Hall has said she wonders how sheever passed Grammar in school because of the poor English she heardeveryday.
_________________________
Obituary:
Wagner
Kendallville, Dec. 22--Funeral services for John Wagner of Swantownship, who died, Sunday at the home of a son, Lewis Wagner of south ofLaOtto, will be held at the son's home at 10 a.m., Tuesday. Burial willbe in I.O.O.F. cemetery at Convoy, Oh. Mr. Wagner, who was 93, was anative of Germany. He is survived by five sons, one daughter, 30grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. His wife died three weeks ago.

________________________
1 Lois Hall Wagner, The John Jost Wagner Family, December 1999,cited Original Passport issued in Biedenkopf, Hesse, Germany
Passport issued in Biedenkopf, German Empire, Kingdom of Prussia, to JohnJost Wagner, accompanied by his wife Anna, son George 6, Henry 5, Jacob4, Ludwig 1, Christian 1/4 (three months) and his sister Mary.
John's personal description: Age, born June 24, 1847; Sature, huskybuild; Hair, Med blond; Eyes, blue; complexion, board; special marks,none.

Source: Lois Hall Snouffer, The John Jost Wagner, December 1999

Source: (Death)
Title: Descendancy Chart
Author: Lois Hall Snouffer
Publication: 17 January 2000
Note: Source Media Type: Other
Repository:

Page: p. 1
Data:
Text: cites Death Certificate, County Health Commissioner, Albion, Noble County, IN

Source: (Individual)
Title: Descendants of John Jost Wagner
Author: Lois Hall Snouffer
Publication: December 1999
Note: Source Media Type: Other
Repository:

Source: (Individual)
Title: The John Jost Wagner Family
Author: Lois Hall Snouffer
Publication: December 1999
Note: Good
NS24333
Source Media Type: Manuscript
Repository:

Given Name: John Jost

Immigration: Date: 28 Jun 1881
Place: From Germany

Death: 20 Dec 1930 LaOtto, Noble Co., Indiana

Burial: I.O.O.F. Cemetery, Convoy, Van Wert Co., Ohio

Cause: Lobar Pneumonia

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Time: 15:27:40

Given Name: Zelma Violet

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Given Name: May Beulah

Death: 12 Oct 1975

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Given Name: Vesta Lavon

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Given Name: Ralph Ray

Death: 1919

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Given Name: Harold John

Death: 30 Oct 1977

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Given Name: Lena H.

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Given Name: Roberta

Death: 1970

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Given Name: Violet Lucille

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Given Name: Eric

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Given Name: Clarence

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Given Name: Raymond

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Given Name: Harry E.

Death: 1936

Cause: Squirrel hunting accident

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Source: (Birth)
Title: Social Security Death Index
Author: www.ancestry.com
Note: Source Media Type: Electronic
Repository:

Source: (Individual)
Title: SSDI
Note: Source Media Type: Book
Repository:

Given Name: Clifford

Event: Type: SSN
Date: BEF 1951
Place: 302-01-7204 in Ohio

Death: May 1965

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Given Name: Henry

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Note: [Levi Tope.GED]

Obituary in Paulding library:
Obituary Account Of Orville E. Weible
Orville Eugene Weible, son of Wm. and Annie Weible, was born inPaulding County on July 14, 1909, and departed this life August 14, atthe age of 29 years, one month.
He was united in marriage with Zelma Leffler of Latty on December 14,1931. To this union one was born.
The decedent moved to Jackson, Mich in July, 1933, and was living thereat the time of his demise.
He was a loving husband, a kind father and a friendly neighbor. Heleaves to mourn his departure his wife and daughter, twin step-sons, Jackand Richard, his mother, Mrs. Annie Weible of Paulding, two sisters, Mrs.Cecile Bland of Broughton and Mrs. Doris Ohlman of Toledo, 3 brothers,Clyde of Toledo, Ralph and Justus of Paulding, and a host of relativesand friends.

Given Name: Orville Eugene

Death: 14 Aug 1938 Jackson, Michigan

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Source: (Birth)
Title: Centennial Project
Author: Colorado Genealogical Society
Note: Fair
15-page type copy by Lois DuCharme
NS16893
Source Media Type: Manuscript
Repository:

Page: p. 3

Given Name: Emma Beulah

Change: Date: 14 Feb 2003
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Source: (Individual)
Title: The Dan Riggenbach Family
Author: Mary Lou Treece
Note: NS24133
Source Media Type: Book
Repository:

Page: p. 11

Given Name: Glen R.

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Given Name: William

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