As a child, I was a twig among cousins, uncles and aunts in the family tree of my Garber grandparents, Leonard and Addie (Grove) Garber. While filling in the names of ancestors in my new brother’s baby book, I asked Grandma Addie about her Grove ancestry, and I penciled her answers in a brown spiral notebook. As an adult, I learned a lot more about her (and my) ancestry than she herself knew. Part I of this narrative series featured her complex Grove lineage through her father, Samuel J. Grove (1825-1886). Part II featured her Kendig, Miller, and Herr families, affiliated with her paternal Grove ancestry.

I wish I had asked Grandma Addie about her mother’s Snyder ancestry. I knew Grandma Addie had Snyder cousins; one, Jake, lived next door when my mother and I lived with my grandparents during my early childhood. But Grandma Addie probably never knew about the 1560 Froschauer Bible that traced her Snyder ancestry back to the Hannes Schneider who bought that Bible in 1564. She surely did not know about all the other immigrant family names associated with her maternal lineage. In this Part III, we look at Grandma Addie’s Snyder lineage through her mother, Mary Snyder, in the following sections, Grandma Addie will usually be known simply as Addie.

(I) Hannes Schneider

Addie’s known Snyder ancestry begins with Hannes Schneider, born in 1534 in Canton Bern, Switzerland. He married Catherine Haus in 1557, and seven years later, in 1564, he purchased a Bible published in 1560 by Christoph Froschauer. Swiss who spoke German liked the Froschauer Bible; the language was popular, the type was clear, and pictures decorated it. Mennonites and Amish bought Froschauer Bibles, as did many who were likely members of the Reformed Church, which followed the teachings of Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin.1

Hannes Schneider was certainly a person of faith; tradition is that he was an Anabaptist and a farmer, though his name suggests that he could have been a tailor (or perhaps his father had been a tailor). Might he have done both farming and tailoring? He must have had discretionary income to make the significant purchase of this large Bible. Since he bought a Bible, he probably had learned to read. In his Bible, he began writing a family record that was continued by later descendants.

Six generations later, in 1736, John Schneider (1697-1763) brought the Bible along to America. Here, the Schneider name became anglicized to Snyder, as in Addie’s ancestry, or Snider. Two generations later, the Bible went along to Canada with three Snyder brothers who emigrated there in the early 1800s. It is now archived at the Conrad Grebel College in Waterloo, Ontario.2

As we would expect, Hannes Schneider and his descendants wrote their entries in German. We can thank Ezra E. Eby (1850-1901), a schoolteacher in Waterloo County, Ontario, who translated the entries in the Schneider Bible into English. He was gathering material for his biographical History of Waterloo Township which he published in 1895. Decades later, a Schneider family history was published; it included the family record as Eby had translated it from the Bible.3

Eby wrote that the first entries in the Bible were “too much spoiled to read all the the original writing.” He began his translation with Hannes Schneider as the “progenitor of a numerous family” who was born, “as tradition has it,” in 1534 in Canton Bern, Switzerland. After Hannes’s marriage to Catherine Haus in 1557, they had several children, but the names of only two could be read because of the spoiled writing. The two were: Peter born 1559 and died in Berne in 1578 of an accident; and Jacob born 1561. The translated record does not give dates of death for either Hannes or his wife Catherine.4

(II) Jacob Schneider

In 1586, Jacob Schneider married Anna Maria Brech. They had nine children—six sons and three daughters. As well as their names “could be deciphered from the old record,” they were:

1. Jacob Schneider, 1587-1647, left heirs
2. Peter Schneider, 1590-1663, m. Susanna Reisz
3. Susanna Schneider, b. 1592, m. Conrad Mensch
4. Daniel Schneider, 1594-1598
5. Mary Schneider, 1596-1598
6. Samuel Schneider, 1598-1598, d. age six months
7. John Schneider, b. 1600, moved to Holland in 1624
8. Christian Schneider, b. 1603, moved to Holland, 1624
9. Elizabeth Schneider, b. 1606, m. John Herschi

Eby inserted aside the entry for the three children who died in 1598 that they “probably” died of the Plague which, he wrote, ravished the area at that time. The entry for the family of Jacob Schneider and Anna Maria Brech does not give a date of death for either of them. Nothing in the entry indicates where they lived, suggesting that, like father Hannes, they lived and died in Canton Bern.5

(III) Peter Schneider

The family listing continues with Peter Schneider, born in 1590. He married Susanna Reisz, perhaps about 1615. The record shows only three children for them:

1. Anna Schneider, d. in infancy
2. Hannes Schneider, d. in infancy
3. Jacob Schneider, b. Lucerne, June 13, 1624

Ezra Eby’s translation indicates that they lived in the city of Lucerne, Canton Bern, which may be a mistranslation or misunderstanding of the original German entry. The city of Lucerne was always in Canton Lucerne. The Cantons of Bern and Lucerne do border each other, and we might ask if Peter and Susanna may have lived in Canton Lucerne just across the border with Canton Bern.6

Why they would want to live in Lucerne, whether city or canton, can also be questioned. Anabaptists were not welcome anywhere in Lucerne, a strongly Catholic canton. Although there were Anabaptists who did live in Lucerne, they were severely persecuted with numbers of them martyred. But Berne, too, persecuted Anabaptists, and the Schneiders may have considered Canton Berne not much safer than Canton Lucerne. It may have been employment that caused them to live in Lucerne.7

(IV) Jacob Schneider

Jacob, the only surviving son of Peter and Susanna, was born June 13, 1624. On February 10, 1646, he married Anna Maria Muller who was born September 13, 1626, probably in the Lucerne area where Jacob Schneider lived. She was a daughter of Christian Muller. The recorded children of Jacob and Anna Maria were:

1. Daniel Schneider, b. Apr. 16, 1651
2. Catherine Schneider, b. Jan. 20, 1654, d. in infancy
3. Michael Schneider, b. Feb. 11, 1656
4. Anna Marie Schneider (namesake), b. Oct. 27, 1658
5. Samuel Schneider, b. Jan. 20, 1661, d. in infancy
6. David Schneider, b. Jan. 20, 1661, a twin to Samuel
7. Jacob Schneider (namesake), b. June 18, 1663
8. Susanna Schneider, b. Jan. 28, 1665
9. Elizabeth Schneider, b. Nov. 29, 1667
10. Except for the two who died in infancy, all of their children married.8

In 1653, seven years after their marriage, when their son Daniel was about age two, Jacob and Anna Maria moved from Lucerne to “Spiers” (Speyer), located about 12 miles southwest of Heidelberg, Germany. No doubt they traveled to Speyer from Basel, Switzerland, on the Rhine River, 150 miles more or less. This was five years after the end of the devastating Thirty Years War, and authorities and large landowners welcomed people to repopulate and farm the land. If Jacob Schneider was a farmer, as tradition suggests, he could have found good employment as did numerous other Anabaptists. Perhaps he joined other coreligionists who may have been in that area.9

In 1672 when their youngest child, Elizabeth, was age five, Jacob and Anna Maria with their family, moved again, this time to Zweibrücken, Germany, about 58 miles westerly of Speyer and about 48 miles mostly north of Strasbourg, France. Did this area offer better employment opportunities for their growing sons? If there were Anabaptists in that area, they were few. But this was the last home for Jacob and Anna Maria. She died on July 4, 1679, and Jacob died on December 12, 1695.

The account of the 1653 and and 1672 relocation is the first in the Eby translation that is recorded in the first person, the plural “we.” The first person continues with the plural “our” in listing the nine children and their birth dates. Anna Maria’s date and place of death were recorded immediately after the marriage record, even before the first-person usage. Certainly it was Jacob (1624-1695) himself who made those entries. The record changed to third person when his death was recorded.10

(V) Jacob Schneider

The family Bible went to the youngest son, namesake Jacob. In it he recorded, “On New Year’s Day, 1691, I, Jacob Schneider, was married to Veronica Schmitt. She was born in Heidelberg, Germany, February 3rd, 1662.” Both were then in their upper twenties. There were, at the time, Anabaptists in the Heidelberg area. Heidelberg was about 12 miles from Zweibrücken where the Schneider family was then living. Did Veronica’s parents move from Heidelberg to Zweibrücken where the Schneider family lived? If not, probably Anabaptists from Zweibrücken and Heidelberg found ways to associate with each other.11

After father (IV) Jacob Schneider died in 1695, this namesake son Jacob and two of his older brothers, Daniel and Michael, moved to “Kennerland, Holland,” about 12 miles from Amsterdam. This would have been in the region known as Kennemerland, a coastal region along the North Sea. Even before Jacob and Veronica Schneider moved to Holland, their first two children were born: namesake Veronica born October 12, 1693; and Anna born February 22, 1695. The family was living in Holland by the time son John was born on June 13, 1697. The other three children were Michael born January 21, 1699; Christian born Dec. 24, 1702; and namesake Jacob born January 20, 1705.12

(VI) John Schneider

In this generation, it was the oldest son, John, who received the family Bible. On October 12, 1721, John married Susanna Baumann, born December 13, 1700, in Holland. Their five recorded children were:13

1. Susanna Schneider (namesake), b. August 18, 1723
2. Christian Schneider, b. May 25, 1725
3. Jacob B. Schneider, b. Apr. 2, 1727
4. David Schneider, b. Feb. 17, 1729
5. Andrew Schneider, b. Feb. 12, 1732

When Ezra Eby gathered more biographical information about the Snyder families who were early settlers in Waterloo County, Ontario, he consulted not only the family Bible; he also visited descendants of the Immigrant John Schneider to learn more about their heritage. Apparently the tradition was that John Schneider left Holland because of “fiery persecution.” Eby wrote that because of John’s “strict adherence to Anabaptist faith…, early in 1736 he left his home and set sail, with others,” for London, England, before sailing for America, where they landed in August. John and his family located in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, “where they settled on a large tract of land.”14

They had sailed from Rotterdam, Holland, to London, on the Harle, “last from Cowes,” England, arriving in Philadelphia on September 1, 1736, according to Rupp’s book with names of immigrants and dates of their arrival. It was said that that same month, John and the other immigrants on the Harle were qualified for citizenship and became citizens in Pennsylvania subject to His Majesty King George II of England. Whether John Schneider himself actually took out citizenship is not clear.15

In Europe, John may have been known as an Anabaptist or Menist named for Menno Simons, an early Dutch teacher and writer. But his American coreligionists were known as Mennonites. His own name, too, while anglicized to John, also appears in records as Johannes or Hannes. In 1758, in a letter to Dutch Mennonites, he was identified in a letter as “Johannes Schneyder.” After May 1758 Indian attacks in Virginia in which many people, including a number of Mennonites formerly from Pennsylvania were killed, Lancaster County Mennonite bishop Bentz Hirsche, along with four Virginia Mennonites, wrote a letter to Dutch Mennonites, requesting financial assistance for Virginia families left homeless from the Indian raids. Johannes Schneyder, the 1736 immigrant to Lancaster County, was asked to deliver this letter. He thought it “best” to not make the trip alone, requesting someone from the Virginia Mennonite congregation to accompany him; and they selected Martin Funck, a young minister who himself had fled Virginia after the Indian attacks.16

The letter vouchsafed the reliability of these men who would carry any requested donations back to America. Johannes, a coworker in the faith who was then “contemplating” a trip to visit “friends and brethren in Holland,” was a good friend of the poor. He, too, had “been in danger of his life with his wife and … children and was compelled to flee and leave all behind.” But he was now “so situated” as to make a comfortable living. He had “a nice little farm” and had begun to distill turpentine oil and another unnamed product. He was “always a good friend to the distressed in time of need.”17

The letter, perhaps with help from Johannes Schneyder and Martin Funck in person, produced results. The Dutch Mennonites sent the equivalent of fifty pounds of English sterling and also covered costs for Johannes and Martin for their return trip as far as London.18

In 1758, when John traveled to Holland, he was 61 years old. He died six years later in Lancaster County, on October 13, 1763. His land is still farmed today.19

(VII) Jacob B. Snyder

The family Bible was passed on to John’s middle child, Jacob, born on April 2, 1727, in Holland. He was a day short of age 28 when on April 1, 1755, he married Lancaster County native Maria Herschi, born August 31, 1730. Maria, later referred to as Mary, gave birth to 15 named children, three of whom died in infancy. The children were:

Perhaps mother Maria, then age 48, who surely cherished all her children, was glad that the babies stopped coming after #15 Henry.20

Jacob, surname spelled Sneider in his will, lived in Rapho Township, Lancaster County. At the age of 65, he was “sick and weak of Body,” and on December 12, 1793, he wrote his will. Probably he died in early 1794, a few days or weeks before his will was proved on March 11, 1794. From his will, it is clear that Jacob was a man of faith, strong in the “hopes of a glorious Resurrection” through the merits of his “Redeemer Jesus Christ and an Happy Admission into the Regions of Bliss and Immortality.” He and his family were part of the Mennonite community.21

His “just debts and funeral expenses” were to be paid as soon as “convenient.” He willed that his “beloved wife” was to have the “Chamber” called the ‘“Kitchen Chamber” in the dwelling on his plantation “together with liberty and privilege” in the dwelling and “cellar, springhouse, stables, yard, gardens, and orchard” as she may need it. Apparently, the chamber was the bedroom beside the kitchen, for Jacob’s sons Peter and Joseph were to build a “commodious kitchen attached to the aforesaid chamber” for his wife and keep it “in good repair.” However, if his wife “Mary” should choose to “live separate,” the sons were to build and maintain a comfortable house for Mary, located at the place she chose.22

Jacob also specified the amounts of supplies that the sons were to deliver annually to Mary, including twelve bushels of wheat and five of rye, hemp, cider “if there is fruit,” a bushel of coarse salt and half a bushel of fine salt, one fat hog weighing at least 150 pounds with the lard “belonging thereto,” and 100 pounds of “good fat beef.” She was to have one-fourth of the garden kept “under good fence and sufficient manure,” access to the orchard and all the apples and other fruit she needed. She could have hens “running on said land,” and Jacob also specified other provisions that Mary might need.23

Mary was to also have her choice of two bedsteads, two feather beds, and several specified items of furniture, a spinning wheel, her saddle and bridle, a wash tub, and an open copper kettle. She was to have her choice of a horse or mule and a milk cow. Because Jacob had already given each of his four older sons a horse, his sons Joseph and Henry were each to receive one that Jacob described in the will.

Jacob gave his plantation and the tract of land in Rapho Township on which he lived to his sons Peter and Joseph for 2,200£ in gold or silver money, detailing the installment payments. His plantation was the farm he had inherited from his father—1736 immigrant John Schneider.24

A tract of land which he with his brother Christian Sneider had purchased in Upper Paxton Township in Dauphin County was to be sold as soon as convenient after his death. Sons Peter and Joseph were to keep 300£ of the value of the plantation from which to pay interest thereon to their mother Mary, and also pay her some of the principal, should she need it. In addition, Mary was to have 50£ of money from the settlement of Jacob’s personal estate, as well as half of his summer and woolen clothing.

After all details specified in the estate were covered, what money remained was to be divided evenly among his 12 children. The annual payments for the plantation were to always be divided between two of his “children,” though it was his six daughters that he named for the first three years, “and so on.” It may be that Jacob had already provided financial assistance to his sons, except for his underage son Henry, who earlier in the will was allotted additional money. Jacob appointed his friends Martin Nisly and Henry Over, along with his son Christian Sneider, as executors.25

Jacob’s wife Mary was in her early 60s when Jacob died, leaving her with three underage children: Anna, 18; Catherine, 16; and Henry, 15. We do not know how long they lived at home with Mary. When Jacob designated amounts of grain, meat, etc., to be provided for Mary, he probably kept in mind that she would be feeding teenage children, for a while at least. Was Mary, willed her own saddle and bridle, comfortable transporting herself on a horse? Like Jacob, Mary died in her 60s in April 1798.

Within a decade after their mother Mary died, three sons, Christian, namesake Jacob, and Joseph, with their families, migrated to Ontario, Canada, where they were among early Mennonite settlers in Waterloo County. It was namesake son Jacob who packed the family Bible in the Conestoga wagon that moved his family to Canada. Except for their sister Catherine, who married Christian Hernley and settled in Richmond County, Ohio, the other Snyder siblings remained in Lancaster County.26

(VIII) John/Johannes Schneider

The lineage outlined in this narrative continues through John Schneider, his name anglicized to Snyder by the time he died. John was born on June 16,1770, to Jacob B. Snyder and Maria Herschi. He married Anna “Nancy” Hostetter, born June 13, 1772. They were said to live in the Sporting Hill community, which is just southwest of Manheim, in Rapho Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.27

However, when John Snyder died intestate on January 24, 1841, he was “late of Hempfield Township.” The Orphans’ Court record names the children as:

1. Polly Snyder, birth name may have been Anna
2. Jacob Snyder
3. Elizabeth, m. Jacob Acker
4. Catherine, [second] wife of Henry Stauffer
5. John Snyder, minor son
6. Henry Snyder, minor son
7. Samuel Snyder

A confusing line following, identifies only Polly, Jacob, Elizabeth, and Samuel as children of the deceased John Snyder. Apparently, these were the four surviving children who had reached the age of majority.28

Other records give or suggest dates of children in this order:29

1. Anna “Polly” Snyder, b. ca1801
2. Jacob Snyder, Oct. 25, 1804-Aug. 5, 1884
3. Elizabeth Snyder, Dec. 30, 1805-Feb. 21, 1865
4. Catherine Snyder, Aug. 27, 1808-July 27, 1835
5. Samuel Snyder, b. ca1815; m. 1837 Fannie E. Nissley
6. John Snyder, b. aft. 1820
7. Henry Snyder, b. aft. 1820

John Snyder’s estate included about 159 acres in Hempfield Township adjoining the land of Peter Kreider, Joseph Gochenaur, and others. The court appointed seven disinterested persons to appraise the land. One part of about 95 acres, in East Hempfield Township, on land adjoining that of Peter Greider, John Miller, Jacob Huber, and others, included a two-story brick house, a stone Swisser barn, a one-story tenant house, and other improvements, with adjoining land making the whole about 104 acres.

The second part contained about 54 acres, but no buildings, adjoining land by Jacob Huber and Martin Groff. After due deliberation and legal procedures, the real estate was auctioned on Friday October 8, 1841. After expenses and debts were paid, one-third of the purchase money would be held to pay interest to widow Nancy during her life, beginning April 1, 1842. After her death, what remained would be paid to the heirs and legal representatives. On November 24, 1842, administrators reported that Samuel Bear had purchased the 104+ acres for $103.75 per acre. Joseph Gochenaur purchased the 54+ acres for $69 per acre.30

In 1850, nine years after John Snyder died, his wife Anna and daughter Polly, age 49, were living together in a house with a Manheim address. Listed in the U.S. Census just before and after them were Solomon Miller and John Miller; might one or both have been a son of the John Miller whose land had adjoined that of John Snyder in 1841? Apparently Polly died in the next ten years; she is not found in 1860, when Anna, age 88, was living in Rapho Township at a Manheim address in the household of her son Samuel Snyder, age 45, and his wife Fanny, with their seven Snyder children ranging in age from 22 to 3. Anna died the next year, on Feb. 6, 1861. Both John and Anna were buried in Kraybill Mennonite Cemetery.31

The above John Snyder, married to Anna “Nancy” Hostetter, was the last of the lineage of this narrative who was named in the Family Bible. Fortunately, other sources place the following Jacob Snyder among their children, as cited with the previous listing.

(IX) Jacob Snyder

Jacob Snyder, the second child and oldest son of John Snyder and Anna “Nancy” Hostetter, was born October 26, 1804. On February 24, 1829, when Jacob was age 24, he married Adaline Rohrer. Their 11 children were born in the next 20 years:32

On April 1, 1842, John Rohrer and his wife, parents of Adeline, conveyed to their son-in-law, Jacob Snyder, a tract of land in Rapho Township, 43+ acres which Jacob still owned at his death. The two-story stone house and a bank barn on this acreage are situated today at 2551 Camp Road, Manheim. The house with eight rooms and a partial basement was constructed about 1850. Today, this old house and the old stone barn match its location on an 1864 map and the description of the property when Jacob died in 1884.33

Joseph R., John R., and Mary, the three oldest children of Jacob and Adaline, moved to Illinois before they married, John and perhaps also Joseph in 1857. Mary joined them a few years later.34 Three daughters and a son of Jacob and Adaline died before their parents: Catherine in 1845 at age ten; Samuel in 1849 before he turned two; Magdalena in 1860 at age 23; and Anna in 1879 at age 40, leaving her husband Elias Faus and three children. Jacob’s and Adaline’s four remaining children lived and died in Pennsylvania.35

Jacob Snyder, with a Manheim postal address in Rapho Township, appears in the 1860 U.S. Census record along with daughter Adaline and sons Jacob, Henry, and Abraham. Apparently Jacob’s wife, Adaline, was elsewhere when the census enumerator visited their house. Jacob’s real estate was valued at $2,000 and personal estate at $100. In 1870, still in Rapho Township, Sporting Hill was the postal address. Jacob Snyder, age 66, now a retired farmer, had real estate valued at $4,000 and a personal estate valued at $1,000. His wife, “Atline,” age 62, was keeping house. Sons Henry, 22, and Abraham, 18, were “itinerants.” In the next house lived their daughter “Atline,” with her husband Benjamin Shearer, a farmer, and their one-year-old daughter Emma.36

Between those census years, it appears that Jacob Snyder patronized Emsminger and Co., a new photo studio in Manheim. A collection of photos from the studio, taken perhaps in early 1864, are, I think, of Jacob and Adaline and some of their children.37

How soon after 1870 Jacob and Adeline left their stone house in Rapho Township, we do not know; perhaps they waited to move until their youngest sons married. For an unknown time, Jacob and Adaline lived at Milton Grove, a small community in neighboring Mount Joy Township. There, on March 28, 1884, “Sister Adaline, wife of Bro. Jacob Snyder,” died at 76 years, 3 months, and 28 days. The funeral was at Risser’s Mennonite Church on April 1, where her body was buried in the church cemetery. “Sister Snyder died trusting in her Savior.” Little more than four months later, Jacob Snyder, a “widower of Mount Joy Township,” died intestate on August 5, 1884. We know his date and place of death from an Orphans’ Court record filed in August 1884, in a petition to have his real estate appraised.38

Named in the petition were Jacob’s seven surviving children: Joseph Snyder; John Snyder; Mary Groff; Jacob R. Snyder; Adaline Shearer; Henry Snyder; and Abraham Snyder; and grandchildren Samuel Faus, Mary Faus, and Ephraim Faus. The petition identified real estate in Rapho Township consisting of about 43 acres, adjoining property of Henry Ginder and others, with a two-story stone house, bank barn and other improvements. A second tract of about seven acres adjoined it, with a one-story frame house, barn, and other improvements.39

After the properties were appraised by seven disinterested persons, Samuel R. Zug, John S. Masterson, Abraham W. Shelly, Joseph F. Greiner, Daniel Lehman, Christian Haldeman, and Joseph B. Snyder, it was determined that the real estate could not be divided among the heirs “without prejudice to and spoiling the whole thereof.” The men appraised the 43-acre tract, with stone house, barn, and other improvements, at $3,600, and the second tract, of seven acres with house and other improvements, at $1,600. Son Jacob R. Snyder and son-in-law Elias Faus were administrators of the estate. The heirs and legal representative requested that the real estate be sold.40

On September 27, 1884, at one o’clock p.m., the sale of the two tracts of land was held on the premises of the larger acreage. The October 25 confirmation of the sale showed that the larger tract sold for $3,000 and the smaller for $1,551, to the “highest and best bidders.” Joseph Connelly bought the larger acreage, and Nathaniel Myers, the smaller. Purchase cost was to be paid in cash on April 1, 1885.41

While the real estate was going through the legal processes, Samuel R. Zug and John S. Masterson appraised the personal estate of Jacob Snyder. On a form filed on August 29, 1884, they itemized six chairs and a rocking chair, a table, a coal stove, two carpets, two beds and bedsteads, a desk and a bureau, Queensware (a type of earthenware with a brilliant glaze, developed from creamware by Josiah Wedgwood), and a chest and its contents, all together valued at approximately $42. In addition, three of Jacob’s sons, two sons-in-law, and another entity had loans to repay, with interest, plus Jacob had $109 cash on hand. The inventory totaled $2,122.57. The Family Book indicated that the children of his deceased daughter, Annie and his daughters, Adaline and Mary, were to have specified amounts of money, totaling $197.05.42

The final form filed on February 10, 1885, provided a summary of the estate of Jacob Snyder. The inventory, totaled at $2,122.57; plus $37.97 on the “sale of goods;” $54.89 of interest not included in the inventory; and the sale price of the real estate, altogether totaled $6,766.43. From that, $596.14 was deducted for final expenses. They included legal, filing, advertising and sales fees; medical care; funeral expenses including an $18 coffin, $224.54 for accountants’ commissions; a $50 tombstone, and assorted other costs. The amount for distribution to heirs was $6,170.29.43

The item “Board and allowance,” $85.50, to B.B. Shearer, husband of Jacob’s daughter Adaline, indicates that Adaline and Benjamin cared for Jacob during the last part of his life. In 1870, they were living in Rapho Township. Had they relocated by 1884? To Milton Grove in Mount Joy Township, where Adaline died? Wherever it was that Jacob lived with them in 1884, he was “of” Mount Joy Township, where a few months earlier, on March 28, at Milton Grove, his wife Adaline had died. His body was buried in Risser’s Mennonite Church Cemetery near that of his wife Adaline and the four children who had preceded both of them in death.44

Mary Snyder

Jacob’s and Adaline’s daughter, Mary Snyder, was the mother of Addie, the initiating subject of this narrative series. Mary was born on April 8, 1833, the first daughter in the family, with two older brothers. No doubt, as she grew up, she helped care for her younger siblings, one of whom died when Mary was age 12, another when she was 15. As a young woman, she saw her two older brothers move west to Illinois. She saw her surviving brothers and two of her sisters marry and have children. Her younger sister Magdalena died in 1860, before turning 24.45

Mary did not marry at the usual age. Likely, as a young woman, she worked as a domestic in homes needing help, perhaps when a baby joined the family or when there was an illness. We do not know where Mary was living when the 1860 census was taken; she was not named in the household of her parents, and other so-named women in the Lancaster Country census seem to not fit her age or likely location.

Tradition is that Mary was 30 or 35 when in the 1860s she moved to Benson, a small-town farming community in Woodford County, Illinois, where her brothers Joseph and John had settled in or about 1857. We can only ask questions and imagine possible answers about why Mary moved to Illinois. Did she want to explore making a living as a single woman in a younger community to the west? Did one of her brothers invite her to work in his household, or for someone he knew?46

Probably the Joseph Snyder who owned land in Clayton Township was Mary’s so-named brother. About a mile north of his farm lived Samuel Grove, who with his wife Barbra and children, Joseph and Mary Elizabeth, had moved about 1858 from Virginia to Illinois. Could it be that, when Barbra became ill, Samuel Grove needed a domestic to provide nursing care and manage his household? Might it be that Joseph Snyder, who lived nearby, recommended his sister Mary as a capable person for such needs? If so, was she already living in Illinois? Barbra Grove died on July 4, 1867, of an unspecified illness. About a year later, on July 8, 1868, Samuel Grove and Mary Snyder were married.47

Mary became the stepmother of Joseph, almost 18, and Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie,” almost 15. And Mary soon became a mother in her own right, to John Martin on February 4, 1869; Sarah Adaline “Addie” on March 4, 1872; and Cora Catherine on September 27, 1874. Young Joseph Grove soon left home, married, and in a few years moved farther west. Lizzie married in 1876.48

Although Samuel and Mary and their family were among a number of Mennonite families who lived in Woodford County, they had no congregation of which to be members; some in the area related to a Church of the Brethren congregation, but they mingled little if any with Amish Mennonites in the area. In 1883, when they moved 50 miles east from Woodford County to Cullom, in Livingston County, where Mary’s brother John R. Snyder and his family had already located, it may have been because they wanted to be part of the Cullom Mennonite Church. Mary’s brother, Joseph R. Snyder, remained in Woodford County.49

Cullom Mennonite Church

Samuel bought a farm near Cullom; but several years later, he became ill with Bright’s Disease and died on September 9, 1886, and was buried in the Sullivan Center Cemetery. He died intestate, and his farm had to be sold to pay his indebtedness. Numerous legal processes followed, some of them apparently adversarial.50

Finally, on March 20, 1888, a year and a half after Samuel died, the farm was sold at auction. Mary was not about to lose her home; she and her children needed a place to live and a way to make a living. With the help of her step-son-in-law, John M. Cox, Lizzie’s husband, she upped the first bid by a major step, then John Cox jumped in with a small bid above hers, and the bidding was closed. John Cox refused to stand by his bid, leaving Mary’s the winning bid. She bought her husband Samuel Grove’s farm for $4,800.51

How did Mary get the money to buy back the farm? After the February 10, 1885, settlement of her father Jacob Snyder’s estate, she would have received an inheritance of less than $1,000, but that would have been only a small portion of the cost. During the months of the court proceedings before the sale, Mary would have been in charge of the farm; could there have been farm income to provide some of the cash, or would that not have been available to Mary until the estate proceedings were finished? Did Mary and her teenage children hire out to other farmers or business people to earn money? Did one or more of her brothers assist her with a loan? We have no answers.52

Presumably, Mary continued to live on the farm for a time; probably her son John, not yet age 17 when his father died, helped her manage it, along with an occasional hired man. Younger daughters, Addie and Cora, may also have helped with farm work. In addition, Mary sold butter, considered to be of superior quality by storekeepers and buyers alike. Probably, like many farm women of her era, she also sold eggs.53

Before Mary married Samuel Grove at age 35, she had been an independent woman who learned how to manage whatever money she earned. Her children considered her “a woman of unusual ability” who “by thrift and untiring effort made a home” for them. After buying back the farm, it appears Mary had money for discretionary spending for such things as professional photos of each of her children when they were about 16 or 17. A tintype photo pictured on page 39, probably taken about 1889, shows Mary, seated in front of a house, probably hers; son John stands beside her, with a friendly looking black dog beside him. Daughters Addie and Cora stand behind the picket fence, as does a man in overalls, probably a hired hand.54

On November 19, 1891, son John Grove married Emma Haun. They lived in Cullom several years where their first two children were born, but after March 1895 they moved to Garden City, Missouri, and later to Hesston, Kansas, where they lived for the remainder of their lives.55

On May 1, 1893, Mary Grove borrowed $200 from John Philips for one year at 7% interest. Could this loan have had something to do with the upcoming marriage of her daughters? Several months later, on October 10, Cora married Christian/Chris Garber and, on December 5, Addie married Leonard Garber, an older brother of Chris. Or, did the loan have something to do with building a new house on Mary’s farm? If so, might Mary have employed young Leonard Garber, a trained carpenter who had moved from Michigan to Cullom about 1890, to be one of the carpenters, along with his younger brother Chris Garber?

The house (pictured above) presently located on that farm was built in 1893, according to county appraisal. Or did Mary in 1893 sell the farm on which the buyer built the new house? But, if so, where did Mary then live? Addie and Leonard may well have lived with Mary until they all moved to Minnesota in 1895. Cora and Chris first lived in Michigan.56

Though Leonard had trained as a carpenter, he decided to make his living as a farmer. Land farther west was less costly, and some Cullom Mennonites were moving to Jackson County, Minnesota. On January 29,1895, on an apparent winter prospecting trip, Leonard bought a 160-acre farm in Wisconsin Township and, with help from his brother Chris, built a little house there.

In March 1895, Leonard and Chris, with their wives and firstborns and Mary Grove, moved to that little house in Minnesota. They all lived there together, perhaps until Chris bought his own farm in January 1896. However, Mary Grove continued to live with Addie and her family. Likely Mary Grove had sold her farm at Cullom shortly before she moved to Minnesota.

In the spring of 1899, Mary moved with Addie’s and Leonard’s family to a farm several miles away, in Enterprise Township. Leonard had sold the Wisconsin Township farm and bought the second for less money. On March 21 of that year of 1899, Mary paid the 1898 personal property tax, $28.50 plus $2.85 penalty, totaling $31.35, on the Wisconsin Township property. Was Leonard short of cash as he sold one farm and bought another? Did Mary offer to pay the past-due tax, as one way to contribute to her upkeep in the family?

Even though the second house was larger, it was still a small house for the growing family, which included not only little boys but also a hired man in addition to Mary. About 1900, Leonard and his brother Chris built a two-room addition to the house, which they called a lean-to. It included both a bedroom for Mary and a parlor.

When Mary moved to Minnesota, Addie’s oldest son Ernie was a baby, and five more boys followed. Mary was an important part of the family. She helped Addie with housework and childcare. More than once, Mary rocked a fussy baby. She told her grandchildren Bible stories; she stayed with them when Addie and Leonard were away. One evening when they were at prayer meeting, little Ernie confided in Grandma Mary his worry that his father would go to war; Ernie had heard talk of the Spanish American War. Mary said no, that Ernie’s father did not believe it was right to go to war and kill people, and besides, he had a family to care for. Like Addie and Leonard, Mary was a charter member of the Alpha Mennonite Church. Most of its early members had moved to Jackson County from Cullom. Mennonites believe that Jesus taught people to follow ways of peace, which included conscientious objection to war.

Mary’s grandsons remembered her as a large, heavy woman, their memories borne out by photos of her. She cared for the household chickens as long as she was able, and grandsons helped by carrying out table scraps and scattering oats and corn. Living with rheumatism, she used a crutch to get around. Grandson Ernie recalled what he apparently considered playful times when Mary reached out her crutch toward her grandsons as far as she could, saying she was going to hit them on the Kup (head). They would stay out of her reach, teasing her, and she would laugh. When corn on the cob was in season, she would cut the corn off the ears before she ate the corn; her grandsons wanted it that way, too. Addie’s six boys were finally followed by a baby girl, Cora “Irene,” my mother, born on August 7, 1908.

About a year later, in the fall of 1909, Mary “was taken with a complication of diseases from which she suffered severely, but was patient through all her pain.” However, perhaps she was able to rock or entertain toddler Irene. In Mary’s last days, she sadly said to Addie, “Such a nice little girl, and I have to leave her.” On February 25, 1910, in Mary’s final hours, her daughters Addie and Cora with their husbands and children, surrounded Mary’s bed to be present with her as she died. Grandson Ernie remembered that she “smiled sweetly” one last time. Funeral services were held at Alpha Mennonite Church, with burial in Riverside Cemetery in Jackson.

Mary was the last of Addie’s Snyder ancestry. In Part IV, we will meet Rohrer and other affiliated families.