George Rödiger, pt 2-- "in America"

This post is a continuation of the last post, so if you haven't already, you might want to read it first. It may have been better to put one of George's descendants to work on this subject because I have just the bare bones facts to relate. But I shall supply what I know, and hope for comments to help flesh it out.

If you have photos or newspaper clippings that relate to this, let me know so we can post something more complete in the future.

When George arrived in Ohio in 1888, he was reunited with his brother, Conrad Tobias (my great-grandfather) and his first cousins (who were also his half-nephews), Tobias, Conrad, Adam and Justus (Gus) Eichenauer who had preceded him to Ohio. I found a file card pertaining to his naturalization in the Auglaize County Courthouse, Probate Office, in Wapakoneta which says that George arrived at Baltimore on December 4, 1888, and was became a naturalized citizen on 24 October 1896.

The ship record itself says, Dec. 3, and his obituary says Dec. 6, so there is a bit of a discrepancy but nothing critical at all.

As you may remember from pt. 1, George arrived in Baltimore with his five surviving children, Nicolaus, age 15; Conrad, age 11; Elisabeth, age 9 and Margaretha, age 4.
Since the Census Record of 1890 was almost completely destroyed in a fire in Washington DC, we do not have the first census record that George and his family would have been found in. Twelve years after their arrival, George appears in the 1900 Census of Washington Twp, Auglaize County, Ohio. I have reproduced just the first half of the page, otherwise it would be too small for you to read. However, the right half of the page does inform us that the Roedigers were born in Germany, immigrated in 1888 and had lived in the US for 12 years, and that George was a naturalized citizen.
What I want you to see from this census is that the only child still living at home is the youngest daughter, Margaret, who is now 16. This should not be too surprising since her elder siblings would have all been old enough to have "left the nest."

According to the Auglaize County Death records, two of George's children died in 1895 of "brain fever" just a little over a month apart: Conrad George on 25 September 1895, age 18 years and 1 day; and Anna Katharina Elisabeth on 28 October 1895, age 16 years and 8 days. I know the graphic is difficult to read. I can send you a copy of this page if you request it.

This left George's oldest child, Heinrich Nicolaus and Margaretha. Heinrich Nicolaus went by "Henry" and I found him in Washington Twp, Auglaize County, Ohio in the 1900 Census listed as Henry N. Roediger:

Again, I have cut off the righthand side of the page to make this more legible. What I discovered is that Henry was single, working as a servant (right side of page specifies "farmhand") and living with the John M. Arnett family. What is unusual is that his age is listed as unknown and no birth date info is provided. It may be that Henry was away or out on the "back 40" when the enumerator arrived, and the Arnett's didn't know Henry's birthdate or year, so it was left blank. According to the righthand side of the record, Henry could read, write and speak English and was born in Germany, as were his parents.

Sadly, Henry did not live until the 1910 census. His headstone can be found in Arnett Cemetery, located on the Moulton-New Knoxville Rd, between Washington Pike and Weifenbach Rd. south of Moulton in Auglaize Co.

"Henry Roediger died Dec. 23, 1905, aged 32y, 8m 6d"
"We shall meet again dear brother in a brighter clime than this,
where the anguish of this world of ours is lost in deathless bliss."

While attempting to discover  Henry's cause of death, through the Auglaize county death records, I discovered that the death records for those who died between 1899 and 1909 are completely missing.  This is very mysterious and of course, leaves us in the dark as to Henry's cause of death. I feel obligated to investigate the cause for this, and determine if these records were stashed in a separate book that was never digitized or if they are gone forever.

So, I have had to fall back on the recollections of my Dad, who at one time said that he thought that Nicolaus Heinrich Roediger had been hit and killed by a train. I would appreciate hearing from any of you that might be able to shed some light on this. If nothing is forthcoming, I will try to peruse the Wapak newspaper collection the next time I get to Wapak to see if I can find an obituary or an article concerning his death.

In any case, out of the 9 children from George's first marriage, 5 died under age 6, before he came to America. Of the remaining 4, two died in their teens from "brain fever" and 1 died at age 32 without marrying, from a cause yet to be discovered.

That leaves Anna Margaretha Agnesa "Margaret", whom I am happy to say survived her childhood, married William Wesley Aufderhaar and they had 9 children of their own and numerous descendants.

I can only imagine the sadness that must have been in George Roediger's heart, to lose his wife and five children in their childhood and his house and barn to a fire; to come to America for a fresh start and within a relatively short time lose three more children in the prime of their lives. I do not know how this affected his outlook on life, but he did not give up on life, of that I am sure.

And that story will be part of an upcoming post, "George Roediger, pt. 3--A New Family".

Stay Tuned!