More on Our Immigrant Ancestor ...

 

Poor Johann Friedrich Elling really didn't get to enjoy the joys of America too long. I mentioned earlier that he was in the 1860 census and at that time he was a day laborer, owned no real estate and had personal goods worth $100.

By the 1870 census, several of the daughters had left the home to marry or work as domestics, leaving just our ancestor - son Fritz, aged 17 - and his little sister, Annie, aged 10, at home with their father, now aged 55, and mother, aged 57. Now Johann Friedrich had real estate valued at $3000 and the worth of his personal goods had climbed to $400. (This census was very difficult to find as the census taker wrote the last name as "Alling.")

Unfortunately, J. Friedrich would only live approximately one more year. I could find no will and I have not yet searched land records to determine ownership and land location. I need to find if the same farm of the 1870 census was passed down to son Fritz...the one we saw in the plat map in an earlier post. My guess is that it is the same. Fritz would have been only 18 or so when he had to take over the farming and serve as head of the household.

Johann Friedrich Elling died on July 17, 1871, of consumption (tuberculosis.) The probate death records list his death in 1871; however a close look at the tombstone shows 1870. In this case, a probate records trumps the tombstone inscription. His tombstone still stands in the cemetery at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Napoleon Township at the corner of Roads 17 and Q1. It is located in Lot D2, the sixth row back from Road 17 and near the creek. It is very difficult to read, but the name is fairly clear, along with the age at death. The verse at the bottom of the stone, which is probably a Bible verse, was impossible for me to decipher.

Wife Mary is buried in the 1st row, but there is no marker for her...maybe that is something the family can correct sometime. It appears that in the early days, folks were buried in the order in which they died so that family groups are not together. Fortunately, the church has kept good cemetery plot records.

I hope you all can take a few moments sometime to visit this grave site to think about the trials of our ancestor and the risks he took in bringing his family to America.