Grape School in 1901 with George, Guy and Harry Doty Attending

 From the Evening News, March 9, 1963.

Pictured are my great-grandfather, George Doty, from Raisinville, Michigan, and his brothers, Harry and Guy. 

Thanks to Marilyn Merkle Dunning for this find!

Little Arthur Elling

 

My father, born in 1923, had a brother who passed away as an infant in 1917. Born to Albert and Ida Elling on October 3, 1916, Arthur Elling died in York Township, Fulton County, at the age of five months, six days. As was the custom then, his photo was taken after death in his coffin as a remembrance.

His coffin was swathed in roses and carnations, and his body was probably prepared and laid in the coffin in their home. His mother, Ida, was the informant on the death certificate, signed Ida Elling, Delta, O. Arthur was born between their oldest son, Paul (1914) and their oldest daughter, Alma (1919).

He died of pneumonia in a time when antibiotics were not particularly known of or used by most folks. He was buried in the Lutheran Cemetery in Swan Creek Township, Fulton County, between Liberty Center and Delta, at 5565 County Road D. 

 The death certificate asked for the name of the father and mother and their birthplaces, but instead Arthur's grandparents names were given: Fred Elling, born Germany and Mary Rhores (Rohrs), born Germany. That could have been a language barrier problem.

Perhaps Ida and Albert, who were married in 1913, were living with his parents at the time?

We Can Stop at Ratsville

 

"Let's take a little drive to Ratsville..." Every once in a while, when I was young, my family would take a drive after dinner to check out the crops and perhaps stop for a treat.  Sometimes the stop would be in Ratsville, now a "ghost town" in Henry County located in Liberty Township. Once, back when I remember in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a store there in a pretty well-worn building where one could pick up very limited groceries or a treat. 

The history of Ratsville was noted in a book on ghost towns in Henry County, now out of print. Walter Shockey, Richard Helwig and Charlie Griffith researched and wrote the story which is still of interest today.

"Cloverleaf (Corners) (Ratsville) Liberty Township, 1886- 1903

Cloverleaf, which is sometimes referred to as 'Ratsville,' was located in the northwest one-quarter of the Northwest one-quarter of Section 21, Liberty Township, Henry County, Ohio. The land on which Cloverleaf or Ratsville stood was owned by the Joseph Hoover family. Later the ownership of the property was transferred to the Fred Silveous family who were descendants of Joseph Hoover.

In 1886, John Silveous built a general store with living quarters located above the store on the southwest corner of the present day intersection of Henry County roads 11 and V. The original store at Cloverleaf Corners was cheaply built and unpainted and covered with red and yellow advertisements for a popular chewing tobacco.

The store received its light from kerosene lamps and was heated by a potbellied stove which was housed on the second floor. The front of the store had a low porch roof across the front with wooden hitching rails near the entrance.

Cloverleaf was never much more than a crossroads with a general store. In the 1800s, there were many such communities in the old Black Swamp region of Northwest Ohio.  The reason these towns prospered was the fact that country roads all over the region were passable only in the summer. Rather than fight the rain, mud, and muck of the swampy roads, farmers would stop at the crossroads general store closest to their farms.

The Cloverleaf store was one of the Black Swamp's finer 'shopping centers.' It contained everything from groceries and hardware to shoestrings, yard goods, drugs and, of course, the old cracker barrel.

Just across the road from the general store in Cloverleaf was located a cheese factory, which was opened in the late 1800s and operated until the early 1900s. This factory faced east in the southwest corner of the crossroads. Farmers from miles around would bring their surplus milk to have it made into cheese. The cheese factory went out of business when Pet Milk in Delta and Van Camp's condensary in Wauseon established regular milk pickup routes in the area.

In addition to John Silveous, other operators of the Cloverleaf store were the Fether and Jewell families, and Carl and Dora Sturdevant Wiles. The Wiles purchased the store in 1903, but three years later, a ravaging blaze destroyed the building.

Today, in 1980, a small cluster of homes dot the site of old Ratsville, while the site of Cloverleaf was turned into farmland."

By the time that I was aware of Ratsville, a "new" store was built about a half mile from the original.  

According to the Henry County History, Volume Two, 1976, Ratsville was named because of a joke, but the name stuck. "...one day the neighbors caught a great number of rats and, as a joke, some boys nailed them to a board and put them on the front of the store. The owner at the time became angry and chased the boys and so they named the store Ratsville.

In the photo above, it looks like a gas pump was available instead of hitching posts. If one were a kid with a little money, candy and gum or a bottle of pop could be purchased. It was a part of our childhood, but the actual building is not there anymore.

Who else remembers Ratsville?

German Burial Practices Explained

 

How wonderful it is to welcome guest bloggers, Ava and Chuck Stanford, cousins extraordinaire!

Recently, Ava sent to me their 2018 travel journal from a trip to Germany and especially to all villages Elling-related. That's one of my dream trips, so it was especially satisfying to read their account of people met and visits to Tielingen and Stellichte, among others.

While there, they visited cemeteries, looking for Ellings, but were enlightened to the burial practices in Germany. Those graves will never be found!

Ava and Chuck wrote:

"During the early days of our visit, we were confused by the lack of cemeteries at several churches and towns.  The cemeteries we did find were very neatly maintained with gorgeous flowers and neatly manicured gardens surrounding new, polished headstones - all with relatively current dates. We saw very few dated before 1975 and virtually none prior to WW II.

'Where are all the people?' we wondered.  Where are all the old gravestones and especially those of the Ellings who we came to visit?  Tietlingen has no cemetery at all, and Stellichte's new small memorial park was not much more than 1/2 acre in size.  In fact, the church cemetery at St. George Christophorus Jodocus Ev. Lutheran Church in Stellichte was actually plowed over several years ago when it became to much to maintain, according to the custodian who is married to the church secretary and lives next door in her family's 400 year-old home.  Now the church maintains no cemetery at all, except for the original Von Behr family plots for whom the church was built in 1608.

Church at Stellichte

Well, here is the rest of the story...it turns out there are several unusual things about burial laws in Germany.

• When you buy a burial plot n Germany, whether it be one plot or a family grouping of 8-12 plots, you only purchase it for 30 years - that is 30 years from the date of the first funeral.
• The plot may be repurchased again at the end of the 30 years and again at 60 years.
• The policy results in part from emigrants and family members moving away from the local area, leaving no one to care for the gravesite nor anyone who has an ongoing connection to the deceased.

There are strict regulations pertaining to maintenance during the 30 year period to assure consistent appearance of the sites - sort of like an HOA that maintains the appearance of your neighborhood.

• Burials are restricted to only wooden caskets. Metal caskets and burial vaults are strictly prohibited, and, in fact, unheard of at one church we visited.  The idea is that wooden caskets will decompose in 20-30 years and be 'totally' recycled by the time the plot s resold in 30 years.  

If any remains (such as femur bones that are the last to decompose) are found when excavating a 'reused' site, they are simply buried deeper and the new occupants are added on top of the existing site

One pastor told us there was only one metal coffin in his entire cemetery that belonged to a woman who had committed suicide using poison.  The woman had ingested such a massive dose of poison that the authorities were worried about the decaying body polluting the ground water, and they insisted a metal coffin be used to contain any contamination.

The policy is the same for cremation, where cremains are only allowed to be buried in wood urns that will deteriorate withing the 30 year time period.

Very few historically important gravestones are retained, and those are 'only for decoration,' according to one pastor." 

********

Here is a great website to read about this topic, adding even more information.

The German Way of Death and Funerals • The German Way & More (german-way.com)

IF by Mable Baker

 

If you could see your ancestors 

All standing in a row, 

Would you be proud of them?

Or don't you really know?

Some mighty strange discoveries are made 

In climbing family trees, 

And some of them you know

Might not particularly please

If you could see your ancestors

All standing in a row

There might be some of them

You wouldn't care to know

But here is another question

That requires a different view.

If you could meet your ancestors

What would they think of you?