Yesterday I speculated that the homeowner I met on last Saturday’s ride may have, when he was a boy, met the grandchildren of Reuben White, who had served in the militia during the 1832 Black Hawk war.
There’s a good chance that I now know the names of those old people who would come to look at the old house. The 1916 History of Calhoun County tells about four generations of the White family. I’ll bet those were great-grandchildren, not grandchildren, and that they were three of the following: Thera, Guy, Glenn, and Esther. And they probably would have been born too late to know their great-grandfather, Reuben.
In 1916, the landowners were Gilbert B. White and his wife, Mattie. They were married in 1891, and had the four above-named children, who were in school at the time of writing. If the homeowner had seen them when he was a boy, say, in 1960, I suppose they would have seemed very old to him.
The 1880 census says Reuben White was then 73 years old, and in the column for “sicknesses or disabilities” is written, “Softening of brain.” I understand that to mean he had had a stroke or some ailment that left him similarly incapacitated.
He and his wife Cloe are buried to the right of the big White monument in the above photo (taken on a Thanksgiving Day ride in November 2006). But their individual markers are barely legible, and don’t give dates of death as far as I was able to tell. Still, it is unlikely that he lived long enough to have known his great-grandchildren.
This photo is taken next to the cemetery, looking in the direction of Reuben White’s old farmstead which is down the road a half mile away.
I haven’t ruled out the possibility that those old people who used to stop at the same place I did on a couple of my rides were not from the White family after all. But there is a good possibility that they were. It would be interesting to find out if there are still any descendents.
Found your question on AmishAmerica: What I want to know is, do they speak German with a Spanish accent? So I came over to check out your site. Very nice work, interesting too. Inspires me to be more curious of my environment.
Back to your question. I once heard an after dinner speaker named Doc Blakley say that he grew up in heavly Mexican influenced South Texas speaking only English, but since his heritage was German he took lessons in that tongue. Once on a trip to France he learned that a large group of Germans was housed at the same hotel as him so he hustled over to try out his German on them. After a few minutes of speaking to one of his fellow guests, the other fellow looked perplexed. Doc asked him if he said something wrong. He answered “Well no, but you have me confused. You look to be French, but you are speaking German with a Mexican accent!” So I guess maybe what you asked is possible.
Anyway, your site is great.
Thanks for stopping by, OldKat’77, and thanks for the kind words. That’s a good story. One of the reasons I asked is that it seems that the Amish around here speak German with somewhat of an American English accent.