Poeppelman Ancestry Trip - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Poeppelman Ancestry

My wife’s mother was a Poeppelman from the Ft. Loramie area and recently a reunion was held on the original family farm west of town still owned by a family member. The farm is located across Fortman Road from our home farm. A photo of the reunion attendees is shown above pictured in front of the house and barn. I was surprised to learn that OSU great AJ Hawk is a Poeppelman descendent, although I’m not sure if he’s in the photo or not. Also, the nearby land where Arrowhead Golf Course is situated was originally part of the Poeppelman family farm.

Check out this video of an interview with two Poeppelman sisters pictured above, Mary with the sunglasses, and Hilda, my mother-in-law, who both grew up on the home farm. Their parents died at a very young age, so the eight children in the photo below were raised by an aunt Clarie referenced in the video.

Back in 1837, ancestors Heinrich and Catharina Poeppelman emigrated to midwestern Ohio using the original chest shown below to transport their personal goods from the village of Rushendorf in northern Germany. The trip and other family history is documented in this write-up.

After the family reunion, the group of Poeppelman descendants pictured below traveled to Germany in order to see their homeland firsthand and to meet extended family members living in the area. Eleven of the travelers are friends of ours, including Larry, the best man at our wedding and his wife Donna, pictured 2nd and 3rd from the right. We discovered after all these years thanks to this photo that Donna and my wife are distant cousins! And my first cousin Don is the tall guy in the back row. Like me and Larry, he’s also married to a Poeppelman descendant.

Here’s a photo of the Ohioans enjoying some beer in their ancestral home town. Prost!

A stone marks the entrance to Hof Poeppelman, the home farm of the family's ancestors.

The five German Poeppelman’s (and their dog) pictured below in front of the Ohio travelers still own and live on the home farm. An interesting tidbit about the family is the husband changed his last name to that of the wife (rather than the reverse as is custom in the US) since his wife was a descendant of the landowning family. That custom maintains family ownership of the land in perpetuity.

Many thanks to Diane Poeppelman O'Connor, who organized the reunion and trip, for so completely documenting the events on social media which for use in this blog. A number of the Ohio Poeppelman’s attended German Heritage Days in Ft. Loramie over this past weekend. Apparently they learned some German while traveling, as evidenced by this video of them singing.

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US Constitution - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

US Constitution

Today is Constitution Day celebrating the 232rd anniversary of the completion and signing of the Constitution of the United States by a majority of delegates attending the 1887 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

Our 8th grade civics teacher, Mr. Hancock, was an advocate of the Constitution, so we had to memorize the preamble and all the amendments, of which there were 23 at the time, with the amendment allowing citizens of the District of Columbia to vote in presidential elections having just been ratified.

Today when the phrase “Constitutional crisis” is regularly in the news, we need to pause from our busy lives and revisit this historic document. Knowing our basic rights as American citizens safeguards our democracy, encourages informed debate and hopefully ensures that we’ll preserve our system of government for generations to come.

The Constitution appropriately starts with “We the People...”. The original is stored in the Smithsonian and is under constant guard as shown in this photo.

Here are some interesting facts about this most important historical document:

Getting the new constitution ratified was not an easy process as 2/3rds (9) of the 13 original states had to approved these fundamental principles of our new republic.

The Constitution establishes and defines the three branches of government:

After the ratification of the original Constitution, 27 amendments have been approved by the States, with the first 10 called the Bill of Rights ratified in 1791. Click this link for a synopsis of each amendment: https://historyplex.com/27-amendments-to-us-constitution

Thanks, Mr. Hancock, for making the Constitution a living document for our class back then and definitely still today for me.

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UFO's - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Unidentified Flying Objects

As a kid in the 1950’s, a favorite pastime was laying in the grass during summer evenings gazing up into the nighttime sky. With little or no light pollution back in those days, the sky was filled with countless stars shining ever so brightly. Learning about the solar system, the Milky Way and other galaxies in school may have helped spur my astronomical interest, but, in reality, it was the predominance of reported UFO sightings back then that really got my attention.

 

During this period, Roswell, New Mexico was in the news because of a reported UFO crash near the town and subsequent recovery of a flying saucer as referenced in this headline at the time. Officially, the government said the device was a weather ballon, but most people, including myself, believed the weather ballon story was just a cover-up. Back then UFO sightings were reported regularly and according to reports, UFO evidence was being stored at Area 51 in Nevada, a government owned, highly classified facility located inside the Nevada Test & Training Range.

Locally, rumor also had it that an actual alien had been captured and transported to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, which really brought the UFO mysteries close to home for me.

Peering into the night sky those many summers looking for UFO’s never did yield my own personal sighting; however, I did observe may shooting starts, northern lights and occasional flashing lights from airplanes that flew over. Just trying to comprehend the immensity of space itself was the long-lasting benefit of those summer evenings. My desire to someday become an aeronautical engineer was developed during this period, but somewhat sidetracked late when I became an automotive engineer. To this day, on every full moon, year around, I go outside to gaze up at the moon. Because of the light pollution where we live, that’s unfortunately the only heavenly body that is evident in the night sky these days.

Then in 1959, a TV series called The Twilight Zone was created by Rod Serling to further expand my vivid imagination. The shows had a science-fiction/fantasy theme, with opening and closing narration by Serling, and an ending with a twist. Most shows led to some bad dreams as I recall!

On September 19-22, the Little A’Le”inn located near Area 51 in Rachel, Nevada will be hosting a so-called AlienStock Festival to commemorate the UFO. One of the threatened activities is to “storm Area 51” and look for extraterrestrial evidence. We’ll see how that goes!

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Blue Ribbon Winner - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Blue Ribbon Winner

The Sidney Daily News had a listing recently of all the Shelby County Fair winners and I was amazed how well my sister Lucy's entries did during the floriculture competition. Of the 83 categories, she had an entry in 60 and received a blue ribbon (1st) for 14 entries, a red ribbon (2nd) in 12 and a white ribbon (3rd) in 6 entries. My sister and a sampling of her prize-winning floral arrangements are pictured below.

Lucy learned those floral skills as a young girl from our mother, who always had a thriving vegetable and flower garden. I recall how she would plant rows of intermixed flowers and vegetables throughout the garden, as shown in this 1989 photo.

Dad always claimed the garden was so plentiful because of the fresh manure he’d spread on the patch each spring. We as kids always claimed it was because of our constant weeding of the garden; but in reality there was no doubt it was mom’s skills & TLC that was primarily responsible for the beautiful flowers and fresh vegetables that made it to our table all summer long. Here’s a prior blog post about Mom’s garden (as well as my mother-in-law’s flower garden).

This photo of Mom holding a vase of roses was taken back in the 80’s on Mother’s Day; note all the cards tacked to the wall behind her. She loved roses and had planted some along the white board fence in the front yard, so the contrast with the bright red roses was striking as shown in this photo. As kids, I recall making bouquets of dandelions for Mom that she “appreciated”.

After Mom’s death in 2003, in her memory, I transplanted one of the rose bushes next to her tombstone, but unfortunately such growings were not allowed per cemetery rules so the caretakers had it removed.

Just as Mom got help with her garden, my sister Lucy is assisted by her daughter (and my God-daughter) Leslie pictured here, along with a photo of her kids and Lucy with some of the winning ribbons. The fern earned Lucy Best of Show for the 2018 fair. Also Leslie and her brother Nick are pictured below planting flower seeds in my Mom’s garden back in 1985.

Here are photos of my sister Lucy’s flower garden early in the season and while in full bloom just before the fair. It’s quite a chore to cut the flowers, make up all the arrangements, transport them to the fair and set them up for judging. Afterwards, I think she brings them to local nursing homes for senior citizens to enjoy.

Click this link for the list of all the Shelby County Fair floriculture winners and see just a portion of the floral displays at the fair in this photo.

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