Final thoughts

Tuesday would have been my father's 96th birthday. The other posts today are all the remaining stories from the recordings, and I've done multiple posts to conclude this week; it seems appropriate.

In the folder with the transcriptions was a letter from my father. It is undated, but reads: 

Dear Larry & Dovey,

It was good to hear your voice on the phone tonite, and I'm glad you have the happy prospects of parenthood. I take great delight in my grandchildren and the greater the number the greater the delight!

And here is the info about my grandparents:

Adam D. Hochstetler, born May 18, 1862 at Goshen, Indiana. Married Feb. 8, 1886 in Elkhart county, Indiana, to Catherine, daughter or Jephtha and Elizabeth (Yoder) Troyer. Catherine was born Jan. 29, 1860, died Sept. 23, 1896 in Fayett county, Illinois. Adam died Dec. 25, 1931, in Hutchinson, Kansas.

I was 11 years old when grampa died and I well remember him, and his huge Amish funeral. You may notice that Papa was 13 months old when his mother died. My grandfather was the eldest of 12 children and my father was the youngest of 8 children. I don't know of any description of my grandmother Hochstetler.

Papa's account of his childhood tells of his living with his grandparents. They were David J. Hochstetler, born April 3, 1839, and died Feb. 8, 1929. David J. Married Magdalene Eash, she was born Aug. 15, 1844, died May 4, 1920 (about a week after I was born!) My grandfather lifes to 69 years, my great grandfather lived to be 90 and his wife lived to be 76.

So much for the family history lesson!

Love, Dad.

With the letter undated I can only speculate that it was written when we found out Dovie was pregnant with "BAILEY ANNE, [born] May 29, 1983," as it's listed in Descendants of David J. and Magdalena Hochstetler, Third Edition 1995. Family listings of descendants of my great-great grandparents take 411 pages. Since the letter was written our listing (family #302) has grown to include "WILLIAM JOSEPH LEE, Mar. 25, 1985."

Joe and I had the opportunity to travel together to visit eastern Pennsylvania; we stopped by the historic marker in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania and even drove into property (marked "Do Not Enter") to see where the Hochstetler homestead was that merited the historical marker.

Later we were in Philadelphia and happened by an office of the National Archives, and stopped in. We were helped to find record of one of our ancestors, an experience that has spurred in Joe interest in the family he had not previously evinced.

Now there is another generation unlisted in "Descendants" books. And now there is at least a partial recounting of the life of David A. Hochstetler/Hostetler, family #297.


So much for the family history lesson.