Emma Louisa Troeger in 1866 (1828-1901)

My g-g-g-g-grandmother Emma Louisa Troeger daughter of George F. Troeger pioneer and missionary.

 

George F. Troeger was born October 14, 1791, in NeuWied Germany, the second child of GFT senior and Anna Barbara Boller. (First child was stillborn son, third was daughter Anna Louisa 1793). Father died of “camp fever” in 1793. George was “placed under entire control of the Moravian Church, and lived 28 years in vicinity of Herrehut and Bertheldorf. By “entire control” I presume he was educated and probably apprenticed in the Choir system with other boys of his age.

There is a family anecdote (told by his granddaughter Rhoda Beitel Platt) that as a young man George worked in his uncle’s brewery, pouring sample drinks for customers and encouraged to drink with them. Fearing he would develop a taste for liquor, he quit the job, even turning down his uncle’s offer of sole inheritance, and came to America in 1819. I have no confirmation for this story, of course, but is sounds pretty Moravian and could well be true.

Coming to Pennsylvania in 1819, he wanted to be ordained minister in the Moravian church, but first spent some years otherwise, first in unsuccessful business ventures, later in teaching school. In 1827 he was called by the Conference to preach the Gospel in Lebanon County, PA. The felt he needed a wife and helpmeet, so the matter was settled in the customary Moravian manner, by submitting the question to the Lot (Ja, Nein, or blank)—which probably meant Insufficient Data??). George was then 36 years old; his bride, Magdaleine Elizabeth Rondthaler, was about 19, and according to another family legend, not totally thrilled with the arrangement. This was not as cold-hearted a business as it sounds, however; the Moravians traditionally settled all kinds of important questions by the Lot, and in matter of marriage, both parties had to be willing or the decision didn’t count. Madaleine’s father Emanuel Rondthaler was pastor at the church at Nazareth, PA; her three younger half-brothers all became noted Moravian preachers and teachers.

George and Magdaleine were married on July 15, 1827, and went to their first parish, the Bethel and Hebron churches near Lebanon, PA. Info is a little vague about this. George is liste3d as the Hebron pastor from 1827-35, and the Bethel church, 10 miles distant, was supplied by the Hebron pastor I think, until it closed entirely in early 1830s. Both churches were two story buildings, with sanctuary on the second floor and pastor’s residence on the first, and some part used as a school also. The Hebron church was a fair-sized stone building with two kitchens, one for pastor’s family use and the other for the preparation of congregational Lovefeasts and other social functions. There was dug-out basement for shelter from hostile Indians (who had been a real problem in the 1750s but probably not later.) The services included the same types of services as wer held in the original Moravian communities of Bethlehem and Nazareth—with organ and trombone choir, singing of anthems, the Children’s Lovefeast on Christmas Eve, etc.

Times were not easy for the minister, however. He received very little salary, and had to augment his living by cutting down and selling timber from the church acreage. He seems to have taught the school also, at least part of the time, and probably Magdaleine assisted in this, since she had graduated from the Bethlehem FemSem and taught a bit.

Four children were born during the Bethel/Hebron years: Emma Louisa, 5/13/28; Bertha Elizabeth, 7/2/30; Henry Alexander, 2/20/32, and Frederick Jeremiah 8/14/34.

In October 1835, the family removed from the Lebanon area to their next church I Gnadenhutten, Ohio. The journey took three weeks, traveling via the Pennsylvania and Ohio canal system, and at least part of the trip on a plain old canal freight boat where they had to sleep in a dark locked hold at night among boxes and barrels of cargo. George was suffering from regular attacks of the “ague” (malarial fever common in that time and area.) In Gnadenhutten he again had to serve two or three different churches in rotation, crossing and recrossing the Tuscarawas River when it was swollen with spring rain, melted snow, ice cakes or driftwood. The translation of the church diary of those years confirms that he was often too sick to preach, and that other members of the family suffered various illnesses, but all of them survived. Living conditions there were probably more primitive than in the Lebanon area, but there was a well-organized school.

In the summer of 1837 they moved again, this time to northeastern Pennsylvania in the “Beechwoods” area near Lake Wallenpaupack. A brand-new congregation of German emigrants had been formed there, and Grandfather Emanuel Rondthaler was at least partly responsible for sending them their first minister. When the Troegers arrived (the present-day town is called Newfoundland) the church was being built by the men of the congregation with materials at hand, namely timbers from “mighty hemlocks” felled with their axes, roughly shaped and fitted together without use of nails, insulated with stones and clay between the walls. Like the Hebron and Bethel churches, the second floor was the sanctuary and the minister’s family lived downstairs. Rev. GFT himself helped complete the building and putting on the church roof. It was dedicated November 5, 1837, and called “Hopedale”… A later minister, writing the congregational history, says “The trials and hardships of this period can scarcely be overestimated. Wild animals of all kinds make life dangerous. Wallenpaupack Creek rose in flood over the flats. A measles epidemic swept thru the village. Several men were killed while felling trees.” The family records say that they lived in extreme poverty at Hopedale (and things hadn’t been exactly plushy anywhere before that). George was compelled to sow rye for bread among the tree stumps. When Grandfather Rondthaler visited in his official capacity, he was so overcome by their plight that he burst into tears.

In October 1838 they moved once more, this time to Emmaus near Bethlehem , presumably to a more civilized and comfortable location, again preaching and teaching in the school.

About 1839 or 1840 they moved to Nazareth, where George became the “Vorsteher Amt” or church warden, at about the same time Grandfather Rondthaler retired as the minister. During this period George passed through what his Memorial refers to as “a fiery trial”… “being very conscientious in his duties, he soon discovered that there were hurtful practices in vogue among the farmers who rented the land belonging to the church, in the delivery of their rents, and he being a practical farmer saw that the church was losing thereby, so he kindly remonstrated against the practice—was met with anything but thanks fro the interference—so he revealed the truth to the Bethlehem authorities who brought investigation. A great deal of unjust criticism was heaped on him by some—so Father was removed from his appointment and was succeeded by Brother Roepper, who ultimately sold some of the land as had been suggested by Father. They retired and took up their abode for the time being in the Bruder Haus at Nazareth, terribly humiliated and cast down. Here Mother became the comforter again and again. Later investigation proved that his unfaithfulness has been misrepresented—“He was apologized to and appointed to minister the church at Schoeneck, a mile north of Nazareth.

They remained in Schoeneck from 1844 t o1855. During this time daughters Emma and Bertha finished their education at the Bethlehem FemSem, each spent a year teaching there, and then married; Emma to Julius Theodore Beitel in 1848, Bertha to Henry Sigler 1854. Henry Alex married Ottilia Martin (sometime before 1857) and Jeremiah married Sophia Beitel (Julius’s sister) in 1855. The Beitel’s father, George Leibert Beitel, was a butcher in the Nazareth/Schoeneck area who supplied meat t o the girls’ school. All four children moved westward, at least three of them settling in DeKalb County, Illinois.

“When George’s memory began seriously to fail him, the Conference having released him from active duties as a minister, he and Magdaleine moved to Squaw Grove, Illinois (about 1855)” He preached locally for several more years, until he was stricken with palsy. A second attack left him crippled and unable to walk for the last two years of his life. “A few days before his death he said to our mother ‘Meine Zeit is auf, ich gehe jetz Heim.’ (My time is over ,I go now Home.) He died at 3 pm on the 22 of August 1874, at the age of 82 years, 10 months and 8 days.

Magdaleine resided with Emma and Julius Beitel and their 12 children on the family homestead near Hinckley, where she made quilts, read the Bible, and was active in church work until her death November 11, 1893, age 85 years. Although partially deaf most of her life, she was described by her granddaughter Rhoda as being a fine musician (a typically Moravian attribute). It is also interesting to not that she apparently suffered some pre-natal injuries when her mother fell from horseback two months before M. was born (the mother died when M. was three months old). Yet in spite of inherited weaknesses and a life of severe pioneer hardships, M. lived to age 85 and outlived all six of her younger Rondthaler half-brothers and-sisters.

George and Magdaleine are buried in the United Presbyterian cemetery at Somonauk, a few miles southwest of Hinckley.

 

Done