November 19, 2002
Notes on attached five page copy headed FACTS ABOUT
GRANDPOP...Numbers below follow the numbers in the right hand margin in the
FACTS narrative. (As tho you would not have guessed!)
1. This is
Kulpsville, the Lansdale exit of the NE Ext. of the Pa. Trnpke, where we, at
that time, were forced to spend a couple of nights in a quasi flea bag motel
awaiting the availability of a bedroom at one of my siblings, whereupon we
changed flights and flew back to Tucson without seeing any family...A more or
less typical Allebach snafu.
2. ‘Grandpop’
is, of course. J.K. (Jacob Kooker) Allebach, your great grandfather.
3. Henry Souder’s
history and William Hemsings diary are local classics and provide indispensable
background for my generation, tho I would guess would have limited interest for
you.
4. We don’t
remember Stella; she died from ‘complications’ on the birth of her 5th
child, who is still living (Ginny Moyer wife of Bob, the undertaker, whom you
may have met); she is around a year older than me (I?). Russ Trumbore, Stella’s husband, after a
decent interval, married Mami (sp? pronounce
it MayMe), who was considerably younger than he and
fertile as all hell and no doubt, knocked up, as was more or less typical in
those days. You may know that we (me and
my 5 siblings) grew up in half of a twin house on what was once Price Ave, but
has long since been Fifth St. in Souderton. Russ & Mami lived in the other
half of the twin and begat 10 or 11 kids there, so there were some 20 people
living in that modest dwelling. When
Stella died, Big Russ (as we used to call him to distinguish him from Little
Russ, his oldest child who soon became bigger than Big Russ) could not take
care of his first brood of kids and farmed them all out except Little Russ, who
was perhaps a bit too rambunctious.
Grandpop and Grammy Allebach took baby Ginny. Uncle Pence and Aunt Martha took Leon (later
known as Lefty for obvious reasons).
Aunt Florence (JKA’s oldest daughter) and Uncle Bush (Bob Raudenbush’s
parents) took daughter Florence (always known as ‘Sis’); and a childless couple
(whose name escapes me, except I believe she was known as Aunt Minnie) took
young Jake (no doubt after JKA, Stella’s father). I seem to remember that Aunt Minnie was
either a sister of Big Russ or maybe a young aunt of Mamie. Far as I know, these kids were all happy in
their childhood and became responsible adults.
Sis took the Raudenbush last name but the others remained
Trumbores. Lefty and Jake both stayed in
the army after WWII till retirement age.
5. This was
Penrose Hunsberger, a younger brother of Maggie, who actually was my dad’s
uncle but was always known to us kids as Uncle Pence (The Pa. Dutch
pronunciation of shortened Penrose).
6. This was the
aforementioned Will Hemsing,s (William Souder Hemsing) establishment where they
made fine wood furniture like tables and chairs, examples of which you will
still find in the local countryside.
Both Uncle Pence and Wilmer Allebach (JKA’s first child with Maggie)
worked there for many years and were generally considered to be master cabinet
makers.
7. The Zendts were an important family in Souderton
for several generations. They owned a
men’s clothing factory on Penn Ave and made big bucks during WWII making
uniforms. Norm was widely known as the
Republican Party leader and as a member of the local school board. He wasn’t particularly friendly with my pop
who was a red hot FDR man.
8. The Allebach
in Allebach & Souder was from a different branch of the family, tho he must
have been distantly related. They had a
plain Mennonite clothing store up at the corner of Main & Summit in
Souderton. When I was growing up, the
‘Old’ Mennonites wore the same kind of clothes you now tend to associate with
the Amish. Over the years, they have
gradually become more worldly and it would be unusual to see plain dress in
Souderton today. Sometime during the
early 20th century, I believe, a group of more modern thinking
Mennonites split from the old church and created the ‘New’ or ‘Zion’
Mennonites, They wore regular clothing, bought other than black cars, had
trained and paid ministers, and were generally indistinguishable from Reformed
or Lutherans. In Souderton, some
relatively recent years ago, the New Mennonites acquired the old Thompson
estate tract at Cherry Lane and Front Streets (This tract included what we used
to call Thompson’s woods behind our house on 5th St, where every
evening during the summer, large flocks of starlings and blackbirds would
circle our place before spending the night roosting in the trees in the
woods.), where they built a fine modern church, which I am told has the largest
attendance in town.
9. Mae was
JKA’s youngest child. She was born in
1911 (and died several years ago), which made her around six years older than
Ginny and only eight years older than me.
She and Ginny became virtual sisters.
10. Dal Smoot
was coach of all boys sports at Souderton High since my memory runneth not to
the contrary. He had some very good
teams during his career until your Uncle Ken came along. In my senior year, I was the only returning
letter man on the football squad and was consequently named captain. Turned out that I was so poorly grounded in
football fundamentals that about all I knew was how to keep score and I had no
use for that since we did not score one point during the entire season. The moral of that story is that all coaches
should make sure to have at least two letter men returning next year. Al Loux was our long-time civics teacher and
a good one at that. He came from a good
local family with an unusual number of well educated people for the time.
11. Souderton
was incorporated as a borough in 1887.
Prior to that, the area was simply a part of Franconia Township, which
was established in 1731 as part of Philadelphia County. Montgomery County was carved out of Philadelphia
in 1784, so that Franconia, as an established governmental entity is some 50
years older than the county in which it is located. Hence, any names from this area relating to
the Revolutionary War would have been citizens of Franconia Twp. Since this was solid Mennonite country, it is
not surprising that there are many more names listed as exempt from service
than would otherwise seem likely.
12. JKA was
married twice: first to Annie G. Delp, with whom he had one child: Abraham
(Abe), for whom I have no dates. Abe
married Blanche Somebody and they often visited us; they had no kids but
obviously enjoyed kids; they both lived to a ripe age. Annie Delp died 5/8/87. JKA married second, Margaret Ann (Maggie)
Hemsing Hunsberger (b. 4/13/67 d. 9/14/38) on 6/16/88; they had 8 kids, in
order of age: Wilmer (b. 12/8/89), Florence, Paul, Stella, Charles (your
grandfather), Margaret. Stewart, and Mae.
Maggie seems to have been a favorite cousin of Will Hemsing.
GENEALOGICAL NOTE
Information on the Allebach ancestry is a mixed bag
and not always reliable. It appears that
JKA’s father was Henry B., a farmer in Blooming Glen; he was born 1/16/1831 and
died 12/31/75 at age 44, which was relatively young. His wife, the former Hannah Kooker was left
with 5 girls and 2 boys, including JKA, who was then only nine. Hannah did what she had to do and shopped her
kids around, including JKA. I don’t know
if she remarried but, from data I’ve seen, she lived till 1914, which would
have made her 79.
All the Allebachs in Bucks and Montgomery Counties are
believed to be descended from the immigrant, Christian Allebach, who, it is
said came to America (Philadelphia) in 1717, a year in which many other Swiss
Mennonites came to Penn’s colony, including the Hunsicker immigrant, named
Valentine, a not uncommon first name in those days. Our maternal grandparents were Nari and
Marcella Hunsicker. The Swiss Mennonites
were severely persecuted in Europe for their religious beliefs and many
migrated up the Rhine to the Palatinate (Pfalz in German), where they may have
lived for several generations before William Penn enticed them to come to
Pennsylvania, where they were guaranteed religious freedom.
Christian Allebach’s first wife was Margaret Greder, a
widow with three children. His second
wife was named Elizabeth, with whom he had nine children. In his will, he treated all the children
alike, including the three step-children.
He died in 1746, at an unknown age.
The data I have does not work out very well for a
couple of generations after the immigrant.
We can’t tell which of his sons is our progenitor. It appears that Henry B., above, (JKA’s
father) was the son of John (b. 1805 d. 1887) who was married to Elizabeth
Bergey (1804-1887); they had 7 kids, of whom Henry B. was the first. Before that, it gets hairy. This John apparently was a Mennonite minister
(Mennonite ministers were not graduates of seminaries, but were selected from
the congregation by lot - the guy with the shortest straw get the job, often at
some sacrifice, when his church duties took him from the plow or smith but they
carried on with a stiff upper lip.) John’s father appears to be another
Christian, about whom nothing seems to be known, except that he was born around
1780. Between immigrant Chris and this
Chris, it’s a swamp.
JACOB KOOKER ALLEBACH
Jake Allebach, my grandfather, was a well=known and
popular figure around Souderton. I was
almost 11 when he died in 1930, so I must now reach back more than 70 years,
most of which were far from home, to recall him as a real, live person and
memory is inevitably beclouded. Our relationship was mostly casual; there were
no heart-to-heart talks. He had too many
grandkids to begin pampering one. Still,
it was not, and still is not, uncommon for grandparents to pamper their kids
kids. I can’t remember a single thing he
said and I can’t remember him without a smile.
He would come to our house from time to time for a short social call
while we were at the supper table. (In
those days, the noon meal was dinner.)
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