Our Family

It is mid to late spring in 1888 in Preuschdorf, Alsace, and the boys are excited. They are the center attention from their friends and they are telling them of their impending trip to America, in fact, St. Louis, Missouri, America, where their father has an aunt by the name of Mertz; how they will someday be land owners and be wealthy and the excitement of the time as caught them up in the joy and happiness that will be theirs in America. No room in their minds now to think about the hard work the many disappointments, and the ever oppressive grief of death that we all must suffer as time goes to eternity- the death of George's wife in childbirth and the tremendous grief of Phillipe and his wife Bertha on the loss of their six year old daughter who was struck by lightning within the week after their arrival in Oklahoma.