Georg Michel Hoeltzel

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. 

For the girl, she wasn't quite sure.  She would have no friends there in that far away place. There would be no women in her life, just her father and brothers. Her friends were here and if she could have made the decision, she would probably have never left. But, it was not her decision to make. Her father had secured the necessary passports and documents and arranged passage on a ship The events swept her into a great trip, similar in scope to another trip she was to make some 15 years later when she would leave Oklahoma with her husband with a team and wagon for Minnesota. 

For the father, it was an end to the wars that have been fought over Alsace, since the year 300, and his children would be removed from sweep of the military to fight these endless wars between France and Germany over this small parcel of land. He had been caught up in the Franco-German War of 1871 and served in the German army. He was captured and held prisoner on the island of Corsica. His wife had died and America offered a new hope and a new beginning. 

It is time to leave now and after the Sunday church service, they said goodbye to their friends, each and every one wishing them well and knowing that in all probability, they would never see each other again.

There was one last thing to do now-visit their mother's grave in the church cemetery. Then they left Germany and came to America. It is hard to imagine. The memory of their mother was with them all the days of their lives and from time to time would appear to each of them, rising up in their dreams, remembering her in a special way in far distant Germany. 

There stands a church in Oklahoma with a cemetery to the west, surrounded by farmland still. The monuments stand majestic and silent, as as if y some special force, beacon all to come and ready the names and pause for a moment to remember. The wind rustles the limbs of a couple of native cedars whose lower limbs have been cut away. The meadowlark's call breaks the immense silence, serenity and peace lay over the land giving one a sense of awe that within the confines of these graveslay God's children, waiting to be called forth to glory in the promised resurrection 

A small headstone of red granite simply states:

George Michel Hoeltzel

1843-1912

They are all gone now and whether the great promise they expected to find in America were realized we will never know. But they are ours to remember and hold dear, for because of them, we are here. 

Written from recollections of Pauline Hoeltzel Fischaber by Gilbert Williams

Edited by Kathy Donahue