Trip Report

This afternoon I feel like the air leaked out of my balloon. I've been scrambling around for a week getting ready for and going on a research trip to Ohio, then coming home to have overnight guests the next day. Now that it is over, I am limp and exhausted. But it was worth it!

We left on Thursday afternoon, spent the night with Cheryl, and went on Friday morning to Elida, Ohio. We picked up Ginny Traycik at the Columbus airport and arrived at the Salem Mennonite Church just in time for the 3 p.m. meeting of Good historians.

On Saturday we attended the reunion of the descendants of Henry and Betty (Culp) Good. About 90 people showed up. I know more people now than I did when I arrived. The highlight of the day was the presentation Don Good gave on the immigrant Good ancestors who settled in PA. That connection is what prompted my invitation to the reunion. Below is Don deep in discussion with Martha Huber Good from Ontario. She has written a wonderful book on the Hubers. I am glad she decided to ignore her age excuse and come. She is 81 but knows her Huber genealogy just as well today as she did when she wrote her book several years ago.

Of course we visited the Salem Cemetery which is the oldest Mennonite cemetery in the county and contains 1300 graves. We also went to the Pike Mennonite cemetery a few miles away. Walter & Martha Good, her sister Florence Riehl, Don, Ginny, and I were more interested in finding documents in Fairfield County because more family history happened there than in Allen County. We all left Elida early Sunday morning and drove three hours to attend services at the Turkey Run Mennonite Church in Fairfield County. The pastor there invited all of us to their house for lunch and showed us around the area. We visited three cemeteries on Sunday where we found some graves of ancestors and saw some other historically signifigant things. But we did not find the grave of Susanna Beery Good anywhere. We know she died before her husband and his second wife moved from Ohio to Iowa, but where is she buried? We went back to our hotel mystified.

On Monday we visited the public library in Lancaster, Ohio, and raided the Fairfield County courthouse where we found some valuable information in deeds and Joseph Good's 1849 estate settlement.

When we finished collecting our loot, we had a very late lunch and then headed for home at 4 p.m. We made only two pits stops and got home at 11 p.m. Monday night. The next day Ginny and Don asked the right people the right questions and found an obscure little cemetery in the woods that contains eight stones marking Beery and Good graves. More research is required, but we are all inclined to believe they found the elusive Susanna Beery Good buried under a stone marked simply S. B. G.

I reget missing that adventure, but have not figured out how to be two places at once. I wanted to be here to host Gerlof and Machteld Born. We don't often have the opportunity to host visitors from Holland. They arrived at my sister's house two days earlier than we expected, which meant I had overnight guests the day after I got home instead of two days later. Fortunately, one of my cousins stepped up to the plate in my absence and invited everyone for supper Tuesday. Machteld is on the far left but Gerlof is half hidden behind the person in the right foreground.

The Borns went on to Lancaster County this morning and will be leaving the area on Thursday. We met Gerlof when we were in Holland in 1997. He was single then but married Machteld a year or two ago. He is the secretary of the Mennonite Mission Board in Holland and told us about their work around the world.
The last week has been a whirl of activity and lots of fun. I enjoyed every minute, but now I'm going for a nap. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz