John Oertel

OERTEL MAYER

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/24/2010 at 21:44:24

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

John Oertel
By Mary Ann Oertel Haafke

John Oertel was born in Johnson County, Iowa, on July 11, 1846. John was the only child of Johann Gottlieb Oertel and Christina Mayer Oertel. It is not known when Johann came to America from Germany, or when or where the marriage of Christina and Johann took place. It is in the records that on May of 1846, Johann bought the S ½ of NE ¼ of Section 23, Township 80, N Range, No. 6 West, in the County of Johnson Territory of Iowa. Sometime between the date of this land purchase and the birth date of John, Jr, July 11, 1846, Johann Gottlieb Oertel died. Young John was born post-humously.

Sometime in the next few years after Johann’s death, Christina Mayer Oertel married Nathan Zerfing, a widower with four children. Nathan owned a farm in Cedar County, Iowa, so John moved with his mother and joined his new step-family in Cedar County. In the 1850 census, John is on the list as John Ottle, age three. He is listed after Peter Zerfing, age one, the first child of Christina and Nathan. In this same census Nathan’s older children are listed as follows: Amos, fifteen, David fourteen, Catherin, ten, and Mary, seven. In the 1860 census, John is listed as John Zerfing, thirteen, between Mary, sixteen, and Peter, eleven. The three families just seemed to flow together.

In 1852, May 3, the 80-acre farm that Johann G Oertel had purchased in 1846 was sold by Nathan Zerfing, acting as the guardian of young John Oertel. The purchaser was Peter Mayer of Johnson County. This was either John’s grandfather (Christina’s father) or John’s uncle (Christina’s brother, Peter, Jr).

The next few years were spent in Cedar County and he was joined by six new brothers and sisters. Their names and birth dates are as follows: Peter, March 8, 1849; Eaphriam, April 24, 1851; Hannah, February 24, 1853; Anneta, January 11, 1855; Clarissa, June 8, 1857; and Ellen ‘Sarah’, February 8, 1859. She is listed as Sarah E on the 1860 census.

In 1859 or 1860 the family moved to Woodbury County, Iowa. There is a deed recorded in Woodbury County to Christina Zerfing on July 22, 1862 for the NE ¼ of SE ¼, Section 25, Township 87, Range 44.

There were three more girls born into the family after they arrived in Woodbury County: Margaret, April 1, 1861; Emma, May 6, 1863; and on June 10, 1867, Christina, Jr, was born and Christina Mayer Oertel Zerfing died.

The next year on November 1, 1868, John Oertel married Lydia Robbins. Lydia was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, March 30, 1849. She was the daughter of Henry Robbins and Amanda Rathbone Robbins. Lydia came to Iowa with her family at an early age and settled in Maquoketa, Jackson County. Many other members of her mother’s family, the Rathbones, Livermores, and Wendels came to the area and settled about the same time. Lydia’s mother died in 1864 and is buried in the Haylock-Rathbone Cemetery east of Maquoketa on the Haylock farmstead.

In the mid-1850’s and the early 1860’s, many of these families began migrating to western Iowa, Woodbury County, and the Little Sioux Valley in particular. It is believed that Lydia came to western Iowa with one of these families after her mother died.

John had purchased land in partnership with two bachelor uncles, Christopher Long and Henry Mayer, who were brothers of his mother. The land was located in Section 30, Township 87, Range 43, north of Oto, Iowa. The uncles lived with John and Libby with the understanding that on their deaths, John, Libby, and their children would inherit the property. John and Libby’s first child was Mary Annetta, born August 15, 1899. She died December 27, 1869, at three months and twelve days. A baby boy, who did not live, was born August 28, 1871. The next son, George Eaphrim, was born November 28, 1872. Henry Franklin was born December 28, 1875; and John Frederick, December 6, 1881.

John, Jr, died July 26, 1886, a young man, leaving a wife and three young sons. These years after her husband’s death were not easy for Lydia. There is evidence that she had to borrow money several times to keep the family going. The eldest of the uncles, Christopher Long, died in 1890. On December 29, 1892, at forty-three years of age, Lydia Robbins Oertel died. In the intervening years between John’s death and hers, she struggled to keep things going, but after her death there was no money left and the boys were left to do the best they could for themselves. George was already working but Frank was seventeen and Freed was only eleven. About this time Frank started working for Harry Brooks, Sr, in his drug store in Oto. In the 1895, state census, Henry Mayer, sixty-four, and Frederick Oertel, thirteen, were listed as living in the household of the William Cook family.

The lives of John and Lydia Oertel were short but their three boys grew to manhood. They married, raised families, and the name of Oertel continues on to this day through their descendants, some of whom still reside in Woodbury County, Iowa.