Bertha Caroline Roehr was born to Lewis and Caroline Roehr on February 13, 1874, having been born four years after her parents, two sisters, and a brother had emigrated from Germany. While the family lived in Sauk Co., Wisconsin for the two years following their immigration, another brother to Bertha, Edmund, was born. Little Edmund greeted Bertha when she arrived a year after they had bought a farm in West Cedar Township in Mitchell County. Bertha was the last child of Lewis and Caroline Roehr.

Bertha grew up on the family farm and at the age of 19 married George Gast, son of Henry and Katherine Gast. They were married September 28, 1893. Bertha and George farmed in Mitchell and Floyd Counties and in later years retired to Nora Springs, Iowa. They were the parents of three children: Clifford, Glenn, and Bernice (Mrs. Robert Tresemer).

After Aunt Minnie Roehr Miller passed away in 1931, my Aunt Bertha Gast and my father Alvin G. Roehr were the only children of the Lewis and Caroline Roehr family surviving.

I remember the day of February 11, 1939. I was a boy of 15, at home on our farm. The phone rang, it was for my father. It was a short conversation and Dad hadn't said much. When he hung up the receiver he turned to my mother, he was crying, and he said, "Bertha is dead, I'm the only one left."

Bertha, his little sister, had passed away at her home in Nora Springs two days before her 65th birthday. Bertha Roehr Gast is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery northwest of Nora Springs. Her husband George Gast was laid to rest by her side when he passed away on May 13, 1943.

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Written by Alvin (Dale) Roehr
Submitted to IaGenWeb by Kathy Pike (April 2005)