Adam Limbach, Jr. , 1850-1925
Normally, I do not dig into an ancestor as remote as 2nd great uncle, but in my husband Ken Badertscher’s line, I cannot resist the life of Adam Limbach Jr.
The Limbach family is driving me to distraction. I’m playing “Who’s your Mama?”. I can’t figure out who the mother of the nine children is for sure. There’s a Dorothy, but I don’t know her last name for sure–variously listed as Shear, Schurr and Schaeffer or Shafer. Or are there really two Dorothys? And who is Hannah (probably properly named Anna, and possibly Anna Dorothea.)
This matters because Adam Limbach Sr. is Kenneth Ross Badertscher’s great-great grandfather. Naturally, I would like to know who his great-great grandmother is, and be able to keep going back into Germany, where she was born, to find out where that line came from.
But there’s more confusion. One of the daughters disappears in the 1860 census.
And besides Adam Sr. and Adam Jr.–never conveniently labeled as such in records–other Limbachs named sons Adam.
So when I was searching for the marriage record for Adam Sr., I kept finding marriage records for an Adam Limbach who was obviously too young to be Adam Sr. But they couldn’t all be Adam Jr.’s marriages, could they?
YES THEY COULD.
It turns out that Adam Limbach, Jr. was indeed the marrying kind. He was married five times by the time he was 64 (or 55 according to him– he changed his age frequently. Thanks a bunch, Adam.) I know that he was actually married five times because Adam obediently wrote the answer to the question about whether he had been married before: “Four times.”
Interestingly, he chose, or his children, who all had the same mother chose for him, to share a cemetery plot with the 2nd of his wives, Jessie.
Here’s the line-up of the very busy Adam Limbeck, Jr.
Catherine Hawk
Adam was the sixth child in his family, and until he was 23, he lived at home and helped his father on the farm. Then in 1873, he married Catharine Hawk, who was 21. In the 1880 census, they are living in the same township as his parents, York Township in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. There is a five-year-old named Bertz Dotts, listed, oddly, as a servant, living with them. I don’t know anything else about Catherine.
Jessie Josephine Wiandt/Wyandt
Apparently, this was the real love match of Adam’s life. He and Jessie married in November 1884, when Jessie was 21 and he was 34. Their first daughter, Effie, was born two years after they were married. Ten years later they had a second daughter, Clara. Adam continued to work as a farmer in York Township, but by 1900 they had moved to nearby Wayne Township, still in the same county. Adam and Jessie had eight more years together, but in December, 1908, probably in connection with the birth of their daughter Grace in 1908, Jessie died.
By April 1910, the census reports that Adam had moved to Goshen Township in Tuscarawas County, and was still working as a farmer. The motherless Clara, now 13 and Grace, two, are with him. That would not seem odd except that there is a marriage license and affidavit of marriage for Adam dated March 3, 1910. On that 1910 census, he does say he is presently married for the third time (which would be correct) and length of present marriage “0”.
Ellen Snyder Hess
On the marriage license application, Ellen Hess (44) says that she has been married once previously and and her name was Mrs. Henry Hess. Adam (59, but says 55) says he was married two times before. Ellen does not specify whether she is a widow or divorced.
However, in the April 1910 census for Canal Dover, Tuscarawas, Ohio, a month after the wedding, Ellen says she is married for the 2nd time, she also lists “0” for length of marriage. (Okay, that makes sense, since they just got married the previous month.) But they are not living together. Ah, but Ellen has a daughter named Edith Limbach (10) and another, Frances Limbach (5). Another daughter, Susan (17) is married and living with Ellen along with Susan’s husband, so I don’t know who her father would be.
This situation is ripe for speculation. Had Ellen been married to another Limbach, who was the father of the children? No, apparently not, since she says she was married once and is a widow of Mr. Hess. Did Adam have an affair with her during that ten-year spell between his two children with Jessie? Did he marry her now just to legitimize the children? But they couldn’t live together because the family didn’t know about all this hanky panky? I admit I am wildly speculating here, but I hope you’ll forgive me. It is all too tempting. And an even more confusing situation follows.
Elizabeth Bear Goulden
Our first glimpse of Elizabeth comes in 1910, when she is living in New Philadelphia with her father, Henry Bear and her two children Ralph Golden(14) and Roy Golden (12). She says on the census that she is divorced. In September, 1914, Elizabeth Goulden (neé Bear), 39 years old, marries Adam Lembach, Jr. (63, but says he is 60) She states on the divorce license application that she is divorced from Thomas Goulden. Okay so far.
But it looks like Elizabeth may have left Adam and remarried Thomas Goulden, then divorced him again to marry a third man. Confusing? Yes. So while I still don’t know “the rest of the story” about Elizabeth, Adam has moved on once more .
Marinda Hydes (or maybe Hyder) Dixon
Just two years after his marriage to Elizabeth, Adam (65, but says he is 55) marries Marinda Hydes Dixon (41), widow of John Dixon. On the license application he dutifully fills in the blank about previous marriages–four times, and Malinda is listed as widowed, former husband John Dixon.
By 1920, just four years after his marriage to Marinda, Adam is living with his married daughter Clara (now 23) and her husband Harry Remer, their one-year-old daughter and Jessie and Adam’s youngest child, Grace, who is now eleven. What happened to wife #4 Elizabeth and wife #5 Marinda? I don’t know. Haven’t found death records, and since Adam Jr. is rather a distant relation to my husband–2nd great uncle–I probably will not dig any deeper. But it was a fun exploration of a marryin’ kind of guy.
Whatever his reasons for marrying each of these women, his 2nd wife, Jessie, won the prize. It is Jessie who is buried beside Adam.
How Ken is Related
- Kenneth Ross Badertscher is the son of
- Agnes Bair Badertscher, who is the daughter of
- Caroline Limbach Bair, who is the sister of
- Adam Limbach Jr.