With the death of Noah Elwood Weaver, the photographer and last to be born on the Weaver ancestral farm, my interest in family stories and the healing power of knowing thyself through family aware was kindled big time! Our family went to Dayton Ohio for the funeral of my granddad Weaver. I remember being in a funeral home, and though I hadn't planned on it I decided to sing and song in his honor. No one seemed to mind, and in fact, I started getting to know the family, as it had been mysterious to me, how my folks decided in 1938 to move to Minnesota, 600 miles from Ohio, to start a new life on the prairie amid the Minnesota Lakes. Over the years, with the interviews and stories, I learned more about how our people survived, and some of the "whys" and "hows" of my families peregrinations.
I remember Elwood, as always kindly, ever open to new technology. He had a large format camera and did wedding photos in his youth. See photos below at the George Eicher family farm, the limestone creek is now the glen preserved as part of the Cox Arboretum. I learned in my later research that he was the last Weaver to have been born on the Weaver family farm above the town of Miamisburg, the farm that had been deeded to Jacob Weaver by Thomas Jefferson, after his service in the Pennsylvania Colonial militia in the War for Independence. The first family tree I got, was written in pencil, from Esther Grossnickel who lived in a little house right off East Main Street, not far from 321 East Main, the house I remember visiting as a kid. Esther’s kindly manner and smile, kindled a hope and interest in learning about my family roots on my fathers side and that their might be an inkling of warmth behind the veneer of German stoicism. Great Aunt Mary Glessner, on my Mom’s side, a single woman, had belonged to the DAR after finding that Josiah Cowles (CT) and Moses Bixby (MA) both were in their respective colonial militias in the War for Independence. My Dad seemed to know nothing and have little interest in the Weaver history. So began my research and ancestral roots slouthing!
Here is a photo Noah Elwood captured of his wife, Edna and my father when he was a boy on the creek now preserved as part of the Cox Arboretum south of Dayton. In 1914 or so, this was part of the George Eicher Farm, where my grandmother was born and Franz Eicher settled back in the day.
