PAGE 44 ■ DUBOIS COUNTY HERITAGE
THE HERALD ■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Families’ ancestral lines long in county history By ALAN HOVORKA newsintern@dcherald.com
been in Owensboro, Ky., and was 16 when the war broke out and joined the Confederate Army. Sixteen months after enlisting, he deserted to return home and join the Union. After the war, he served as county auditor and was partly responsible for creating the Courthouse monument, Phil Gramelspacher said. He also managed Jasper Desk Company and had been called the father of Jasper’s desk manufacturing industry. A significant theme in the Gramelspacher family has been entrepreneurship. They’ve held high positions in businesses or owned patents on inventions. John and wife, Franziska (Dupps) Gramelspacher, had five children, one of whom was George. He managed Jasper Veneer Mill. George’s brother, Virgil, was secretary and treasurer of the mill and president of Jasper Wood Products. Virgil was Phil Gramelspacher’s grandfather. Virgil married Catherine Gramelspacher, and they had four children, one of whom was John Winston Gramelspacher, Phil’s father. John W. was president and general manager of Jasper Wood Products and was vice president of the board of directors for several years. Clarence U. Gramelspacher, son of George W. Gramelspacher, headed Jasper Wood Products from 1926 to ’72. His other business accomplishments include owning several patents. The patents were for one of the first electric food mixers, the GoodYear Life-Guard Tube, the early tubeless tire later sold to Firestone and the process to use molded plywood on station wagon bodies and airplanes used in World War II, according to “Jasper Area History.”
Almost 200 years after Indiana reached statehood, several families among the first in Dubois County can still trace their history back to the earliest days of the county and back to their ancestral homelands. The names of the first settlers in Dubois County came from places like England and Scotland, such as the McDonalds. This shifted when in the mid-1800s Germans families arrived in the county in droves, many arriving in 1847 aboard the ship the Tallahassee, which landed in New Orleans. The families came from southwestern Germany, the Pfaffenweiler area, because the county’s geography reflected their home. They came to escape war, famine and seek better economic opportunities and in the process built Dubois County as it is known today. “They were all very community-oriented,” said Kathy Mott, genealogist at the Jasper Public Library. “They established themselves, businesses and a lot of these companies that are still here.” These are a handful of names and histories of families and how they shaped Dubois County, according to descendants and history books. Alles The Alles family can trace its ancestry to Jacob Alles, a school teacher in Prussia who fought in the Napoleonic Wars, according to the book “Jasper Area History.” Jacob came from Ferschweiler, Germany, a town on the French-German border. The town had passed back and forth between French and German control through the years, said Tom Alles, son of the late Jerome “Chick” Alles, a three-term mayor of Jasper. It was an area ripe with strife. Jacob Alles eventually found passage for his family to the United States after years of war and discord. Jacob, married to Catharine Hahn Alles, immigrated with his family to Peru, Ohio, in 1840. The Alles family came to Dubois County, around Celestine, in 1842, likely picking the area because family had already settled here, said Tom Alles. The official transaction for their Dubois land happened in 1845. Jacob died in 1863 in Celestine. A son of Jacob’s, John J. Alles, was born in 1824 in Prussia and served in the Civil War on the side of the Union, enlisting in Company I, 49th Indiana Volunteers. He served under the rank of captain. He fought in 14 battles, including the Battle of Cumberland Gap, and was wounded during the siege at Vicksburg. He served as justice of the peace for 25 years, except while fighting in the war, starting in 1856. In 1880, he became trustee of Hall Township and then served as a county commissioner in 1884. He died in 1911. Frederick Alles, son of John J. Alles and grandfather to Jerome Alles, was born in 1858 and became a county commissioner like his father. He was one of the commissioners to oversee the construction of the Dubois County Courthouse monument; a plaque commemorates this deed and his service. The late Jerome Alles, born in 1926, continued the family theme of public service when he served three terms as mayor of Jasper and two terms on the county council. He was the great-grandson of John J. Alles. He had six brothers — Hilary, Oliver, James, Norbert, Edward and Charles Alles. “Political interest is a common thread through the family through the years,” Tom Alles said. Many of Jerome’s descendants remain in the area. He’s survived by two daughters, Bev Alles of Jasper and Eve (Eric) Ambler of Carmel; five sons, Joe (Sissi) Alles, Bob (Brenda) Alles, Bill (Paula) Alles, Tom (Ellen) Alles and Jerry Alles, all of Jasper; 10 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Dilger The Dilgers came from a community near St. Margen, Baden, Germany, which is close to the Black Forest. The oldest known ancestors are Josef and Ursula Kern Dilger. Lorenz, son of Josef and Ursula, married Catherine Schertzinger. They had 11 children, one of whom was Frank. Lorenz
John Gramelspacher was one of eight children of Joseph and Sophia Gramelspacher who were both originally from Germany and among some of the first families to settle in Dubois County. was a clockmaker and Frank completed his apprenticeship in his father’s shop until he fled to the United States to avoid military service in Germany, according to “Jasper Area History.” The Dilgers in north Spencer and Dubois counties are descendants of Lorenz and Ursula. Frank arrived in Waterbury, Conn., where he worked at the Seth-Thomas Clock factory and was critical in developing the Seth-Thomas clock in the U.S., according to the book. He was also instrumental in creating the Baby Ben alarm clock, according to family lore. Meanwhile in Germany, Lorenz, Catherine and the rest of the children struggled to find work and land. Catherine had two brothers living near what is now the town of Santa Claus, which led the family to move to the U.S. They made the trip to the New World aboard the Tallahassee in 1856 with their children. Lorenz died eight days after arriving at their new homestead near Fulda. Catherine and the children, ranging from 7 to 20 years of age, were left alone with the task of erecting a house, barn and smokehouse. The children worked professions such as shoemaker, a priest and farmer. Theodore Dilger, fourth son of Lorenz, had 10 children. They lived on a farm 4 miles north of Fulda. He also operated a sawmill and threshing machine. August Dilger, a son of Theodore, inherited the farm and died in 1918 at 39 from what Bob Dilger, grandson of August,
thinks was Spanish flu. He was working in the fields one day and came down with a cold; three days later, he was dead. He left behind Cecilia (Maffenbeier) Dilger and five children, one of which was Bob Dilger’s father, Benno John Dilger. Benno was a farmer and an employee at United Wood Products in Ferdinand. Benno and his wife Marie (Balbach) Dilger, who also worked at United Wood Products, had four children. Agriculture has remained a fixture for the family. Owning land remains an important value too, said Bob Dilger, 63 of Jasper. The land purchased by Lorenz and Catherine is still owned by members of the Dilger family. “You don’t see a lot of land actually sold by Dilger descendants,” Bob Dilger said. “They acquire it and really hang on to it because of its value. It’s necessary to grow your crops so you can sustain yourself.” Gramelspacher The Gramelspachers answered the call of Father Josephus Kundek for German families to settle the Dubois County area because of geographical similarities to southwest Germany, said Phil Gramelspacher, 63, of Jasper. Joseph Gramelspacher and Sophia Friedman Gramelspacher, both from Germany, were united in the first Catholic marriage in Jasper in 1838. Joseph moved to the U.S. from Boschweil, Germany. They had eight children, one of whom was John Gramelspacher, who fought on both sides during the Civil War. John had
Kiefer The earliest maternal and paternal members of the Kiefer family are Joannes Strassler, married to Anna Ammin in 1659, and Joannis Kiefer, son of Martin Kiefer, who married Anna Haffner in 1665. Theobald Kiefer and Catherina Strassler both came from Pfaffenweiler, Germany sometime in the mid- to late-1800s to escape economic duress and poor crops. Having both known each other prior to relocation, they married sometime after arriving in the United States and had their first daughter, Eleanora, in 1883 in Terre Haute. They bought a house at Fifth and McCrillus streets in Jasper sometime between 1883 and when their second child, Caroline, was born in 1887. Their third child, Herman Kiefer, was born in 1896. The Kiefers owned a restaurant on the corner of Sixth and Jackson streets. They eventually sold and Theobald went to work at Jasper Desk Company for 40 years as Herman served as an apprentice. Herman worked at the company for 62 years. He also served on the city council for one term and 50 years on the fire department. The fire station on Sixth Street in downtown Jasper was named after Herman Kiefer during the 1987 Jasper Strassenfest. Members of the Kiefer family, both in Jasper and Pfaffenweiler, have followed a tradition of serving on fire departments with Herman’s son, grandson and greatgrandson serving here in Jasper while Gustav Kiefer, a cousin of Herman’s, served on the Pfaffenweiler Fire Department for 60 years. The family lost contact with the Kiefers after they came to the U.S. until in 1985, when Jasper established its sister city program. When the group from Pfaffenweiler came to the States, there were Kiefers in the group. When Herman Kiefer heard about the same name, he brought a photo of the Kiefer Villa in Germany to show the group. Stefan Kiefer, a member of the visiting group, said it was the house where he and Theobald were born. This reuniting of the families rekindled the relationship, said Tom Kiefer, the 63-year-old grandson of Herman Kiefer. Tom, who lives in Jasper, has visited the German Kiefers about once a year since 1989. “I’ve met so many friends over there. They either come over here and stay with us or we go over there and stay with them,” he said. “I got a phone call about a week before my daughter got married and they said, ‘We’ve got four of us coming over for the wedding, is that OK?’ So they stayed with us.”