Mystery Stones

The French love to carve their initials and date above doorways. This is at La Fromagerie de Montbéliard. The original building was a farm house/barn built by Joseph Graber in 1834. 


We had the opportunity to visit the Guemann ancestral home in Etobon, where Guemann cousins (very distant) of Janice and Sue live. Above one of the windows is the date that ends in 70 and the initials DM. I suspect the date is 1670 and DM stands for Dimanche Marrage. The Guemann ancestor married into the Yoder family who worked for the family Marrage. In 1810, the Guemann family bought the farm.

 

According to the Guemann descendent who lives at the farm, when the château was destroyed, villagers were allowed to use the stones for building. It is likely that this stone saying 1582 came from the château and was used in this outbuilding.


The Guemann cousin found this stone buried in the back yard and brought it up to the house. This young woman was part of a family who met tragedy: one brother was killed in WWI, and the two remaining brothers were massacred by Germans in WWII along with all the men of the village. Only two sisters were left in the family, one who never married and the other from whom current occupants descend. The stone may have been retrieved from the cemetery in Étobon when old graves and markers made way for newer graves.


Another sad story. This is the remnant of a much larger stone building which was the home and the mill of Pierre Stucki, Le Moulin de Notre Dame de Lure, France. He was an early immigrant to NW Ohio in the 1830s, and many in NW Ohio descend from him and his two oldest daughters, who married brothers in the Short/Schad family. A fire in December 2017 destroyed the left side of the structure.


 by Janice





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