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Reading Eagle (11 April 1996)
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Services will be held Friday morning at 11 in Christ (DeLong's) United Church of Christ, Bowers, for the reinterment of Judith Merkel, a Longswamp Township native who died at the age of 59 in Paradise Furnace, Huntingdon County, in 1877. Merkel, the daughter of the late John and Esther (DeLong) Fenstermacher, was the widow of Jonathan Merkel, who died in 1864, and was predeceased by a son, Johannes, in 1866, and a daughter, Maria Anna (Merkel) Weida, in 1870. She is being reinterred in Union (DeLong's) Cemetery, Bowers, at the request of her descendants. The Ludwick Funeral Home, Kutztown, is in charge of arrangements.
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Allentown Morning Call (13 April 1996)
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There was no mistaking Judith Merkel's last wish. She expressed it in terms direct and documented in 1875. The problem was, her relatives were in no position to carry it out upon her death in 1877. So it took some time -- 119 years to be exact -- but her descendants saw to it yesterday.
Mrs. Merkel's remains were removed from a Juniata County cemetery Wednesday and reburied next to her son and husband in a church graveyard in Longswamp Township. "We can go today in peace and a feeling of kind of fulfillment. Judith must certainly be looking down upon us with great satisfaction," said the Rev. Joseph B. Hennessey Jr., interim pastor at Christ (DeLong) UCC Church. Hennessey used a hymnal dating to 1866 to perform church and grave-side services in the fashion customary in Mrs. Merkel's day. Her coffin was placed in a horse-drawn black carriage driven by Mennonite farmers and brought to Union Cemetery, which sits just across Bowers Road from the church. "We did it right," Hennessey said after the services. "We did more than just transfer the remains. It was done within the context of the faith. It gave meaning to this." Mrs. Merkel had strong ties to the church, which has stood in some form on or near its current site since 1764. Her mother's family, the DeLongs, donated the land where the church was built near Topton. It was the German Reformed Church when Judith Fenstermacher was baptized there in 1818 and married there to Jonathan Merkel in 1838. The family plot, where Jonathan was buried in 1864, sits in the shadow of the white-steepled church. The Merkels' son Johannes, a Union soldier and Confederate prisoner in the Civil War, was buried to the right of the plot that was supposed to be his mother's. Jonathan was buried to the left. The Merkels' daughter, Maria Anna Weida, was buried in Allentown in 1870. Story has it that she and her husband, Mennoh, were at a dance one cold and damp night when Maria Anna caught a cold that she couldn't shake. She died from the illness at 26, leaving two sons. One, George A. Weida, served in the Pennsylvania Legislature from 1902-06 and campaigned in Pennsylvania Dutch, according to Howard Merkel, Judith's great-great-grandson. The year of her daughter's death, Mrs. Merkel moved from Longswamp to Paradise Furnace, Huntingdon County, with her only surviving child, Willoughby, and a group of other Berks County families. She died there on Sept. 16, 1877, at 59 and was buried nearby. In her will, dated July 20, 1875, Mrs. Merkel recorded her wish with a stipulation: "Should the weather be such that my body could not be taken down, it is my decision that at a future time it may be done." Willoughby married Alice Koch three months after his mother's death and the couple moved with their children to Lisbon, Iowa, a few years later. Mrs. Merkel's plea was left unaddressed and unknown until her great-grandchildren started researching their genealogy and turned up the will. "It was the type of thing when you read the will, it's almost like she's talking to you," said her great-great-grandson, Howard Merkel of York County. "It's very pointed how she wants it done." He added, "When the family moved to Iowa they sold everything including the farm and the family dog. By the time they got to Iowa their fortunes were such that they probably realized any idea of moving Judith Merkel to Bowers Church was not going to happen." It took two years for Howard and other members of his family to coordinate the plan. About a dozen of Mrs. Merkel's descendants came from as nearby as York County and as far away as South Carolina to witness the reburial. They had her remains placed in a plain wooden coffin, which sat in a stream of stain-glassed light at the foot of the altar. Willoughby's infant gown, a beige frock with pink flowers that Mrs. Merkel is believed to have hand-stitched, was draped atop the box. "He'd bring that out on his birthday," said Alice McDavid, Willoughby's granddaughter. "Almost all of the children in the family have been photographed wearing it." McDavid compiled those photographs in an album called "Willoughby's Dress." She couldn't have been more than 2 when she was photographed in the dress on her white-haired grandfather's lap. The album traces the dress from Mary Esther Hoover Boyd, Willoughby's granddaughter, who wore it in 1901, to Alyssa Lee Merkel, his great-great-great-granddaughter, who wore it in 1993. George C. Merkel, Howard's father, remembers his grandfather Willoughby, crippled and wheelchair-bound in later years but still talking the German-tinged English of his native Berks County. George, now 87, took a job as Middletown borough manager in 1960 and moved his family east. He stood outside the church and scanned the landscape of rolling hills and fertile fields that have nurtured generations of Pennsylvania German farmers. "We come back a lot of times just to see the cemetery and the church even though we don't have any relatives at all here. We had a picnic right over there once," he said, pointing to a field within earshot of the church organ. "We just feel right at home."
Reading Eagle (11 April 1996)
---------------------------------------------------
Services will be held Friday morning at 11 in Christ (DeLong's) United Church of Christ, Bowers, for the reinterment of Judith Merkel, a Longswamp Township native who died at the age of 59 in Paradise Furnace, Huntingdon County, in 1877. Merkel, the daughter of the late John and Esther (DeLong) Fenstermacher, was the widow of Jonathan Merkel, who died in 1864, and was predeceased by a son, Johannes, in 1866, and a daughter, Maria Anna (Merkel) Weida, in 1870. She is being reinterred in Union (DeLong's) Cemetery, Bowers, at the request of her descendants. The Ludwick Funeral Home, Kutztown, is in charge of arrangements.
---------------------------------------------------
Allentown Morning Call (13 April 1996)
---------------------------------------------------
There was no mistaking Judith Merkel's last wish. She expressed it in terms direct and documented in 1875. The problem was, her relatives were in no position to carry it out upon her death in 1877. So it took some time -- 119 years to be exact -- but her descendants saw to it yesterday.
Mrs. Merkel's remains were removed from a Juniata County cemetery Wednesday and reburied next to her son and husband in a church graveyard in Longswamp Township. "We can go today in peace and a feeling of kind of fulfillment. Judith must certainly be looking down upon us with great satisfaction," said the Rev. Joseph B. Hennessey Jr., interim pastor at Christ (DeLong) UCC Church. Hennessey used a hymnal dating to 1866 to perform church and grave-side services in the fashion customary in Mrs. Merkel's day. Her coffin was placed in a horse-drawn black carriage driven by Mennonite farmers and brought to Union Cemetery, which sits just across Bowers Road from the church. "We did it right," Hennessey said after the services. "We did more than just transfer the remains. It was done within the context of the faith. It gave meaning to this." Mrs. Merkel had strong ties to the church, which has stood in some form on or near its current site since 1764. Her mother's family, the DeLongs, donated the land where the church was built near Topton. It was the German Reformed Church when Judith Fenstermacher was baptized there in 1818 and married there to Jonathan Merkel in 1838. The family plot, where Jonathan was buried in 1864, sits in the shadow of the white-steepled church. The Merkels' son Johannes, a Union soldier and Confederate prisoner in the Civil War, was buried to the right of the plot that was supposed to be his mother's. Jonathan was buried to the left. The Merkels' daughter, Maria Anna Weida, was buried in Allentown in 1870. Story has it that she and her husband, Mennoh, were at a dance one cold and damp night when Maria Anna caught a cold that she couldn't shake. She died from the illness at 26, leaving two sons. One, George A. Weida, served in the Pennsylvania Legislature from 1902-06 and campaigned in Pennsylvania Dutch, according to Howard Merkel, Judith's great-great-grandson. The year of her daughter's death, Mrs. Merkel moved from Longswamp to Paradise Furnace, Huntingdon County, with her only surviving child, Willoughby, and a group of other Berks County families. She died there on Sept. 16, 1877, at 59 and was buried nearby. In her will, dated July 20, 1875, Mrs. Merkel recorded her wish with a stipulation: "Should the weather be such that my body could not be taken down, it is my decision that at a future time it may be done." Willoughby married Alice Koch three months after his mother's death and the couple moved with their children to Lisbon, Iowa, a few years later. Mrs. Merkel's plea was left unaddressed and unknown until her great-grandchildren started researching their genealogy and turned up the will. "It was the type of thing when you read the will, it's almost like she's talking to you," said her great-great-grandson, Howard Merkel of York County. "It's very pointed how she wants it done." He added, "When the family moved to Iowa they sold everything including the farm and the family dog. By the time they got to Iowa their fortunes were such that they probably realized any idea of moving Judith Merkel to Bowers Church was not going to happen." It took two years for Howard and other members of his family to coordinate the plan. About a dozen of Mrs. Merkel's descendants came from as nearby as York County and as far away as South Carolina to witness the reburial. They had her remains placed in a plain wooden coffin, which sat in a stream of stain-glassed light at the foot of the altar. Willoughby's infant gown, a beige frock with pink flowers that Mrs. Merkel is believed to have hand-stitched, was draped atop the box. "He'd bring that out on his birthday," said Alice McDavid, Willoughby's granddaughter. "Almost all of the children in the family have been photographed wearing it." McDavid compiled those photographs in an album called "Willoughby's Dress." She couldn't have been more than 2 when she was photographed in the dress on her white-haired grandfather's lap. The album traces the dress from Mary Esther Hoover Boyd, Willoughby's granddaughter, who wore it in 1901, to Alyssa Lee Merkel, his great-great-great-granddaughter, who wore it in 1993. George C. Merkel, Howard's father, remembers his grandfather Willoughby, crippled and wheelchair-bound in later years but still talking the German-tinged English of his native Berks County. George, now 87, took a job as Middletown borough manager in 1960 and moved his family east. He stood outside the church and scanned the landscape of rolling hills and fertile fields that have nurtured generations of Pennsylvania German farmers. "We come back a lot of times just to see the cemetery and the church even though we don't have any relatives at all here. We had a picnic right over there once," he said, pointing to a field within earshot of the church organ. "We just feel right at home."
---------------------------------------------------
Reading Eagle (11 April 1996)
---------------------------------------------------
Services will be held Friday morning at 11 in Christ (DeLong's) United Church of Christ, Bowers, for the reinterment of Judith Merkel, a Longswamp Township native who died at the age of 59 in Paradise Furnace, Huntingdon County, in 1877. Merkel, the daughter of the late John and Esther (DeLong) Fenstermacher, was the widow of Jonathan Merkel, who died in 1864, and was predeceased by a son, Johannes, in 1866, and a daughter, Maria Anna (Merkel) Weida, in 1870. She is being reinterred in Union (DeLong's) Cemetery, Bowers, at the request of her descendants. The Ludwick Funeral Home, Kutztown, is in charge of arrangements.
---------------------------------------------------
Allentown Morning Call (13 April 1996)
---------------------------------------------------
There was no mistaking Judith Merkel's last wish. She expressed it in terms direct and documented in 1875. The problem was, her relatives were in no position to carry it out upon her death in 1877. So it took some time -- 119 years to be exact -- but her descendants saw to it yesterday.
Mrs. Merkel's remains were removed from a Juniata County cemetery Wednesday and reburied next to her son and husband in a church graveyard in Longswamp Township. "We can go today in peace and a feeling of kind of fulfillment. Judith must certainly be looking down upon us with great satisfaction," said the Rev. Joseph B. Hennessey Jr., interim pastor at Christ (DeLong) UCC Church. Hennessey used a hymnal dating to 1866 to perform church and grave-side services in the fashion customary in Mrs. Merkel's day. Her coffin was placed in a horse-drawn black carriage driven by Mennonite farmers and brought to Union Cemetery, which sits just across Bowers Road from the church. "We did it right," Hennessey said after the services. "We did more than just transfer the remains. It was done within the context of the faith. It gave meaning to this." Mrs. Merkel had strong ties to the church, which has stood in some form on or near its current site since 1764. Her mother's family, the DeLongs, donated the land where the church was built near Topton. It was the German Reformed Church when Judith Fenstermacher was baptized there in 1818 and married there to Jonathan Merkel in 1838. The family plot, where Jonathan was buried in 1864, sits in the shadow of the white-steepled church. The Merkels' son Johannes, a Union soldier and Confederate prisoner in the Civil War, was buried to the right of the plot that was supposed to be his mother's. Jonathan was buried to the left. The Merkels' daughter, Maria Anna Weida, was buried in Allentown in 1870. Story has it that she and her husband, Mennoh, were at a dance one cold and damp night when Maria Anna caught a cold that she couldn't shake. She died from the illness at 26, leaving two sons. One, George A. Weida, served in the Pennsylvania Legislature from 1902-06 and campaigned in Pennsylvania Dutch, according to Howard Merkel, Judith's great-great-grandson. The year of her daughter's death, Mrs. Merkel moved from Longswamp to Paradise Furnace, Huntingdon County, with her only surviving child, Willoughby, and a group of other Berks County families. She died there on Sept. 16, 1877, at 59 and was buried nearby. In her will, dated July 20, 1875, Mrs. Merkel recorded her wish with a stipulation: "Should the weather be such that my body could not be taken down, it is my decision that at a future time it may be done." Willoughby married Alice Koch three months after his mother's death and the couple moved with their children to Lisbon, Iowa, a few years later. Mrs. Merkel's plea was left unaddressed and unknown until her great-grandchildren started researching their genealogy and turned up the will. "It was the type of thing when you read the will, it's almost like she's talking to you," said her great-great-grandson, Howard Merkel of York County. "It's very pointed how she wants it done." He added, "When the family moved to Iowa they sold everything including the farm and the family dog. By the time they got to Iowa their fortunes were such that they probably realized any idea of moving Judith Merkel to Bowers Church was not going to happen." It took two years for Howard and other members of his family to coordinate the plan. About a dozen of Mrs. Merkel's descendants came from as nearby as York County and as far away as South Carolina to witness the reburial. They had her remains placed in a plain wooden coffin, which sat in a stream of stain-glassed light at the foot of the altar. Willoughby's infant gown, a beige frock with pink flowers that Mrs. Merkel is believed to have hand-stitched, was draped atop the box. "He'd bring that out on his birthday," said Alice McDavid, Willoughby's granddaughter. "Almost all of the children in the family have been photographed wearing it." McDavid compiled those photographs in an album called "Willoughby's Dress." She couldn't have been more than 2 when she was photographed in the dress on her white-haired grandfather's lap. The album traces the dress from Mary Esther Hoover Boyd, Willoughby's granddaughter, who wore it in 1901, to Alyssa Lee Merkel, his great-great-great-granddaughter, who wore it in 1993. George C. Merkel, Howard's father, remembers his grandfather Willoughby, crippled and wheelchair-bound in later years but still talking the German-tinged English of his native Berks County. George, now 87, took a job as Middletown borough manager in 1960 and moved his family east. He stood outside the church and scanned the landscape of rolling hills and fertile fields that have nurtured generations of Pennsylvania German farmers. "We come back a lot of times just to see the cemetery and the church even though we don't have any relatives at all here. We had a picnic right over there once," he said, pointing to a field within earshot of the church organ. "We just feel right at home."
Reading Eagle (11 April 1996)
---------------------------------------------------
Services will be held Friday morning at 11 in Christ (DeLong's) United Church of Christ, Bowers, for the reinterment of Judith Merkel, a Longswamp Township native who died at the age of 59 in Paradise Furnace, Huntingdon County, in 1877. Merkel, the daughter of the late John and Esther (DeLong) Fenstermacher, was the widow of Jonathan Merkel, who died in 1864, and was predeceased by a son, Johannes, in 1866, and a daughter, Maria Anna (Merkel) Weida, in 1870. She is being reinterred in Union (DeLong's) Cemetery, Bowers, at the request of her descendants. The Ludwick Funeral Home, Kutztown, is in charge of arrangements.
---------------------------------------------------
Allentown Morning Call (13 April 1996)
---------------------------------------------------
There was no mistaking Judith Merkel's last wish. She expressed it in terms direct and documented in 1875. The problem was, her relatives were in no position to carry it out upon her death in 1877. So it took some time -- 119 years to be exact -- but her descendants saw to it yesterday.
Mrs. Merkel's remains were removed from a Juniata County cemetery Wednesday and reburied next to her son and husband in a church graveyard in Longswamp Township. "We can go today in peace and a feeling of kind of fulfillment. Judith must certainly be looking down upon us with great satisfaction," said the Rev. Joseph B. Hennessey Jr., interim pastor at Christ (DeLong) UCC Church. Hennessey used a hymnal dating to 1866 to perform church and grave-side services in the fashion customary in Mrs. Merkel's day. Her coffin was placed in a horse-drawn black carriage driven by Mennonite farmers and brought to Union Cemetery, which sits just across Bowers Road from the church. "We did it right," Hennessey said after the services. "We did more than just transfer the remains. It was done within the context of the faith. It gave meaning to this." Mrs. Merkel had strong ties to the church, which has stood in some form on or near its current site since 1764. Her mother's family, the DeLongs, donated the land where the church was built near Topton. It was the German Reformed Church when Judith Fenstermacher was baptized there in 1818 and married there to Jonathan Merkel in 1838. The family plot, where Jonathan was buried in 1864, sits in the shadow of the white-steepled church. The Merkels' son Johannes, a Union soldier and Confederate prisoner in the Civil War, was buried to the right of the plot that was supposed to be his mother's. Jonathan was buried to the left. The Merkels' daughter, Maria Anna Weida, was buried in Allentown in 1870. Story has it that she and her husband, Mennoh, were at a dance one cold and damp night when Maria Anna caught a cold that she couldn't shake. She died from the illness at 26, leaving two sons. One, George A. Weida, served in the Pennsylvania Legislature from 1902-06 and campaigned in Pennsylvania Dutch, according to Howard Merkel, Judith's great-great-grandson. The year of her daughter's death, Mrs. Merkel moved from Longswamp to Paradise Furnace, Huntingdon County, with her only surviving child, Willoughby, and a group of other Berks County families. She died there on Sept. 16, 1877, at 59 and was buried nearby. In her will, dated July 20, 1875, Mrs. Merkel recorded her wish with a stipulation: "Should the weather be such that my body could not be taken down, it is my decision that at a future time it may be done." Willoughby married Alice Koch three months after his mother's death and the couple moved with their children to Lisbon, Iowa, a few years later. Mrs. Merkel's plea was left unaddressed and unknown until her great-grandchildren started researching their genealogy and turned up the will. "It was the type of thing when you read the will, it's almost like she's talking to you," said her great-great-grandson, Howard Merkel of York County. "It's very pointed how she wants it done." He added, "When the family moved to Iowa they sold everything including the farm and the family dog. By the time they got to Iowa their fortunes were such that they probably realized any idea of moving Judith Merkel to Bowers Church was not going to happen." It took two years for Howard and other members of his family to coordinate the plan. About a dozen of Mrs. Merkel's descendants came from as nearby as York County and as far away as South Carolina to witness the reburial. They had her remains placed in a plain wooden coffin, which sat in a stream of stain-glassed light at the foot of the altar. Willoughby's infant gown, a beige frock with pink flowers that Mrs. Merkel is believed to have hand-stitched, was draped atop the box. "He'd bring that out on his birthday," said Alice McDavid, Willoughby's granddaughter. "Almost all of the children in the family have been photographed wearing it." McDavid compiled those photographs in an album called "Willoughby's Dress." She couldn't have been more than 2 when she was photographed in the dress on her white-haired grandfather's lap. The album traces the dress from Mary Esther Hoover Boyd, Willoughby's granddaughter, who wore it in 1901, to Alyssa Lee Merkel, his great-great-great-granddaughter, who wore it in 1993. George C. Merkel, Howard's father, remembers his grandfather Willoughby, crippled and wheelchair-bound in later years but still talking the German-tinged English of his native Berks County. George, now 87, took a job as Middletown borough manager in 1960 and moved his family east. He stood outside the church and scanned the landscape of rolling hills and fertile fields that have nurtured generations of Pennsylvania German farmers. "We come back a lot of times just to see the cemetery and the church even though we don't have any relatives at all here. We had a picnic right over there once," he said, pointing to a field within earshot of the church organ. "We just feel right at home."
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