Ferdinand Julius Jacobitz was born in Guntergost, Germany on 2 September, 1845. He was orphaned at an early age. His father died when he was about 4 or 5 years old. Ferdinand could hardly remember his father - only that he had been tall and very thin.
His father died of tuberculosis. His mother took over her husband's
work (type unknown) after his death. Apparently it was too much for her, and she died when Ferdinand was 13 or 14 years old.
Ferdinand's early life in Germany was one of great hardship. He entered the Germany army at an early age of 15 and was a soldier in the Franco-Prussia War (1870-1871). He married Wilhelmina Rosalia Seehaver about 1871 in Lobsens, Germany. She, too, had been born in the village of Guntergost in Driedorf on 6 December 1850.
Guntergost was near the city of Lobsens,Germany Little is known about Wilhelmina's parents except that her father, Christian Seehaver, lived to be over 100 years
old and that her mother, Rosalia Radeunz, died about 1883 or 1884.
Wilhelmina's work as a young woman in Germany was the lining of caskets. She not only helped to weave the cloth but also helped with the actual manufacture of the caskets. It was she who earned most of the money that paid her and Ferdinand's way to America.
They came to America right after the Franòo-Prussian War - so that Ferdinand's children "would never have to go to war".
Upon arriving in the United States, Ferdinand and Wilhelmina settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Because he spoke only German, Ferdinand needed work that required little use of language; so he became a railroad construction worker. Five of his eleven children were
born in Milwaukee.
Wilhelmina brother, in the meantime, had homesteaded land in Nuckolls county in Nebraska. He decided to move on and sold the farm to Ferdinand. Sometime between 1881 and 1884, Ferdinand brought his family to Nebraska by train. They settled in a dugout (a house built in the ground with dirt walls and a dirt floor but with a shingled roof) near Nelson, Nebraska and raised mostly corn (later wheat) and some cattle. Six other children were born to Ferdinand and Wilhelmina in Nelson.
Ferdinand died in Mt. Clare, Nebraska (now a ghost town) on
Christmas Day 1911; Wilhelmina died in Hastings, Nebraska on 25 April 1941. Both are buried near Nelson, Nebraska.
,,,as told to R.E.Smith by Elise Joanne Wilhelmina "Lizzie" Jacobitz
November 1972 Children not linked:
2nd child = Julius Jacobitz,July 11 1874-1874, was born in Milwaukee, Wis. He died as infant.