George E Amrhein

1850s–1870s

Born in April 1852 in Indiana and baptized at St. Joseph's Church in St. Leon, the son of Bavarian immigrants Simon Amrhein and Anna Margaretha Rosenberger. Grew up in Dearborn and Franklin Counties, one of about ten children.

1880s

Working in a tile yard with his brothers in 1880. Married Barbara Ann Hahn at Oldenburg on 12 September 1880. Children Ollie (1882), Lora (1883), Tony (1888), and John (1890) were born.

1890s

A stonemason living at Harris City, in Sandcreek Township. Daughter Margaret was born in 1892 and twins Leo and Ludwig in 1895; that year Barbara died of typhoid and baby Ludwig also died. Bought land in Sandcreek Township in 1895.

1900s

Worked for several years at the Harris City quarries. Died on 17 October 1906 and was buried at St. Mary's Cemetery in Greensburg.

A Bavarian Family in Indiana

George E. Amrhein was born in April 1852 in Indiana (the records give the 21st or the 23rd) and baptized on April 25 at St. Joseph's Church in St. Leon, Dearborn County. His parents, Simon Amrhein and Anna Margaretha Rosenberger, had both come from Bavaria; family lore says Simon got to America by swimming out to a ship. George grew up in a big Catholic family in southeastern Indiana: in Kelso Township in 1860, around Oldenburg from about 1863, and in Ray Township, Franklin County, in 1870. He had at least nine brothers and sisters, among them Wendel, Lena, Adam, Maggie, and Frank, and the family also took in an adopted daughter, Anna Eisenhart.

In 1880 George was working in a tile yard with his brothers. That September 12, at Oldenburg, he married Barbara Ann Hahn, a young woman from Decatur County. The two families were already tied together: five years earlier his brother Wendel had married Barbara's sister Kate.

Stonemason at Harris City

George and Barbara settled in Decatur County, and their children came steadily: Olivia (Ollie) in 1882, Adam Lawrence (Lora) in 1883, Anthony (Tony) in 1888, John in 1890, Margaret (Ben's great-grandmother) in 1892, and twins, Leo and Ludwig, in April 1895. George became a stonemason, and by 1891 the family was living at Harris City in Sandcreek Township. It was not an easy decade. Just before Christmas 1891 nearly the whole family was down with fever. In 1895 Barbara died of typhoid, and baby Ludwig lived only ten days, leaving George a widower with six children, the youngest still a baby.

The county papers noted George's small doings: business trips into Greensburg, a week's visit to his family in Oldenburg, and, in May 1897, the news of his father's death, which took him back to Oldenburg for the funeral. He was ill for several weeks that spring and again in 1898. In 1895 he bought ten acres in Sandcreek Township for $800 and another acre for $325, and in 1904 he added another tract for $400. In 1900 the family was living at Happy Hill; that October his son Lora went into Greensburg with him on business, and the next spring he took his daughters Maggie and Ollie to visit their aunt Lana Schneider's family at Tuckertown. In 1903 and 1905 the family went to Greensburg for big reunions celebrating the eightieth and eighty-first birthdays of Barbara's mother, Elizabeth Hahn.

Last Years

For his last several years George worked at the Harris City quarries. He suffered for years from chronic peritonitis, and he died of a strangulated bowel on October 17, 1906, at fifty-four, in Washington Township, Decatur County. He was buried at St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery in Greensburg. His brother Anthony administered the estate, and that November George's eleven acres were sold for $1,200 to his son-in-law, Steve Stier.