♀Anna Stauffer

Anna Stauffer (christened 6 May 1602) was a woman of Röthenbach, in the canton of Bern, Switzerland, who married Michael Schenk of Eggiwil at Signau on 15 October 1619, at the age of seventeen, and is said to have stayed behind in Switzerland when he went into exile in 1671. She was the eighth great-grandmother of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Michael Schenk (born 1639).

Röthenbach and Eggiwil

She was christened at Röthenbach on 6 May 1602, the daughter of Hans Stauffer and Adelheid Schnyder. She married Michael Schenk at Signau on 15 October 1619, when he was twenty-nine and she was seventeen; the register writes them Michel Schenck and Anna Stouffer. The couple made their home at Hinten, in Eggiwil, where their children are said to have been born. They probably had fourteen children; seven are known by name, from Ulrich, born about 1622, to Johannes, born about 1642.

Exile

At least three of the youngest, Michael, Barbara and Johannes, became Anabaptists^W. According to a family history, her husband, then eighty-one, was among the Anabaptists expelled from Eggiwil and the neighbouring villages of the Emmental in October 1671, and she did not go with him. He went to Ibersheim, in the Palatinate^W, with their son Michael and Michael’s wife and four children, while their daughter Barbara returned to Eggiwil within a year and Johannes appears never to have left Switzerland.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son Michael Schenk (born 1639) and Michael’s son Christian Shank (died before April 1737), who was probably the Christen christened at Eggiwil in 1662. They continue through Christian’s eldest son, Michael Shank (died 1759), and his son Michael Shank (died before 10 February 1777), whose daughter Magdalena Shank (1752–1837) married Peter Gingerich (1749–1829). Their daughter Cattarina Gingerich (1793–1861) was the wife of John Kunz (1786–1865), and the lines divide between Cattarina’s sons Samuel Kunz (1825–1904) and Jacob John Kunz (1814–1866). They meet again when Samuel’s son Thomas Koons (1855–1938) married Jacob’s daughter Magdalena M. Koons (1852–1923) on 24 December 1876 in Henry County, Indiana. Their daughter Mary Magdalene Koons (1885–1977) was the mother of Ora Emogene Walrath.

Notes

What rests on the register

Two events of her life rest on the registers themselves: her christening at Röthenbach on 6 May 1602, where her parents are written Hanns Stouffer and Adelheit Schÿderin, and her marriage at Signau on 15 October 1619. Davis places the christening in the records of the church of Würzbrunnen, near Röthenbach. Her home at Hinten, the children and the exile come from Richard W. Davis, “Four Generations of the Descendants of Michael Schenk and Anna Stauffer”, Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage (January 1994), who draws on refugee lists in the Mennonite archives at Amsterdam. The list of 1 January 1672 credits her husband with fourteen children, of whom Davis identifies seven, and Davis writes that “His wife did not accompany him to Germany.”

Her son Michael

That the Michael Schenk born in 1639 was her son rests on Davis and on the refugee list of 1672, which places the younger Michael with her husband at Ibersheim. No christening is on record for the younger Michael: the Signau christening register breaks off between 1618 and 1650, and Eggiwil’s own register begins in 1648.

Two Anna Stauffers

Her son Michael also married a woman named Anna Stauffer, at Eggiwil on 21 September 1660; that couple have their own pages.

Death

When and where she died is not known.