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- From a thread on Rootsweb:
From: "Cecelia"
Subject: Re: [FRANCE] Roll Call Questionnaire
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 01:52:56 -0500
"In the old Sterling cemetery which has pretty much been destroyed, there is, or was, a tombstone with a German inscription which reads "Peter Frantz 1-2-1870 -1886, aged 16 years, 10 months, 7 days." findagrave has this headstone with no parents info. This Peter is not old enough to be the deceased Peter's father.
The town of Sterling all moved to the railhead in the new town of Calvert, abandoning the town. Judge Robert Calvert's family, prominent founders of Sterling and Calvert, fenced off their family members in the cemetery and cattle grazed on the rest of the town and the cemetery for years.
In the new town of Calvert, there was Peter W. Franz, born 1861 and died 1916. Peter married Augusta Shelander (Americanized from the Swedish), who was born in Sweden in 1860 and died in Calvert in 1937.
Peter and Augusta Franz had three children, Hermena Barbara born in Calvert 1883 and died there in 1964; Alpha Anne born in Calvert 1888 and died there in 1966; and a son, Roger, born in Calvert in 1890 and died in 1943.
Roger married Virgie Cox who was born in 1895 and died in 1936. They had one child, Novie Joyce Franz. Alpha married Thomas J. Smith who was born in 1866 and died in 1965. They had no children. Hermena married Emil Conitz
who was born in 1880 and died in 1976. They had 4 children, Marvin, who died as an small child; Alfred, Irvin, and Thelma. Only Alfred had children.
I just remember Roger Franz taking me for walks when I was small. I would take my little parasol with me and felt oh so grown up. I have also heard the story of Peter W. Franz's wife, Augusta, as she came over to the US from Sweden. Her older sister was invited to visit relatives in the U.S. She said she wasn't going to cross that ocean.
Augusta said she would like to come, got permission, etc. and she did come.
During the trip, she read her Bibles. She had a Swedish Bible and an English Bible and, while the other young people were dancing and having fun, she read her Bibles. She compared them and taught herself English that way. She finished the trip into Texas by train and, as the train was rounding the curve at the north end of town, she saw the town and started crying. She said it looked like a wild west town, which it was in those days. Because she was crying, the man next to her gave her an apple. She did meet Peter W., they married, and she lived the rest of her life in Calvert, Texas."
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/FRANCE/2004-06/1088405561
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