Individual Details

Miscellaneous

Remembrances of Vinna (Bowers) Helstern, tape-recorded 1989 by Bob Gross
#3 Stutzman family stories: “the Stutzmans were in the Pleasant Hill church, an early, active Brethren church in central IL. The Stutzmans had moved there shortly after the Civil War....“[David Wineland’s wife] had a brother named Valentine – we always called him Uncle Val – and a sister, Hannah. Aunt Hannah [married name Parrot] lived in S. Bend. I can remember visiting her in pre-school and early grades, on Navarre Street that ended at the river. I can remember going with her to SS at the 2nd S. Bend church. Also remember Uncle Val coming to visit her; a plain Brethren, plain coat. She eventually moved to Chicago. She had 2 daughters: one of them had been a nurse in S. Bend. Aunt Hannah [Parrot] and this daughter who was a nurse took care of the premature baby, Ruth, when my mother died...
Aunt Hannah went to Chicago where her son was a career navy person and the nurse-daughter went to CA. When I was teaching at Millersburg I got a letter from this cousin in CA, Rose Parrot,...another cousin was trying to get information on the Stutzman family and had traced a certain branch of the family to a Goshen or Millersburg address. Would I try to see if I could get information - 1925. Telephone, no answer. I put a letter in the mail to the address she gave me. The place where I boarded, Art Berkey, ran the hardware store and at certain times he stayed open in the evening. One evening, about 7 or 7:30 he came to the house with a tall, scraggly man. ‘This man says his mother got a letter from you and she isn’t able to come to town. He’d like to take you out to talk to her.’ So I went; model T Ford; curtains pretty well fastened down; cold weather; I didn’t know where we were going; never heard of the guy before; don’t know how far we went; seemed endless; NE of Millersburg....his mother was a dear little white-haired lady and she was a missing link [for the Stutzman family]; she had been a Stutzman. We got the information; studied the family Bible...don’t know much more... Jacob Stutzman was the father of my grandmother.... A name that goes back into the Brethren history to the early colonial days. [mentioned in Brethren in Colonial America]
Sadie Wampler had been a Stutzman; When Jacob Stutzman moved to IL, some parts of the family stayed in IN