Leaving Home for a new Home

by David L. Habegger

When the Johannes Krehbiel family left Bavaria and the Weierhof in Germany for the United States, they felt sadness for leaving the family members and friends behind. But they looked forward with anticipation for the opportunities and freedoms that lay before them.

This major transition was quite different from the one their ancestors had experienced in leaving Switzerland. They had been forced to leave their homeland in 1671 because of their faith, which the Canton of Bern, Switzerland would not tolerate. The government took extreme measures to get rid of all the Anabaptists (re-baptizers). An order was given that all should leave in two weeks. Those who had been previously examined and warned a number of times to leave but had not were to be severely punished. Some 700 persons were then expelled. With little more than the clothing they wore and what they could carry they went north into Germany. They were penniless refugees who were permitted into Germany because much of the country still lay in waste from the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648. (J.J. Krehbiel erred in placing this war after the Krehbiel family arrived in the Rheinpfalz of Germany.)

As they left Switzerland it is said that Peter, the son of Jost Krehbiel composed the following poem about leaving their farm, village and homeland. This poem was published in the Christlicher Gemeinder Kalender in Germany in 1911, probably by David Krehbiel a teacher in the Weierhof Realgymnasium. In 1960 it was translated by Delbert Gratz and Loretta Hilty of Bluffton College, Bluffton, Ohio and printed in Howard Raid’s “Krehbiel Family History: Pfrimmerhof & Weierhof to America.” Howard Krehbiel published his revised version in his booklet “From Troubled Times” which we give here.

FAREWELL

Farewell you Alps, you beloved countryside.
You homelike village in the quiet valley!
You beloved fields, someone else will care for.
O Fatherhouse, you I will no longer see.
May God watch over you! Farewell for the last time.

See how pleasantly one is greeted over there,
Glowing in the sun’s first rays,
The snow covered stern gigantic peaks,
The lofty Jungfrau, Eiger, Mönch and Niesen
You greet me for the last, the last time.

Farewell you valleys with rock walls,
Severe and barren, that stretch to the heavens;
That send their streams from high above,
That end in spray in the gorge.
Also to you I say farewell for the last, last time.

You bring me to tears no less today -
You forest-wreathed lakes, so bright as metal;
Where we happily sang in light canoes.
The disturbed surface soon frightened the swans;.
I traveled on you for the last, the last time.

There on the meadows I see slowly moving
The well-fed cattle in great numbers.
Do you hear the Alphorn sounding over there?
Do you hear the herdsmen resoundingly sing and yodel?
I hear you, ah! for the last, the last time.

Oh fatherhouse, your warm beloved rooms
Where I knew life’s joy and pain,
Farewell, farewell, in the shade of your trees!
It breaks my heart to tarry longer.
Oh, farewell for the last, the last time.

Still one glance at my parent’s grave,
There under the freshly-wreathed marker,
Where I felt a need to come and pray!
Now I, filled with grief, grip my wanderer’s staff,
And great even you for the last, last time.

And you who have persecuted me with fury and vengeance,
Nevertheless I ask that the grace of the Lord be upon you.
Do you think that I would permit my cherished beliefs
Of my Lord and Savior to be taken from me?
Also, farewell to all of you for the last time.

Take everything away! Only leave me my Savior!
Earthly goods are only waste and husks.
In distress I am more fortunate than before;
The storming flood around me, I am on safe ground.
So I feel at peace now for the first time.

So farewell to all! I must now depart.
Farewell! For me there is no other choice.
The Lord is indeed my Shepherd, he will lead me
To fresh pastures He will bring me, though through suffering,
Someday to break bread with Him.

Christian Krehbiel wrote that when the family came to America they were in a group of twenty-five persons. [p. 24] He does not name them. From the passenger list of the ship Splendid, which is available from Ancestry.com, we can reconstruct a list.

The person making out the list of passengers was not particular about the order in which he wrote the names. When he wrote down the names of the Krehbiel family he did not start with the parents. The first name entered was that of the oldest son, Jacob. The writer indicates whether a person is male or female. Here is the list as he gives it. Persons who were not family members are mixed in with those who are. These may have been part of the group traveling together. Spellings were abbreviated and spelled as they are in French. On the right I give their actual age

Following the Krehbiel family is the Johann Löwenberg family that also lived at the Weierhof. The mother, Katherine neé Krehbiel was a 4^th cousin to father Johann Krehbiel’s father. There are several errors in this listing as well. The sex of Christian and Valentine are given as female.

The name of Catherine, age 9 in this family is a mystery as she was not a Löwenberg. The mother, Elisabeth, had a child out of wedlock named Michael, who was adopted by Johannes Löwenberg who is not named with this group. He remained at the Weierhof and became famous as a teacher, preacher, and founder of the school in the Weierhof. The Löwenberg family went to Haysville, Ohio for the winter of 1851 and then moved to a farm near Donnellson and Wayland, Iowa in the spring of 1852.

Some information comes from Howard Krehbiel, a professor of Mathematics at Bluffton College, Bluffton, Ohio (1970-1995) who published “A Löwenberg Genealogy: Descendants of Abraham Löwenberg (1737-1785)” in 1997. His mother was Clara Barbara Löwenberg. His Krehbiel line goes back to Peter Krehbiel, a brother to Jost Krehbiel (1655) a progenitor of our Valentine Krehbiel.