A kind volunteer with the FindAGrave.com network recently photographed this tombstone for me. This is Mary Magdalena Bernard Rolfes, one of my husband's ggg-grandmothers on his mom's side of the family. (Rita Brunswick Tumbush was her great-granddaughter.) The gravestone is located in St. John's Catholic Church Cemetery in Maria Stein, Ohio.
Gravestone of Magdalena Bernard Rolfes, St. John's Cemetery, Maria Stein, Ohio
Magdalena was the daughter of Joseph Bernard, a French immigrant, and Anna Maria Kemper, who, according to U.S. Census data, was born in Pennsylvania. They were married in Mercer County, Ohio on June 13, 1839. Magdalena was born in Maria Stein, but I have not yet been able to determine Magdalena's exact date of birth; her obituary from The Minster Post (below) states that she was 76 yrs, 2 months, and 7 days old at the time of death. That would put her year of birth at 1846, which may not be correct since her older brother's death certificate has 1846 as HIS year of birth. Magdalena's death certificate lists her year of birth as 1856, which is completely off.
Magdalena Bernard Rolfes Obituary, The Minster Post, 29 Sep 1922
Magdalena married Joseph Rolfes on May 2, 1865 in Mercer County. They lived and worked on a farm in Mercer County's Marion Township, right next to Magdalena's parents, and the two families are listed on the same pages in the 1870 and 1880 U.S. Censuses. The 1900 census lists her as having had 13 children, although I can find birth and/or death records for only 12. Unfortunately, her husband, Joseph, passed away in 1883 when he was only 41 years old. Her oldest child, Henry, was only 17 years old at the time and she had many other little ones to care for. Magdalena did not remarry and, with her children's help, must have kept the farm going, because in the 1900 census she is listed as a farmer and the head of the household. In her later years, she lived with her two daughters, Katherine and Caroline, and her son, Anthony. Katherine worked as a dressmaker to support the family and Anthony worked as a farm laborer.
