Richard Edward Hoffman

Richard Edward, son of George and Emma (Dunkman) Hoffmann, with his wife and daughter, Gertrude, moved from Cincinnati to Henry County in 1941.

Richard E. Hoffman

He had met Emma Kryder in Springfield where she lived with her parents, George and Gertrude (Hartman) Kryder, while Mr. Kryder was employed in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Emma was then doing substitute teaching in the elementary school at South Vienna, Ohio. They were married in November, 1931, in Springfield by Reverend Jesse Swank. Rev. Swank was the minister who had married Emma's father and mother at Napoleon in 1897.

They had purchased the farm on which they now reside in 1933 but Richard's work as territorial manager with General Motors' Acceptance Corporation in northern Kentucky and southeastern Ohio kept him in Cincinnati until 1941 when General Motors ceased making cars because of war orders. He then accepted a position with Ohio State Department of Taxation which he held until retirement in 1962.

At that time the Hoffmans moved to Henry County where, over the years, under Emma's supervision and care a herd of high producing Jersey cattle was built. It was Trudy's (Gertrude) 4H club heifer who took Ohio's only 1st prize at the National Jersey Show in 1946. The herd was sold in 1958 in a complete dispersal.

On the west side of the farm there is a large woodlot bordering on Turkey Foot Creek. In the 1870's-80's the farmers of the area using hand scoop scrapers, dug a mill creek and built a grist mill at the foot of the creek hill. There remains one old sill half-buried in the mud at the site of the mill. The story told to Emma by a Harrison Township resident, Harry Fast, was that the mill was completed, the farmers were there with their grist, mill race was opened and the mill collapsed. It never was repaired and used. Mr. Fast's sister married a Reid, and this Mr. Reid told that story.

Gertrude Kryder, Emma Hoffman, Richard, daughter Gertrude, George E. Kryder.

After her graduation from McClure High School, Trudy studied and graduated at Stautzenberg Secretarial School in Toledo. In 1953 she obtained a position as secretary to the manager at Harris Products and she worked in that capacity until her marriage to Robert Hogrefe in 1956. They live on River Road east of Napoleon and have four children: Janice, Marian, Sandra, and Theodore. The two older girls are ardent animal lovers. They each have 4-H projects including Polled Hereford breeding and market stock. They share their parents and grandparents love of nature and horticulture.

Submitted by Emma K. Hoffman