Walter Mowery (Maurer) Family

The German name of Maurer was changed to Mowery sometime in the 1850's.

In 1865, John Mowery, with his wife, Emaline Birkley Mowery, and two children, Lizzie and Albert, came to Henry County from Allen County, Ohio. They left Allen County because the soil was of such poor quality. John had been urged by relatives, among them Jessie Spangler, to come to Henry County where the soil of the Black Swamp was so much richer and better. John purchased eighty acres, twenty of which were cleared. The family lived in a small house, later called a summer kitchen, and worked hard at clearing the land and left only a few acres for woodland. Later, John purchased sixty acres in the Shunk area where the Hill family lived many years. John Mowery's home was a large, brick house built in 1880, a barn, and had a number of sheds, and still stands on County Road N, about one half mile east of Route 109.

John Mowery and his wife had eight children. The first son died in infancy. The other children were Lizzie Hock- man, Albert, Emma Decko, Milton, Walter, who was born on June 14, 1872, Harley, and Orley. None are now living. Orley, the youngest, died in 1871, at the age of ninety years.

On January 27, 1895, Walter married Marietta Meyers at the Presbyterian Manse in Napoleon. They were married by Reverend Donahey. They made the trip to Napoleon in a sleigh, the most popular vehicle used in the winter in those days. Many years later they became members of this church after the Turkeyfoot Reformed Church, of which they were members, was discontinued.

Etta, as she was called, was born on June 4, 1870, the daughter of John and Antoinetta Meyers. They lived on a small farm in the area west of Malinta about two and one-half miles. They had lived in another county in Ohio, that of Tuscarawas County, and made the trip because of the soil conditions in that county making farming difficult. The trips from Pennsylvania to Tuscarawas County, then to Henry County, were made in a big wagon. Etta often talked about how she liked to go to school, and her desire that she might have gone to high school and then to college. After she finished the eighth grade, she was urged by her brother, Frank, to take the teachers' examination. Frank had been teaching for many years and was well known in his profession. Etta passed the examination and taught three summer terms at the Krotz School, which she had attended as a student. Being the only girl in the family, she was needed at home to care for her ailing parents. After their death, only a few weeks apart, the farm was sold and Etta did housework for Nettie Lightheiser who Etta called her "second mother". Etta had learned to play the organ so she was invited to attend the Turkeyfoot Church and become their organist. It was there that she met the man who was to become her husband, Emanuel Walter Mowery.

After living on the Shunk farm for several years and helping his father on the home farm, Walter purchased a farm a short distance east of his fathers on County Road N. Because his father had become blind, Walter had done all the farming for several years, and continued so after his father's death in 1908. The sixty acre Mowery farm is now owned by Kenneth Hall.

Walter and Etta had five children while they were living on the Shunk farm. Lola, the eldest, became a teacher after her graduation from the Grelton High School and from Michigan State Normal College at Ypsilanti, Michigan. She taught five years in rural schools, then taught ten years in the Napoleon school system. She married Henry Hoffman and their one daughter, Marjorie, married Alvin Loop, and lives with her husband and their two sons, Stephen and Craig, in LaCanada, California, near Los Angeles. Lola finished her teaching career at Grover Hill where she had moved. After Henry's death in 1969, Lola married John Sheely, a retired teacher. He died in 1973 and Lola lives in her home in Grover Hill, Ohio.

Nina, the second daughter, also became a teacher. She graduated from Grelton High School and Ypsilanti Normal College and attended Bowling Green University. She taught in the Grelton School, in the Toledo School System, and in the Wauseon Schools. In 1930, she married Paul Scott, who died in 1957. They had moved from Toledo to Wauseon in 1947, and Nina taught in Wauseon until her retirement in 1966. She is now married to Fay Jones and they live on his farm near McClure.

Charley, the elder of the two sons, was stricken with polio soon after his graduation from Grelton High School. It left him slightly handicapped. He attended Fort Wayne Business College and majored in bookkeeping. He worked in Decatur, Indiana and met and married his wife Naomi Teeple there. For a number of years he worked for the Teeple Trucking Company and later in the office of a trucking firm in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He died in 1965 from a lung condition caused by polio. His six children, who survived him, were William, Joan Braun, Claire Brown, Jean Ketchum, Helen Meyers, and Walter.

Clare, the next son of Walter and Etta Mowery, graduated from Grelton High School. He married Florence Johnston of Liberty Center, Ohio. During the many years that they lived in Toledo, Ohio, Clare was employed by the Toledo Edison Company, and for twenty-five years was supervisor of parts sales at the Kaiser-Jeep plant in Toledo. He retired in 1967 and built a home in Liberty Center where he and Florence now live.

Walter and Etta had a daughter, Mary, who died one week after birth.

In 1918, during the Influenza Epidemic, a son, Robert, was born to Etta's brother and wife, Charles and Grace Meyers, of Lafayette, Ohio. Grace died of pneumonia and flu shortly after the birth of Robert. Because of his already large family, Charley was unable to care for his infant son. When Robert was a month old, he was brought to the Walter Mowery home where he was raised. He attended Grelton School and graduated from Malinta-Grelton High School. His name was legally changed to become Mowery, the name he had always used, when he was drafted into service during World War II. Robert married Fern Pope of McClure. After the war, Robert studied meat cutting, worked in several meat departments, and now lives in Delphos, Ohio, and manages a meat department in an I.G.A. store.

During all of their lives, Walter and his wife centered their interests mainly in their family, their work on the farm, and their church. Walter had a good bass voice and still in country school, the Warner School, he became interested in what was then called "singing school". He liked to sing hymns and in his later years belonged to the Henry County Chorus. After their own golden wedding anniversary, Walter and Etta, enjoyed attending parties held by those who had been married fifty years.

When Walter died of a stroke in 1955, an old friend said of him, "He didn't have an enemy". Etta said, "He liked so well to live".

Etta lived until 1956, just one year after her husband, but her health had been failing for several years.