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| Welcome To The Official |
| Unnewehr Family Homepage |
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| Greetings Family and Friends. A little about this site: this is going to be an ever-changing site, so please check back with us, often. What you will view in this site is a little about the immediate family of Lewis Emory Unnewehr, & a little from his children & their families, their interests & activities with links to their web pages, if any. There will be a summery of our ancestors, as far back as what has been researched, with the hopes of learning more, from links to Unnewehrs, around the world. Also in time we will have a page with family news, pictures of reunions and hopefully a detailed graph of our family tree. From what I understand research has been done on our family line about 25 years ago. It needs updating a little, but for the most part it's pretty accurate. The immediate family that I referred to before, which will write a little about themselves and their families, are as follows: Father: Lewis Unnewehr Mother: Jean (Affleck) Unnewehr Son: David Unnewehr Daughter: Laurie (Unnewehr) Millar Daughter: Janet (Unnewehr) Tupper Son: Chris Unnewehr A note should be made that Chris Unnewehr is the one who initiated this site and the email, but all of us will be maintaining it and answering emails, and soon we will be starting a Web Ring, & you will see a small banner at the bottom of this page, to link to other Unnewehr family sites. And Lewis Unnewehr has informed me that he will have some help translating the emails, so our friends in Germany, please do write us. Before we go on to learn about all of us and our history, I must put a plug in for Lewis Unnewehr's new book entitled: "Silent Night, Unholy Night"; The Story of German-Americans during World War I. Here is a picture of the front cover and a link to read the back. He will tell you how to get a copy, when he tells a little about himself and wife Jean. |
| Unnewehr Family Ancestry, By Lewis E. Unnewehr: Our family is fortunate to have a very good genealogy of American family members descended from Gottlieb Unnewehr who was born in Osnabrueck (the "ue" here represents the umlauted "u"), Germany, on February 26, 1806, and died in Batesville, IN, USA, on February 21, 1900. This detailed genealogy was prepared by Amos Wesler, a longtime teacher and musician in Cleveland, OH, in 1968. Amos was a grandson of George Unnewehr, the second child of Gottlieb that lived into adulthood. Gottlieb's father was conscripted into Napolean's personal army because Napolean required men 6'-2" tall or over. Unnewehr men have generally been 6-footers ever since. Gottlieb married Mary Engel Otting in 1834. Mary was born on May 15, 1812, and died on December 31, 1887, and is also buried in Batesville, IN. After Napolean's time, Germany was divided into many small kingdoms or principalities and wars and fightings were frequent. There were different dialects of German spoken in various principalities. In Osnabrueck, the dialect was Pladeutch, often called "low German" because of the proximity to the Low Countries. It is said that Gottlieb and Mary had difficulty understanding each other when they first met because of differences in thier dialects. They obviously overcame these difficulties and later became proficient in Classical German and English. Two children, Henry and George, were born to the couple in Germany. Gottlieb served 7 years in the army of his region. As the boys grew up, he hoped to avoid their having to serve in the almost continual wars going on in central Europe, and the family emigrated to the USA in 1842, the midst of what is often called the "first large German migration to the USA". They traveled on a small sailboat and arrived in Baltimore, MD, on July 4, 1842. Mary and Gottlieb had 6 children who lived into adult hood. These are: I. Henry, b. 4/10/1836, d.4/15/1919 II. George (Gerhard), b. 2/16/1838, d. 1/7/1918 III. Wilhelmina, b. 2/25/1844, d. 3/25/1865 IV. Mary Eliza, b. 3/28/1847, d. 1932 V. Anna b. 10/10/1849, d. 7/23/1911 VI. August Louis, b. 12/6/1851, d. 1/28/39 This web page is about the Unnewehr family of August Louis, who used his middle name, Louis, rather than August. Oddly, these are the only descendents of Gottlieb with the name, Unnewehr, in the USA today. Male descendents of Henry and George all changed their names to either Unnevehr or Wehr in one generation or the other. And, of course, the descendents of the female children of Gottlieb carried on the names of these children's spouses. Gottlieb and Mary settled in Cincinnati, OH, where there was already a large German community, and for a while, lived with a brother of Mary's. While there, Gottlieb worked as a butcher. After some time, they obtained a land grant for 40 acres of land near the Franklin-Ripley county (IN) border, about 40 miles northwest of Cincinnati, and built a log cabin there. Some of the outbuildings of this farm were still standing in the 1960's. This writer has a walking cane made from a log of the original log cabin. Four of Gottlieb's children lived out their lives in this area. (August) Louis bought land nearby in Ripley county in the town of Batesville, IN, now famous as the home of the Hillenbrandt Industries, world's largest maker of caskets and hospital furniture. Louis was a skiled carpenter and cabinet maker and also became involved in the ownership and management of one of the many small furniture manufacturers in Batesville, Union Furniture. He married Lena Albers (b. 3/1/1851, d. 1/6/1928). Thy had four children: Elma (1882-1967) m. Will J. Gelvin Emory Carl (1885-1959) m. Ivy Mae Lewis (1884-1982) Lenore (1887-1959) m. Albert Marting Hulda (1890-1956) m. Hilbert Ficken Emory Carl Unnewehr was a physicist with an engineering degree from Purdue University and a PhD from Columbia University. He taught at Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Oh for over 40 years. Baldwin Wallace is a merger (in 1913) of an English Methodist college, Baldwin University, and a German Methodist college, German Wallace college. Berea at one time was the sight of the largest sanstone quarries in the USA, stone from which were used in many famous buildings, such as the House of Parliament in Ottawa, Canada. He married Ivy Mae Lewis in 1920. Ivy was also working at Baldwin Wallace at the time, and had had an interesting early life in Detroit, Texas, and Los Angeles, having contact with such well-known persons as John Nance Garner (V.P. under Franklin Roosevelt) and Bill Cody (Buffalo Bill). Emory and Ivy had two children: Jean Lena (1921-) m. Harold Putnam Lewis Emory (1925-) m. Laurel Jean Affleck Lewis Emory Unnewehr also has an engineering degree from Purdue University and an MSEE from the University of Notre Dame. He taught at Valparaiso University in Indiana and helped established the Engineering College there. He is the author of the above novel and also a co-author of 6 technical book and many technical papers. He worked at Ford Moter Research Labs in Dearborn, MI, for many years developing electric and hybrid vehicles. Laurel is a graduate of Drake University and a skilled violinist. Lewis and Laurel have four children: David Lewis (1951-) m. Urszula Getris Laura Lee (1952-) m. James Millar Janet Ivy (1958-) m. Craig Tupper Chris Emory (1963-) David Lewis Unnewehr has degrees from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. He is a senior insurance research manager at the American Insurance Association in Washington, DC, and has written numerous papers on the liability effects of earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, etc. Chris Emory Unnewehr is a master glasier and autoglass technition in the Suffolk, Va, area and is home studying for his A+ certification for upgrade and repair, of personal computers, and is the author of this web page. David and Urszula Unnewehr have two children: Kyle David Unnewehr (1982-) Kevin Lewis Unnewehr (1988-) Now lets Hear from the children of Lewis Unnewehr. Click on their names below to learn about their family and activites. |