~ SOBER FAMILY NAME  ~

Return to “Our Family History” or “Our Family Surnames” or “Sober”

Source: Genealogies by Wayne Hetzel self published 1982.

Story from Stella Sober, daughter of Alexander Sober, from a long letter she had written her cousin, Louise Sober, dughter of  Aaron Sober. 

Here is a little story about the Sober name.  Miss Margaret Clark of Washingtonville, an Aunt of Emma Robertson, who married Will Shoop, had a little book.  She gave it to a missionary and was sorry she had not kept it, as she thinks it was our early forefathers.

Long years ago when people had only one name, a man by the name of John, did a great service. I do not know what it was, for his ruler.  I do not know if king or what the ruler was and the highest honor at that time was to bestow a second name on a person so this ruler told John to select a nmae,  John was such a good man, he wanted time to select a name free from tarnish and one that nothing to the end of time could be markedm so after some time he meet a man who had such a beautiful stone in his ring.  The man said it was a saphire, so John went to the ruler and tld him he had selected “Saphire”, so he was John Saphire for a long time. When the name was called Sapher, then Sopher, and later Soper.  John became a great preacher and went to London and preached.  He was so popular that a street was name “Soper” for him. That ends the book story.

But one day a man went into the library to trace something and meet Martha Sober.  The name Sober attracted him at one and he told her the Col. Soper of New York city had sent him abroad to find out about the Sopers.  He heard of Soper street and he thought it must have been named on account of the soap factory in London. But in tracing it, found it had been named in honor of a  John Soper who had come to London and was such a great minster, so it looks as though this John Soper is one and the same man.  He also said Col. Soper had a daughter, Gertrude, and she and Martha were the image of each other.

From the letter of Stella, and by hearsay, there seems to run a general trend in history of the Sober name.  It originated in England and was probably spelled “Sopher”. This name got reduced through the years to “Soper” and that name still exists in America today.  The stories seemt to indicate that when some of the Sopers were members of the Revolutionary Army, the name was misspelled by a careless clerk, and came out “Sober”.  In order for the men to keep the jumbled and confused records straight, the Soper boys affected served in the Revolution, under the name Sober,  After the war, it seemed easier to reap the benifits of having served, by remaining “Sober” than trying to unravel the red tape to return to Soper. 

When the Revolution broke out, six sober men enlisted from New Jersey and when the war was over, three could not be accounted for, either lost in battle or missing.  It may have been that they were in camp near Easton and died of small pox, as an epidemic broke out in that camp.

Source: My father ~ Larry Rumery

There is a story of great fortune that has been passed down through the generations. The fortune was to have been traced from Holland to America. And that his grandfather, George Rumey, had gone to New York city to attempt to recovery part of it but did not succeed due to “red tape”.