Week 14 - Language - Porter family

My 2x great grandmother Margaret Matter came from Ottwiller, Bas-Rhin, Alsace-Lorraine, France/Germany. Margaret was born 5 Aug 1833 and when she was age 22 and her sister Sophia was age 19, they immigrated to America on the ship Hemisphere into New York via LeHavre, France arriving the 7th of June 1856. 

They met up with their parents George and Margueritte (Burr) Matter and brothers Henry and Louis, who had immigrated in 1852 via New York, in Muscatine, Iowa.  Muscatine was settled by a large number of German speaking immigrants. Muscatine was once the pearl button capitol of the world supplying hand-made buttons from the mussels from the shoals of the Mississippi River.

Margaret married John J Porter 30 Dec 1858 in Tipton, Iowa. She was age 24 and he was age 40. They were the parents of six children:  John Lewis, William Henry*, George Washington, Mary Ellen, Margaret Ida and Harry Edward. 

John L married Mary Karner and they migrated to and died in Houston, Texas. William H - my great grandfather married Carrie Barnhardt, and they lived and died in Iowa. George W married Anna McCowan and they migrated to and died in Oregon. Mary Ellen married Edward Deardorff and lived and died in Iowa. Margaret Ida married Sam Breslin, and they lived and died in Iowa. Harry E died at the young age of 26 in LeHigh, Indian Territories, Oklahoma in 1898.

Margaret and John lived in Tipton, Cedar County, Iowa most of their lives. John died 11 August 1885 in Rochester, Cedar County, Iowa and is buried in Rochester, Iowa. 

In 1889, Margaret married 2nd to Richard Kinnan and when she died 17 April 1901, she was buried with Richard Kinnan in the Masonic Cemetery, in Tipton, Iowa.

There must have been a language barrier between Margaret and John, but they obviously overcame it. 

Barbie





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