Northumberland-Schuylkill County PA Archives Biographies.....(Kerstetter) Derk, Mary Elizabeth January 22, 1797 - May 25, 1897 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Carol Taby Larkline@gmail.com November 5, 2016, 12:59 am Source: newspapers and accumulated research Author: Carolyn Taby Larkins From perusing old newspapers in the past year, I came across a story that celebrated Mary Elizabeth (Kerstetter) Derk for her hundredth birthday. Mary Elizabeth certainly had an eventful life… We can celebrate with Marilis (Mary Elisabeth Kerstetter Derk) her 100th birthday on 22 January 1897 and recollect a century of history, with other Pennsylvanians who were informed of her achievement, from Allentown, and Altoona to Philadelphia and Scranton. From the Mount Carmel Daily News, the local take on her achievement was impressed by the financial misfortune that forced the family (Marilis and Michael Derk, John, Catharine, Elizabeth and Abby and possibly Elias) to sell what land they had purchased in Coal Township “for a song -$200” because it would prove to have “$8,000,000 of anthracite” beneath the surface. Family priorities are health and safety, so Michael and Mary Elisabeth did what they needed to do. In another one of the stories, that misfortune, however it came about, induced the family to move to Catawissa because they believed it would make life easier in terms of dollars and cents. By 1847, though, they returned to Northumberland County. The early deaths of family members may have been reasons for extra financial burden, because of her daughter Eliza’s death at age 31, according to Aunt Hilda, (our unofficial family historian) of smallpox. Daughter Abby also died young leaving 3 Weikel youngsters. Mary Elizabeth helped raise the Dooley kids while their father was working in the mines, and helped with her granddaughter Catharine Hinger’s as well, after the death of their mother. Those children appear in censuses with MaryEliz and Michael, but related families often lived close together, and Uncles Isaac and Elias Derk were named guardians for these children after Michael Derk’s death in 1868. Simon Kerstetter married Elizabeth Hinger and they provided a home for Mary Elizabeth for about the last 20 years of her life. Simon was her nephew and Elizabeth was MaryEliz’ granddaughter. We do have a history of pulling together. Biographical details of Mrs Derk’s life were provided by the Altoona Morning Tribune, citing “January 22, 1797, Mrs Derk was born, being baptized six weeks later, [at Himmels (Church)]. 17 December 1815 the young woman was confirmed in the Lutheran faith, and 22 September 1818, she was married." (To Michael Derk, son of John Turk and Regina Albert). She and Michael would have nine children, and only two who survived her, were the youngest Israel and Elias Derk. It was some grand party, 115 attendees to congratulate her and 5 generations attended! Not yet mentioned, their other children that I know about were John Derk, Catharine Derk, married to Aaron Kerstetter, Elizabeth Derk, married to Daniel Dooley, and Abby Derk, married to Charles K Weikel. By January of 1897, “Mary Elisabeth was grandmother to 18; great grandmother to 20; great great grandmother to 10, and Charles Aubrey, aged 6, could call her great great great grandmother.” Her parents, John Leonard Kerstetter and Susanna Gerhart left “home” in Lebanon county to survey a good place for settling down and explored Berks county, but decided to make their home in Northumberland county in the 1890s, and the story in the Altoona Tribune reinforces the idea in saying that in 1790 The Kerstetters moved to Mahanoy Township. One of the most interesting "mistakes" that many articles mentioned is that Mary Elisabeth thought her grandfather had come as a mercenary with the Hessians in the employ of the British. In fact, Steve Kerstetter has shown that both Marilis' father and grandfather, the John Leonard Kerstetters, Sr and Jr were born American; it was her great grandfather, John Martin and his first wife, Maria Dorothea Frey Kerstetter who left Obergimpern as newlyweds in 1727, arriving in Philadelphia October 31. Steve also speculates that they may have come as indentured servants, and found their origin is in Baden Wurtemburg rather than Hesse. As to the reason that family members may have had the Hessian idea, is that many of their neighbors really were Hessians who had come, learned the facts of the situation (Revolutionary War) and changed sides. Emphasizing the time differences, two items mentioned that even in her extended lifetime, she had never seen a steamship, or a locomotive. She did not speak English, because all her neighbors were Pennsylvania Dutch and that was their language. Telephones? Electricity? While they had been invented, they were certainly not found in her neighborhood. She left all these things for her descendants to explore. The Allentown Daily Leader closed their story, "Throughout her life Mrs Derk has enjoyed the best of health, and comes of a long-lived lineage. One of her most treasured relics consists of the shoes she wore when christened." Looking back on these stories, they contradict each other in some details, but the storyline seems to come through, of a woman up to meeting the challenges of life as they presented themselves. I wonder what she thought about the Civil War... her grandsons fought, our own g grandfather, Michael Dooley, son of her daughter Eliza, at Gettysburg where he explained that Co K, 36th Regiment, PA Volunteers marched up from Maryland and got there the last day of the battle. He told his granddaughters, what remained for them was caring for the wounded and burying the dead. By then, something of a cynic, he told them, that he blamed the war on greed - “the bankers on Wall Street.” On the subject of longevity, those Gerhart-Kerstetter genes seem to come through, not with everybody, but some of us do luck out. Michael Dooley’s sisters were noted in a Shamokin Dispatch in below. Shamokin Dispatch 11 July 1933 (These women are Mary Elizabeth’s granddaughters.) Total Age of Sisters is 262 Years; Reunion ------ Ninetieth Birthday of Mrs Maria Brennan Featured by Interesting Family Gathering – One Sister, Mrs. Hannah Kelley of Philadelphia, 87, while other, Mrs Thomas Goheen is 85 Mrs. Maria Brennan, one of this city’s oldest, most highly respected and beloved residents yesterday and attained the ninetieth year of life and in honor of the occasion, her two daughters, grandchildren and two sisters gathered at the home of a daughter, Mrs Harry Snyder of Wood Street where a happy reunion was held. In attendance upon the reunion were Mrs Hannah Kelly, 87 of Philadelphia, and Mrs. Thomas Goheen, 85 Vine Street, this city. Both are sisters and age of the three total 262, probably one of the oldest trio of sisters in the state. Mother Brennan, the widow of Michael* Brennan and a pioneer resident and early mining official, has resided here practically all her life and has seen Shamokin grow from a struggling village in a swampy woodland to a metropolitan center. The estimable woman has been ill for some time but more recently has been enjoying better health And this improvement was the motive of relatives in staging the happy family reunion at the Snyder residence during yesterday. The celebrant was the recipient of many useful gifts during the anniversary repast, which was an elaborate spread upon appropriately decorated and lighted tables. Mother Brennan was happy in the reunion of her two daughters, Mrs Snyder and Mrs Elizabeth Aubrey, the latter of Philadelphia and other members of the family. The Shamokin Dispatch joins with the many friends of the aged lady in wishing her continued improvement in health and many happy returns of the day. *Carolyn’s note: Maria (Dooley) Brennan married John K Brennan, not Michael as reported in the story above. And Aunt Hilda told me, their brother (William Dooley 1856- ?) lived to be 94, but I haven’t tracked that record down yet. After his wife died, he went to live with an adopted daughter he had raised, in Sacramento, CA. The last document I have is from October 1942, when he and Maud drove to California, after the death of his wife in Ault, Colorado. And Michael Dooley, our g grandfather, was the oldest of Eliza Derk Dooley’s children, and died at age 85 in Shamokin, 1926. Additional Comments: I have added a photo to the gallery that may be a picture of Mary Elizabeth Kerstetter on what I believe is one to celebrate the wedding of her great grandson, Warren Dooley and his bride, Mary Devlin. But it came to me unidentified, so I have calculated by the people I know on it. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/pa/northumberland/bios/kerstett671gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/pafiles/ File size: 9.2 Kb