Name: Oberdorf>Overturf
Migration: Kembach, Germany>York Co. PA>Licking Co. OH>Knox Co. IL>NEPart I: Overturf Family in Nemaha Co.
My great-grandparents, John Lake Overturf (1850-1911) (cf. Oberdorf) and Alzina Minerva Sheldon Overturf (1853-1928) arrived in Nemaha and Johnson Counties on October 24, 1877. They rented a farm first (which may have been in Johnson County) but then purchased 160 acres. This farm was on the boundary between Johnson and Nemaha county but in Nemaha County; it was known as "the Overturf place" and was about three miles slightly northeast of Elk Creek. It had a creek running through the northeastern corner of the land [possibly Long Branch Creek]. By 1893, they had built a substantial house there. They resided on this land for 28 years, but the farm was sold around 1909 when John and Alzina moved to Bird City, Kansas, due to John Lake's failing health.
Following their arrival in Nebraska, John Lake's parents, Simon Fuller Overturf (1827-1913) and Minerva Lake Overturf (1830-1904) joined them in Nemaha County in about 1887. I believe that they, too, had their own land (it may have been in Johnson County) but I do not know where it was located. Minerva died in 1904 and after that Simon Fuller lived with his son, John Lake, and his wife for six years, then with other children and one grandchild, until he died in 1913 in Elk Creek, NE [southeast corner of Johnson Co.] [both Elk Creek and Mt. Zion Cem are located on NE-62 highway].
In 1896-1897, John Lake Overturf was the Director of School District No. 45, Benton Precinct (Mt. Zion School), Nemaha County. The teacher was C. E. Quinn. Among the 23 pupils attending the school were six of their children, including my grandfather, George Edwin Overturf. George Edwin Overturf was one of fourteen of their children, 10 of whom reached adulthood and either married and stayed in the area or moved away. George Edwin Overturf went to school in Hastings, met and married my grandmother there, and remained in Hastings for the remainder of his life.
Simon Fuller Overturf and Minerva Lake Overturf, John Lake Overturf and Alzina Minerva Overturf are all buried in Mount Zion Cemetery in Nemaha County, as well as the four children that John Lake and Alzina Minerva Overturf lost.
Part II: Overturf Family Roots
The Overturf family has its roots in Germany. The name was originally Oberdorf which means "over village", meaning that they lived above the village.
There were two Balthasar Oberdorfs, father (1665-?) and son (1698-?). Balthasar Oberdorf II was married in 1718, probably in Kembach, Germany, to Magdalena Oberdorf, daughter of Jacob Oberdorf. Balthasar and Magdalena and at least three of their younger children emigrated to the United States, arriving at the Port of Philadelphia on September 24, 1753, on the ship Neptun.
Johann Valentin Oberdorf, a son of Balthasar and Magdalena, was born in October 1735 in Kembach, Germany and was 18 when he arrived in the United States with his parents. Johann married Agnes Elizabeth (or Elizabeth Agnes) and they settled in York County, Pennsylvania. Valentin is on the tax list in Newberry Township in 1762 and in Manchester Township in 1780. They moved to Fayette County, Pennsylvania, before 1785. They had eight children, and it is assumed they both died (Johann in 1800) in Fayette County, Pennsylvania.
Simon Overturf, a son of Johann and Agnes, was born in York County, Pennsylvania in 1771. In 1793, he married Mary DeBolt who had been born on February 6, 1778, in what is now German Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of George (1748-1829) and Elizabeth Tegarden Debolt (?-1834). George DeBolt was the son of Hans Michael DeBolt (1723-1788) and Elizabeth (?-1789). Simon and Mary Overturf bought land in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, but sold it and emigrated in 1809 to Licking County, Ohio. Simon was a house carpenter and a Justice of the Peace. Simon and Mary had ten children. They both died in Ohio, Simon first in 1820 and then Mary in 1849.
George Overturf, a son of Simon and Mary, was born on December 22, 1798, in either Fayette or Green County, Pennsylvania. George married Jane McLain on October 19, 1821. Jane, who had been born on November 4, 1797, in Virginia, was the daughter of a tailor, James McLain, from Dublin, Ireland. George and Jane settled on the east half of the N.W. quarter section U.S.M.L Range 14, Tp. 6, Liberty Township, Licking County, Ohio, when it was still virgin forest. They had eight children; both died in Ohio, George in 1862 and Jane in 1883.
Simon Fuller Overturf, the second child of George and Jane, was born July 13, 1827, in Licking County, Ohio. He married Minerva Lake on July 28, 1848. They had lived on adjoining farms as children. Minerva Lake, who had been born in Licking County, Ohio, on January 14, 1830, was the daughter of Jessie W. Lake Sr. (1802-1884) and Elizabeth Ann English (1803-1880). In 1866, Simon and Minerva moved from Ohio to Knox County, Illinois, and then eventually followed their son, John, to Nemaha and Johnson Counties in Nebraska. Simon Fuller and Minerva had seven children.
John Lake Overturf, a son of Simon and Minerva, was born on the family farm in Ohio on September 25, 1850, but he travelled with his parents to Illinois in 1866. In 1869, John married Alzina Sheldon. Alzina, who was born in Hartford, Ohio, on July 10, 1853, was the daughter of Lewis W. Sheldon (1826-?) and Nancy Corbin (1830?-1914?). Lewis had been born in Mississippi, the son of Samuel and Triphane Hatch Sheldon, who both died when Lewis was young. Nancy, born in Ohio, was the daughter of Richard and Barbara Beaver Corbin. Richard Corbin had been born in Virginia in 1809 and had come to Ohio with his parents in 1823; little is known about Barbara Beaver.
John Lake and Alzina Overturf moved from Knox County, Illinois, to Nemaha County, Nebraska in 1877. They remained on their homestead for 28 years. In 1909, they left Nemaha County because of John's failing health; however, both were buried in Mt. Zion Cemetery in Nemaha County, John in 1911 and Alzina in 1928.
John and Alzina's 10th child, George Edwin Overturf (1886-1949), was my grandfather. George left the family farm in Nemaha County and married Nellie McDonald (1888-1963) in Hastings, Nebraska, in 1910. George and Nellie had three sons, one of them being my father, Donald Sheldon Overturf (1916-1998), who was born in Hastings, Nebraska, in 1916. My father married Josephine Hansen (1917-1988), who was also born in Hastings, in 1937. I am their fourth child, third daughter, Susan Overturf Ingraham, born in Valentine, Nebraska, on October 4, 1945.Part III: Excerpt from John Lake Overturf's autobiography in 1909
"When we [John and Alzina Overturf] were married [in Illinois] I did not have enough to set up housekeeping, so I worked for [my wife's] Grandpa Sheldon until the fall of 1869. By that time I had earned $60.00. I rented land from a man...but there wasn't any house on it, but he said if I would furnish my own house and dig a well, when I left the place I could remove the house or he would pay me first cost for it...
"So I bought an old house...for $50.00 per annum to pay for it. I got a bunch of the neighbors one day and tore it down and moved it....
"I went to town with what I had left of my $60.00 and bought a cook stove for $29.00 and the few things we had to have. By the way, I waited my chance and bought at sales, a table for 50 cents, a bedstead for 50 cents, and at last the great day came when we moved in and started housekeeping. We talk of the present high prices. The things we had to eat and buy to wear at that time were very high too, and labor much cheaper than now. To give you an idea, I took a job in the winter of 1869 and 1870 of making 1000 rails at $1.00 per hundred and he paid me in wheat at $1.10 per bushel....
"I put in my first crop in the spring of 1870, consisting of 16 acres of corn (which I tended with a double shovel and a single horse) and 7 acres of oats, which were so poor when harvest came I could not afford to hire them cut with a reaper, so I bought a cradle for $3.00 and cut them myself...
"We lived on that place until the fall of 1872 when I bought 40 acres of Grandpa Sheldon's farm for $750 on contract with a bond for a deed. I put in a cellar under the house, built a good wagon shed, put a picket fence around the garden, and built considerable other new fences, cleared and broke considerable of the land, but I was never able to pay more than the interest and taxes.
"In the spring of 1877 Grandpa took the land off my hands and paid me $250 for the improvements I had made. In the meantime...I bought 80 acres of land that adjoined the 40. I paid $1000 for it at 10% and borrowed all the money....
"I made 5000 rails and fenced it the first spring I had it....That same fall, 1877, I sold out for $1300. The fellow gave me $500 in cash and assumed the mortgage.
"We made all possible haste and on October 3, 1877, we started for Nebraska. Our worldly belongings amounted to four horses, one wagon and harness, our bedding, and $160. We drove overland, arriving in Johnson County, Nebraska, on October 24, 1877. I rented a farm [in Johnson County] but could not get possession until spring. We rented a house to winter in and I went to work. We managed to exist until we raised a crop. Three and a half years from that time we had 160 acres of land [in Nemaha County] and had it paid for besides building a shanty on it. [The homestead was completed in 1893] and all of [our children] grew to manhood and womanhood there and [they] were the most happy years of our life...."
The days when this home was occupied were, according to the children, grand and good days. From about 1893 to 1898, the family circle was the largest. One of the children said, "During those years Father and Mother and nine children usually sat down to a well-loaded table in the spacious dining room; and holiday time was a great joy. In addition to the family regularly at home during these particular days, the older ones would return with their children,...making a total often times of 25 to 30."Susan Overturf Ingraham (s.ingraham@home.com)
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