My granddad, Jacob Schaefer, M.D., born 1826, Dossenheim, Germany, studied two years at Heidelberg University, participated in the Revolution of that date and emigrated to America in 1850. Son of John Philip and Anna M. Schmich Schaefer, met and married Elizabeth Buercheler in 1851. She was born 1827, Kloten, Switzerland, the daughter of Henry and Susanna Eberhard Buercheler. Granddad came and practiced medicine in Meigs County and served as coroner in 1882.

My dad, Edward Brutus Schaefer was born 1852 at Gallipolis. Dad was the eldest of eleven children, only surviving son, married Mary Elizabeth Hysell in 1877; they had two sons. In 1889 he married my mother Barbara Francisca Heitz, daughter of Joseph and Christine Ohlinger [Heitz]. I was born in 1896 at Rock Springs, the fifth child of nine children. We later moved to Naylors Run, and I attended school in Pomeroy but had to go to work at an early age. My work was around the coal mines; at first we didn't receive wages but were given credit for food at the company store. When we were older we received wages. I worked in coal mines until my enlistment with the Army in World War I. After my honorable discharge, I married Edna Stahl in 1920. Edna was born at Hiland in Meigs County in 1900. She was the fifth child of eleven children born to Bert and Luella Bradshaw Stahl. Bert was the son of Martin and Margaret Woodruff Stahl. Luella was the daughter of Hiram and Olive Ann Hysell Bradshaw. We were born within a mile of where we have lived our life together. Our three children, Ferndora, 1921, Mildred, 1922, and Norman Wyatt, 1924, were all born in the John Thomas farmhouse on Laurel Cliff where we set up houskeeping. When the mines shut down, work could not be found. We raised hogs, kept a cow, chickens, ducks and grew a sizeable garden as we still do. Edna canned, baked, sewed, kept house, and even cut my hair which she still does today.

Finally I got a job with Pomeroy Cement Block, then Telephone Company and then with Ohio Power for 25 years as first class lineman until an injury and ill health made it necessary to quit. We sold our first home and purchased our present farm of 28 acres in 1937 when our children were nearly grown. It has taken 42 years of hard work to clean up a neglected farm. In the beginning all we had was hand tools, then a horse, and in 1941 we got our Farmall Tractor that enabled me to saw wood, cut hay, haul machinery and do numerous jobs. It still works today. Edna and I agree after fifty-nine years of marriage we have lived in the best years of time and no doubt seen more changes in history than any other generation. Our memories take us from the oxen to man walking on the moon.

Source: Meigs County, Ohio History, volume 1 - 1979