Ein Imle Familie Geschichte

I’m back on track with the Imle book, although I am trying to write two books simultaneously (the other on the Tapscotts of Clark County). I hope this works out. Tentatively the Imle book will be titled It Started in Gündelbach, Ein Imle Familie Geschichte—probably far too long, but C’est la vie (or should it be So ist das Leben?).

In 1881, Frederick and Anna Marie Imle lived in Gündelbach, Württemberg, Germany with their five children Maria, Fred, Chris, Adam, and Gottlieb, where they managed vinyards. Not wishing their sons to be drafted into the compulsory German Army they decided to move to America, with the Adam Pantle family as sponsors. (Pantle descendants still live in Marshall and Paris.) The Imle family left Rotterdam, Holland on 26 Mar 1881, landed on in New York on 15 Apr 1881, and made their way west to settle on a farm a few miles south of Marshall.

Frederick bought the farm and he and his sons spent their time tending crops, while Maria tended children, house, and gardens. In time, four more children—Bertha, Anna, William, and Herman—were added to the family.

No one knows for certain how many descendants there are from the nine children. Attending a reunion in honor of the 100^th anniversary of the arrival of the Imles in the United States were 150 people from a dozen states. A recent count from my incomplete database shows 304 descendants plus 176 spouses.

Imle Family Reunion, 12 Jul 1981, Lincoln Trail State Park, Clark County, Illinois.

 My interest in family history was sparked by my mother’s passing around Christmas, 2000, but it was encouragement from Dorothea Maria (Imle) Dunlap, “Dottie Rose,” my mother’s cousin, that that got me going on the Imles. Dottie Rose and several other Imles (in particular, Edgar, author of a magnus opus), had already written large portions of Imle family history. I was asked only to expand their work.

The expansion has turned out to be much more difficult than I had envisioned. First, it has taken on a life of its own to include Imle relatives, history, and geography. Second, Imle descendants have increased geometrically, possibly exponentially. Third, Imles have spread across the United States and outside the country. For over 300 years, the Imles had lived in the same small region of Germany, most of this time in the same town, much of that time in the same house. Then, for 40 years or so after arriving, most remained in and around Clark County. But then the small dispersion became a diaspora and since the 1981 reunion a DIASPORA! The reason is affluence. H. B. Guppy (Homes of Family Names in Great Britain) wrote a passage about the dispersion of affluent Englishmen. It applies equally well to Germans:

“It was the boast of a wealthy old Devonshire yeoman, 150 years ago, that he had never crossed the borders of his native county, and I cannot believe that in this respect he differed greatly from his fellows. From the stationary conditions of their lives, and from the nature of their pursuits and surroundings, they acquired a solid mediocrity of character, to which the long persistence of families in the same locality and in the same station is mainly due. England, in truth, owes much to their lack of aspiration and to their home-loving ways. It is, however, remarkable that the rise of a family into a condition of opulence is, as a rule, shortly followed by its dispersal, until within a generation or two, the home of the name for centuries knows it no more.”

Tracking down the multiplied and dispersed descendants has proven almost, but not quite impossible. These postings will describe this venture and what I find along the way.

All genealogical data are from primary or reputable secondary sources and never from unsourced online trees. Contact the author to request sources, omitted here to improve readability. Readers may use any posted material for any purpose as long as this source is cited. Most important, I need your help. Please tell me of errors, suggested additions, and photos you can contribute. I need your criticisms, comments, complaints.