Like most families, the Keffer family has some very important heirlooms. One of these, in particular, I’m not so sure of the location of now… After Aunt Elsie passed away, a lot of things were taken to churches and museums. It turns out that having been in Maple for generations, the Keffer’s have their own place in history. And this particular item was really rather neat. I remember the occasion for digging it out of the bottom of Aunt Elsie’s front shoe closet was that Mum and Dad were headed to Germany – Where they hoped to find someone to translate the majority of what none of us could read. Neatly wrapped in an I.G.A plastic bag was a ‘Family Bible’. It’s cover was wooden, and it was bound with horse hair. I’m sure historians and genealogists alike are cringing over the storage method, but truth be told, in the early 1990’s we were hardly aware that keeping anything of value wasn’t best wrapped in plastic in the bottom of the shoe closet!
Mum and Dad diligently took that Bible to be photocopied before returning it to it’s plastic wrap and Aunt Elsie’s shoe closet. If my memory hasn’t failed me, there was a second bible they also had the first few pages copied from and that is included here. The photocopies of a few pages are all we possess now – I’m sure it’s current owners have much more advanced methods, like gloves for handling and humidity controlled, low light clean rooms and acid-free, lignin-free, pH-neutral boxes for storage.
Mum and Dad met a gentleman who spoke ‘High German’ and was able to point them in the direction of Mittelbrunn, Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate, in western Germany, but alas they really didn’t discover much more. The small church there remained locked and closed up and no one else was really much help in their early genealogy hunt.
Truth be told, I do miss the days of Aunt Elsie pulling these treasures out of the shoe closet for closer inspection. There’s something to be said for being able to learn about your ancestors around the kitchen table without wearing gloves.
Jacob Keffer’s Bible:
Rev. E. Huenergard, Great-great Grand Son of Jacob Keffer made the translation of the information regarding this bible according to a slip of typewriter printed paper left in the Bible:
‘Jacob Keffer, in 1795, bought this Bible in Hagerstown, Maryland for $7.06, (Seven dollars and six cents)’.
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Second Bible:
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