Legally married to Conrad, but actually married (Common Law) to
Conrad's son, Von John.
The Story: Elizabeth Ruby Tisher and Von John Ulrich Moeckly
the parents of Charles Moeckly
the father of Welby Moeckly
the father of Kay, Joy, Llea, Randall and Kirk
(Source: Much of this is direct from Frank Moeckly to his daughter
Cecile, while he was in the old Britton Hospital and she was sitting
with him. After Ellie (Frank's wife) died, Cecile decided to share it
with the family. One of the peoples she wrote to was her brother,
Delmar Moeckly. It was then written to me. I've added corresponding
information from Welby and the Letters, as I call them. These
"Letters" are a collection of letters Bessie Moeckly has, that were
written back and forth from August, Will, Phoebe, Frank and Dora from
Iowa to Charles and Kate Moeckly when they first left Iowa and lived
near Dell Rapids. At that time, the whole family was deciding what
was the best thing to do, and where to settle. Date time of these
letters is around 1901 and 1902.)
******** ******** ******** ********
Elizabeth Ruby was born in Switzerland on May 5, 1841 or 42 and lived
with her parents somewhere between Lucerne and Interlaken. Elizabeth
herded cattle for her father on the Jungfrau Mountains. Her father
made cheese for the village people. She had two brothers: Peter,
born about 1843; and Chris, born about 1845. She remembered the time
her uncle, her father's brother, brought a calf in a boat across Lake
Lucerne to give to her, and how happy she was to have the calf.
When Elizabeth was a young lady, she married the son of a family
living close to the Rubys, Wilhelm Peter Tisher. (The original
spelling was Tischer.) Wilhelm was born in Bern, Switzerland in 1840.
Living fairly close to the Rubys and the Tishers in Switzerland was
the family of Conrad Von John Moeckly. (the father of Von John Ulrich
Moeckly) But the families didn't know each other until they met in
Iowa in the United States. The original spelling of the Moeckly name
was "Moeckle." The 'y' was added when they came to America, and later
the 'e' before the 'y' was dropped, resulting in the present spelling
of the name.
(When Cecile Moeckly Sutherland was in Switzerland in 1957, she found
a Dr. Moeckle in the phone directory in Basel, Switzerland. In
telling her father, Frank (brother of Charles) about it, he became
very excited and said, "Yes! Yes! That's the way it was spelled."
She also took tours; had an interesting guide who told her of an
entire town of Rubys in Switzerland.)
Wilhelm and Elizabeth Tisher, with her parents, planned to come to
America together. And so Mr. and Mrs. Ruby sold their land and
property in Switzerland. Shortly before they all were to leave,
Elizabeth's father died very suddenly. After he was buried, the
remaining three, Mrs. Ruby, and Wilhelm and Elizabeth Tisher came to
America and settled near Millersburg, Ohio. There Mrs. Ruby used her
money to buy a farm. And there three children were born to Wilhelm
and Elizabeth: August on June 27, 1865; William on September 11,
1868; and Rosalie in 1869. They all lived there together on the farm
until Elizabeth's mother, Mrs. Ruby, married and "Irishman."
Wilhelm and Elizabeth with their three children then moved to Iowa (It
is believed in Polk County) and lived on a rented farm. In 1870,
Wilhelm was gored to death by a steer, and little Rosalie died of
typhoid fever, leaving Elizabeth with five-year-old August, and
William just two years old, and with very little money. They were
forced to leave the rented farm.
Living near were the Brobeils (Ella Miller Moeckly's grandparents) who
offered Elizabeth a small house on their place for her to live in, and
also a 'bit of land.' The Brobeils had some land next to Moeckly land
(also in Polk County) and an old-fashioned feud developed between
them. The Moecklys were very hard workers and had accumulated much
land and wealth. There were jealousies between the two families.
(Years later, Elly Miller married Frank Moeckly, much against Grandpa
Brobeil's wishes. He didn't think she should marry a Moeckly.)
The Moecklys were much in need of a housekeeper and cook, and John
Ulrich Moeckly persuaded Elizabeth to come work for them. So, much
against the advice of "Grandpa Brobeil," Elizabeth left the little
house and 'bit of land' and went with her two small boys to live with
the Moecklys. And so the feud thickened between the Brobeils and the
Moecklys.
Living at the Moeckly house at this time were Conrad Von John Moeckly,
his son Von John Ulrich Moeckly, and Von John Ulrich's children:
Jacob, Jefferson Davis, John Adams, George Washington and Mary. The
children ranged in age from "young men to small children."
Von John Ulrich Moeckly was born in Switzerland in 1829 and married
there in 1856 or 1857. (His wife's name is not known at present.) He
had dark hair and at one time a bushy black mustache. He was a
determined man and a hard worker. His aim was to buy a farm a year.
At the time Elizabeth came to the Moeckly home, John Ulrich's wife was
in a mental institution. (She eventually died there.) Also living
with the Moecklys was a hired man from Switzerland. Elizabeth and her
two children made ten.
Time passed and John Ulrich Moeckly and Elizabeth Tisher wanted to get
married, but the law forbade divorce to anyone whose spouse was
mentally ill. So when John Ulrich was 42 years old, his father,
Conrad Von John Moeckly married Elizabeth so she would have the
Moeckly name, but she lived with John Ulrich as a common-law wife.
And so Frank, Charles and Phoebe were born. (Charles was born Jan.
12, 1874.)
Long before Conrad Von John Moeckly (Elizabeth's legal husband) died,
he donated land in Iowa for a cemetery. It's called "Moeckly
Cemetery" and most of the Iowa Moecklys are buried there.
After Elizabeth's marriage, and when Frank was barely five years old
and Charles was about three, her mother, Mrs. Ruby, came to the
Moeckly place in a lumber wagon. She was very ill. She had to be
carried into the house and died soon after. The "Irishman" had sold
the farm and "ran away from his responsibilities," leaving Mrs. Ruby
ill and penniless. Frank insisted he remembered her driving into the
yard with the team and wagon. (I suppose August and Will remembered
this well. ZM)
It was soon after this, and when Elizabeth was pregnant with Phoebe,
that John Ulrich (Elizabeth's common-law husband) died of a second
stroke or heart attack. He was forty-nine years old. Welby says he
remembers his father, Charles Moeckly, telling a story about his
father, John Ulrich, after he had his first stroke. He was quite
paralyzed, but he would get people to lift him into his buggy, strap
him in, and then he would go to sales around the country buying
cattle.
Elizabeth was left alone again. By this time, the Moecklys had
several farms. Shortly before he died, John Ulrich put an 80-acre
farm with a house on it, in Elizabeth's name. This was all she got,
and that was even mortgaged. So she went there to live, taking with
her her children, August and Will Tisher, and Frank and Charles
Moeckly. Here Phoebe was born. Even the Swiss hired man urged her to
take it to court, but she wouldn't. Everything but this 80-acres was
inherited by the first Moecklys.
Years later, when Elizabeth's children were grown, Will Tisher married
Dora Ringgenberg (a first cousin of Ella Moeckly). They had three
sons: Rolfe, Irv and Dorn. Dora died when Dorn was born, so
Elizabeth took the three boys to raise. When Phoebe Moeckly married
Perry Verts in Iowa, she took Rolfe to live with her. Later, Phoebe
had a son, Dale. Will later married Freida Plagmann of Alexander, and
they had three children: Harold, Donald and Mildred.
August married Myrtle and they had seven children: Faye, Louis, Vera,
Carrie, Leslie, Lyle and Arnold. Frank married Ella Miller and they
had four children: Raymond, Delmar, Cecile and Caroline.
In 1900, Charles Moeckly married Katherine Howrick, and in 1901 they
moved to a farm east of Baltic and near Dell Rapids, SD. And in
February of that same year, Elizabeth died in a Des Moines hospital
following surgery for a large tumor. It was the first year of Frank's
marriage, and he told Cecile that he was very close to his mother and
took her death very hard. Being the oldest, he had helped her with
making a living. Welby said his father, Charles used to tell of his
mother, Elizabeth's death. She said, "See all those beautiful
flowers, Charlie? You can see them, can't you? That's where I'm
going." And soon after that she died. (It seems to me they were a
very close family, and loved their mother very much. ZM)
In the fall of 1902, Charles and Kate with Merl, moved to Hanson
County near Alexandria, SD where 'little Welby' was born. (Note: I
have copies of many letters written to Charles and Kate in SD from
August, Will, Phoebe, Dora and others, telling about the possible move
of them all to SD and where to go and problems. They're very
interesting and show the struggle to make a living and the closeness
of them all. ZM)
And in 1905, Elizabeth's children moved to Marshall County in
northeastern South Dakota. Will and August came first and wrote
Charles that land was selling for $20 and acre. Charles first looked
at the big Diamond-T Ranch near the Badlands in ND, but decided on the
land in Stena Township in Marshall County. They made the trip by
train; rented an emigrant car and partitioned it in half. One side
held the machinery with the grain poured over it; the other side held
the livestock. Welby also told the story that his father, Charles had
the chance to buy a big farm north of Dell Rapids before they moved
north, but didn't have the money. Charlie said the banker told him,
"Did I ask you for the money, Charlie?" Credit was easy to get, but
the farms there were selling for $40 to $50 and acre, and he could buy
land in Marshall County for $20 and acre. And so he turned it down.
Charlie, Kate, Merl and little Welby first lived with August Tishers
nine miles west of Britton. While there, the baby Welby Charles died
of Spinal Meningitis. They moved to a farm six miles west of Britton.
It was here that Welby Clair and Elizabeth (Bessie) were born. In
1918, they moved to their permanent home _ mile west, where Richard
was born a year later.
And so it was that all of Elizabeth's children came to Marshall County
to live. And here they died and were buried.
Zet Moeckly
Note: The parts about the Charles Moeckly family are taken from
information that I have collected. Other is from what people have
told me. There's a lot of statistics that could be included, but I
felt this was the story of Elizabeth. I'm sure all of the families
could add much more of their own stories…..ZM