The Brinkeys of Dungannon

We'll stay in Ohio for awhile, but switch families to the Brinkeys. They came from the town of Wolschwiller in upper Alsace, where they lived for a couple hundred years after coming from Italy. Jacob Brinkey, whose wife, Susanna Weber, had died nearly 10 years before, brought his five children to America in the early 1830s through the Port of Baltimore. They settled in Columbiana County, Ohio by 1840. Lewis Brinkey (1812-1886) was the eldest son and married Walburga Pfeffer in St. Philip Neri Church, the oldest Catholic Church in Ohio. The youngest son, Maurice, enlisted in the Union Army from Illinois in 1862, reenlisted in time for Vicksburg in 1863, and reenlisted again, this time to be captured with the rest of his company in southwestern Virginia and died five months later in Andersonville prison. But Maurice's tale is another story for another time.

Lewis and Walburga's first and third sons both died young. The family in the picture above is Adam's (1841-1902), in about 1892. Up on the porch, from left to right, are grandmother Walburga, the "baby" Agnes, mother Kate Hagan Brinkey and Adam. The children spread across the first step down are the twins, Lewis and Jim, Herman, Mary, and Bertha. Mother penned a note on this snapshot that the picture was taken before the additions were put on the house.

This, I believe, is the same house after considerable renovation. I suspect they more than doubled the house's living area. I had assumed that was done while Adam was still alive, but there's no reason the boys couldn't have overseen the effort later. Bertha, my grandmother, was the only one of the kids to marry and leave the house. Lewis died in 1907 and Jim and Agnes died just before the 60s took hold, leaving Mary and Herman.

This is the same house again, and I don't know when it was taken, but it was probably shortly after Mary died in the early 1980s. Herman had died in 1974. Last summer when Cathie and I took Mom out to Ohio, she tried to show me where the Brinkey farm was. It was a path-finding failure - my only clue is Dungannon - but a pleasant drive for all that. We had started from the cemetery, but I guess things just looked different enough to Mom to foil our efforts. I hope to have another shot at finding it about Labor Day if my travel plans work out.

Here's another undated photo from the Brinkey farm. That's Jim and Herman harvesting wheat. This picture (or at least the print) has always bothered me, but it doesn't any longer. I think the photographer, probably Mary or Agnes, was falling over when she snapped the shot. I don't recall how many degrees I had to rotate the picture to stand the verticals upright, but my anxiety is gone now that I don't have to worry about the mower rolling over on Jim or Herman and upending the team in the process.