Lybarger Linkages Newsletter

LYBARGER REUNION AND MEETING

It is time to reserve a place for the LMA annual meeting and reunion at Madley, PA. On July 15-17, 2005. For those arriving on Friday the 15th there will be an informal gathering_, at the Best Western Motel in Bedford. PA. The schedule of events is as follows:

Sat. July 16:

Lunch 12 noon , Clara's Place. Rest Western Motel

Trustees meeting: 1:15 p.m. Lybarger Lutheran Church

Annual meeting : 2:30 pm same place

Visit to site of 9/11 plane crash . 4:30-5:00 p.m,

Dinner 7:00 1 p.m. The Apple Bin Restaurant. east of  Bolton (directions will be provided

Sun. July 17;

Breakfast 8:00 a m Clara’s Place

Church Service : 10 a.m. Lybarger Church

Group photo opportunities : 11 a.m.

Reunion picnic: 12 noon, Lybarger Grove

Please note the special opportunity to visit the site where United Airline flight ^#91 was sacrificially forced down. Jack Lybarger or nearby Johnstown, who has made numerous visits to the site, will be our tour guide. This will take place immediately after the annual meeting and will allow time to return to Bedford to freshen up for the dinner at the Apple Bin at 7:00 p.m.

Twelve rooms have been reserved at the Best Western at the group rate $72 per double occupancy, Call 800-752-8592 to make a reservation. Be sure to mention that you are with the Lybarger reunion. Any rooms not reserved by July 1st will he removed from the group rate. The Saturday group lunch in the Courtland Room B will cost $7 plus 6% sales tax and 15% gratuity. The Sunday breakfast will be held in the same room at the Best Western. Cost is per individual order. Coming by car via the PA turnpike, exit at Bedford. After the toll  booth turn left going uphill. You will quickly sec the Best Western on your left. There arc many good motels in Bedford but our group rate is only available al the Best Western. You can camp under the trees at the Lybarger Picnic Grove. Call Jack Lybarger. 814-266-7919 for details. Any Questions? Call John Lybarger. LMA president. At 740-342-3110

CONTRIBUTORS TO CHURCH AND GENEALOGY FUNDS

The following persons have made contributions to the Lybarger Church fund and/or for genealogical research in 2004. The church has now been repaired and repainted. The door will be replaced and installed in time for the July reunion thanks In the work of George Lybarger of New , Albany . Oh and to the generosity of the following persons:

Ed Lybarger Greenbrier, AR

Wm. Dale & Marilyn Berry, Phoenix, AZ

John T. Lybarger, Indianapolis, IN

Lindy & Norma Lybarger, North Manchester, IN

Kathleen & Floyd Lybarger, Illiopolis. IL

Bennett Lybarger, Illiopolis, IL

Nancy J_. Springer-Crisp, Golconda, IL

Robert & Jean Smith. Apex, NC

Robert & Irma Lybarger, Harmony, NC

Catherine Felder, Portland, OR

Kenneth Cluck, Veneta, OR

Elsie V. Bevurd, Utica, OH

Clara E. Bosko, Mansfield, OH

Herb Lybarger, Perry, OH

Judy J. Mayer, Omaha, NE

Francs Zlock Newtown, PA

Angus Burch, Ann Arbor, MI

Contributions to genealogical research will go toward translations to and from German and for fees charged for genealogical searches in Germany and Switzerland. Future issues of the newsletter will report progress on efforts to push back our roots into these countries.

NEWEST LMA MEMBERS

Welcome to the newest members of the LMA:

Regina and Stephen Brown Elk River, Minn.

Kenneth Cluck (via Betty Adams), Veneta, OR

Patricia Lybarger, Chagrin Falls, CA

Ty William Lybarger, Yucaipia, CA

NELLIE LYBARGER GAIL 1904-2004

It is with deep regret that we report the death of Nellie Lybarger Gail. An enthusiastic supporter of the LMA. Nellie was born at Cherryvale in rustic coral south-eastern Kansas. She was the daughter of George W. and Elva G. (Malaby) Lybarger. Alter high school she taught in a one-room schoolhouse.

In 1924 she married Walter A, Gail and they moved to Denver, CO where she lived for the rest of her life. They had two sons who unfortunately did not survive her but 6 grandchildren did. She earned her college degree at age 52 from Denver University and then taught elementary school for I3 years.

Nellie traveled to the LMA reunions at Madley, PA when she was in her 80’s and at age 90 she came from Denver with the help of her son to receive the LMA Distinguished Service Award for her work on her branch of the Lybarger family history. It was incorporated into the 1997 and 2000 editions of The Lybarger Descendants. Thanks go to Charlene Gail, Nellie’s daughter-in-law for information about Nellie’s death.

MEDICAL GENEALOGY RESOURCES

One of the practical advantages of doing family history research is medical genealogy. The LMA newsletter has published articles on this in the past, most notably in the Spring, 1998 about polycystic disease, and in last Spring’s issue about a disease brought to America by the Germans of Hesse.

There are 3 web sites you can access that will help you in doing a medical family history. The first is an announcement from the U.S.. Surgeon General urging Americans to learn as much as possible about the prevalence of cancer, heart disease and other illnesses in their families. The Department of Health and Human Services has released a new free computer program to organize family health information that can be used in visits with the doctor. www.hhs.gov/familyhistory/ is the web site to use for further details.  

The Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin has launched a form on their web site. www.marshfieldclinic.org In the search space type "family history" and then click the document. "your family history".

The Marshfield Clinic recommends 5 steps in creating a comprehensive family health history:

I. document health information for three generations if possible including aunts, uncles and cousins;

2. capture as much intonation as possible about birth defects, developmental disabilities including ages the conditions began;

3. note environmental or job exposure's, including family members who smoke or work with chemicals;

4. keep information in a safe place and update yearly;

5. pass the information to others in the family and your adult children. Share a copy with your doctor.

Another web site is from the National Society of Genetics Counselors. www.nsgc.org Enter "Family" in the search blank and then scroll down to #4 document.

MEDICAL QUERY FROM CARL LYBARGER

A good illustration of the need for family health history is seen in the information received from Carl Warren Lybarger of Kansas City. He is the son of Bud Wayne Lybarger who left the family when Carl was five. Carl would like to know who his grandfather was.

Carl wants to contact any Lybargers who have or had multiple polyposis, a genetically inherited disease. It turns cancerous and can cause death if not caught in time. His sister had it but it was caught early on. Cad has been treated for it in various ways.

If you have any information to share with Carl please e-mail him at clybarger@aol.com  by calling him at 417-883-6644 or by writing to him at 4444 So. Robberson, Springfield, MO 65810-1740.

A QUOTABLE QUOTE

Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.

            Frantz Fanon. 1961

LIFE AND TIMES OF A CIVIL WAR OFFICER

by Jennifer L. Wilke

Editors note: Ms Wilke, 55, is the daughter of Peg Lybarger Wilke. She lives in Bellingham, WA where she is writing a Civil War novel based on the life of her great grandfather Edwin Lewis Lybarger, who served in that war under General Grant in the Chattanooga, TN campaign, in the march to Atlanta, GA under General Sherman and with him to the sea at Savannah. The subject of this story, Edwin Lybarger, was the 1992 recipient of the LMA Distinguished Service Award. For this article Ms. Wilke has drawn on Edwin's papers her Aunt Nancy Lybarger Rhoades bequeathed to her and to whom Jennifer is much indebted.

I found a handwritten note lying innocently amid the official Civil War documents of my great-grandfather Edwin Lewis Lybarger (1841-1924). These papers were packed away in a box in his study in Warsaw, Ohio when he died. It was put in storage in his son Harry's attic, then his granddaughter Nancy's attic. Now, miraculously, it has come to me.  

The now that intrigues me most is a simple, gracious dinner invitation. Its pen strokes are written in a confi­dant hand, the ink fading now but still legible. The page is small, thin along the folds and a little frayed at the corners. It is a piece of paper over 140 years old.  

Headquaters

43 O.V.I.

Nov. 25th 1863  

Lieutenant

Will you do me the favor to dine with me? tomorrow at 2 P.M. ?  

Very respectfully,

Your obedient servant

Wager Swayne

Col. 43rd Ohio  

Edwin Lewis Lybarger (son of James Thompson Lybarger 1814-64) enlisted at Camp Andrews (Mt. Vernon, Ohio ) as a private in November 1861 at the age of 21 in Captain William Walkers Company K of the 43^rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He came home to Millwood, Ohio on July 21, 1865, the war won. He was a 1st Lieutenant by then and limped to favor his injured right leg. The regiment formed in 1861 with 1,000. Sixty-five men were lost to battle wounds and 192 to sickness by the war's end. 

I wonder why a 22-year-old soldier in the middle of a war would keep a dinner invitation? Once home, why did Edwin store it with his most important war papers for the real of his life? 

He also kept the minie ball that hit him in the right knee at the Battle of Corinth, Mississippi in 1862. I found it on Grandmother (Ethel Finney) Lybarger's mantel in the big house on Cambridge Road in Coshocton, OH. A minie ball is heavy and as big as the first joint of your thumb, pointed at one end and hollowed out on the other. It shatters bones, and as many soldiers died from the effects of amputation as from the actual wounds they made. That astounding bullet got me hooked on Lybarger history.  

I started with The History of the Lybarger Family (1921, 1959), and The Lybarger Descendants (1997), as well as LMA newsletters. I read Edwin's extensive biography and obituaries. I listened to all the family stories my aunt Nancy L. Rhoades this oldest grand-daughter) was willing to tell. Even more miraculous was her discovery in the early I990s of letters that Edwin received and saved during the war, which she transcribed, annotated and let me read.  

The more I learned, the more questions I had about him. I wanted to know what his mother Amelia said when he left to enlist in 1861; what he talked about with his comrades while they all sat around the campfire; why he didn't just go home on a disability discharge alter he was so badly wounded in the knee. I wanted to find the measure of the man. I wanted to feel his handshake. I wanted the impossible — to know enough about him to recognize him should he ever happened to walk into the room.  

As in the state of Ohio, about one-thud of the men in Millwood in 1860 were between the ages of 18 and 40, potential soldiers. Edwin is the only Lybarger listed in the official roster of the 43^rd Ohio regiment. His Company K had 100 men from southeastern Knox County, so it would have included friends and acquaintances, but apparently not any Lybarger cousins. I don't know how many other Lybargers joined the Ohio Volunteers, from among the 310,000 Ohio men who served throughout the war, or how many fought with regiments from other slates.  

There is evidence that the Lybargers in Union Township in 1860 held the full variety of political opinions prevalent in that volatile time. Some Republicans were abolitionists, most wanted no expansion of slavery, or its eventual abolishment, or the colonization of blacks back to Africa. Most northern Democrats preferred allowing slavery to continue rather than fighting a war over it.  

In Edwin's papers in the 80 year old box. I found considerable evidence that he retained his war friendships all his life. There is a photograph of him as a white-haired old man, standing with three other while-haired old men--who had all served with him in Company K. The 43"' Ohio 's third colonel John H. Rhodes wrote my great-grandfather a letter on October 4, 1915--52 years after the Battle of Corinth. Writing to tell Edwin unfortunately his health was too poor to permit a visit, he went on in vivid detail to describe his memory of preparing for the charge of the 2^nd Texas with his sword in his left hand and his pistol in the right.  

So maybe the reason Edwin kept that dinner invitation from 1863 was that it was a precious reminder of being a junior officer in the company of senior officers he admired. Twenty tears later, he named his son Harry Swayne Lybarger, a namesake of the 43^rd Ohio 's second colonel, Wager Swayne.  

The pieces of my great-grandfathers history fit together around what he had been proudest of. That pride is engraved on his headstone in Valley View Cemetery in Warsaw, Ohio: “Capt. 43^rd OVVI.” Yet here is another curious detail that his papers reveal: he mustered out of the Ohio Volunteers as a 1^" Lieutenant. A few months before the war ended, he was offered a promotion to Captain, but he declined to accept it. He did not want to be a Captain (commanding a company), his granddaughter Nancy Lybarger Rhoades says, because he would have had to order men into battle where they might get killed. Yet after he came home, everybody called him Captain. Maybe he had acquired a Captain's demeanor, or maybe he tried correcting people h, no avail. In any case, the honorary title remained his for life, and remains alter death. One obituary even elevated him to "General Lybarger," which I expect would have given him quite a chuckle.  

There was another great find in his boy of papers--a very large photograph of Abraham Lincoln looking soberly,  seeringly into the camera lens. His heard is trimmed and his hair is still black. Lincoln and Sherman had been Edwin's truest heroes.  

In 1863, when Lt. Edwin Lybarger received the imitation to dinner from Col. Swayne, the Ohio men were proud to be in what they had taken to calling "Mr. Lincoln's Army." The 43^rd Ohio had prevailed in some fierce battles, had re-enlisted almost to the man, and was intent on ending what Edwin 35 years later still called “the internal fraternal strife known as the slave-holders rebellion." In a letter he kept, one young woman wrote to Edwin of her dismay at learning that he had re-enlisted. "I want the country to be the way it was." she wrote, and you want the country to be the way it ought to be."  

Something about that 1863 dinner invitation still left me puzzled, though. It seems too formal for a casual meal. November 25, 1863 was a Wednesday. The dinner would have been served in the early afternoon on a Thursday, the fourth Thursday of November.  

Aha. Edwin saved the imitation because it was a dinner that made history. President Abraham Lincoln had issued a proclamation in October of 1863 calling for a new national day of Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year. All of the officers of the 43^'d Ohio Volunteer infantry were Lincoln men. Col. Swayne was inviting his officers to the first official Thanksgiving dinner. 

They were in winter camp in Prospect, Tennessee, so a fairly lavish meal could have been prepared for them by the regimental cooks. There would have been fresh meat to mark the special occasion, not the ubiquitous salt pork. The regiment or brigade might have had bakery ovens, so soft fresh bread would have been served instead of the infamous hardtack. The officers might have pooled special treats or foodstuffs come in packages from home. Or the Colonel, with an officer’s privilege, would have provided all of them with cigars.  

While he was following Sherman and God to the sea. Edwin probably did not dream of coming home to Ohio be a storekeeper, but he did in order to support his widowed mother Amelia He married Sophronia Rogers in 1867: he would engrave poetry into the granite of her headstone when she died of typhoid at age 36. In a series of persuasive letters, he convinced my grandmother Nancy Moore to marry him in 1885. They had their only child, Harry, when Edwin was 48 years old. Edwin wrote Harry a letter when he suspected that Harry wanted to break his engagement to Ethel Finney in 1913. He was furious and fierce at the prospect that his son would not keep his promise.  

In 1924 Edwin Lewis Lybarger died, twenty-five years before I was born, so I never got to sit on his knee or shake his hand or hear him laugh. But he saved enough evidence for me to discover what he'd been proudest of being - a Lincoln man.  

Every Lybarger generation has children like me, curious about the past and everyone in it. Be sure to tell your stories, store away your most precious mementos, bequeath them to those coming after. One of your great grandchildren will he delighted that you did.  

WHERE WE ONCE WERE BUT NOW ARE  

Social Security has been very much in the news these days. But not many people know about the storehouse of information in their Death Index. Once a person has died their birth and death dates and places are available to the public. This constitutes a valuable source for genealogists. In looking at this information your editor discovered some interesting things about our Lybarger relations (including Lybergers and Lybyers).  

Before proceeding further we need to first look at what we know about our earliest ancestors as recorded in the 2000 edition of The Lybarger Descendants. We also need to compare the Social Security Death Index data against the geographic concentrations of the 827 known addresses from the 2005 revised LMA newsletter list.  

The story begins with the second generation consisting of the three brothers who were the descendents of our Palatine (German) immigrant ancestor. Nicholas Leyberger (first generation). First there was Nicholas Sr. (abt. 1733-1826), followed by Ludwick Sr. (1735-1827), and John George (1741-1788). Two things are significant about these brothers. First, they all settled in Bedford County, PA. and died there. Second they had, except for John. large families. Nicholas had 7 children, Ludwick had 15 children, and John had 3 known children for a total of 25.     

All of these 25 were born in Bedford County, as were most of their children. In fact, when we look at the first four generations 126 were born in Pennsylvania including 100 in Bedford County. Eleven were born in Ohio, four in Maryland, and three in the Palatinate (Germany) from the mid 1700’s to the early 1800's.  

When we look at the death records of these four generations, a major shift has occurred. Just 33 died in Pennsylvania, but 55 died in Ohio of whom 32 died in Knox County. An additional 15 died in Illinois, Indiana, and other states. It was beyond the scope of this investigation to include the 453 descendants in the 5^th generation. But they would, no doubt, show a further westward migration from Pennsylvania. 

It is also interesting to note that Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Indiana make up 241 of the 718 found in the Death Index, or 36%. When Ohio is included the total comes of 55%. Thus, Lybarger relations are mostly Midwesterners. 

What does the ZIP code data from the 2005 LMA newsletter address list tell us? Included here are those with surnames other than Lybarger, Lyberger, or Lybyer. Of the total of 827 households, 178, or 22% live in Ohio. Of the 178, 33 or 19% live in Knox Co. Those in other Midwestern states, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, total 187, or 23%. Sixty or 7% reside in Pennsylvania of whom 20, or 33%, are in Bedford Co. 

What can we conclude other than that our relations are mostly Midwesterners? We are found in every state except Louisiana, South Carolina, Montana, and North Dakota. Our presence is very sparse in New England, Atlantic, Southern (except Florida), and northern plains (except Minnesota) states. 

What is most interesting is that so many of our ancestors moved from Pennsylvania to Ohio and further west. What accounts for this? It was not possible to interview them to find out the exact reasons but we can surmise that both push and pull factors were involved. Principal amoung the push factors is that as the population grew in Pennsylvania the amount of available farmable land decreased. It is already been noted that the three brothers had a total of 25 known children. Their children had a total of 133 known children, or an average of 5 children per 25 families! Given the many other large families living in Bedford and surrounding counties, it was inevitable that there would be pressures to look for new farmable land i.e. in the Ohio country. Parenthetically, we Lybargers would not have grown to the over 5,000 today if our ancestors only had few or no children as is often the case today! 

The major pull factor, once the Native Americans had been forcibly removed from their hunting grounds, was the availability of cheap land far more farmable that the hilly land of Appalachia in western Pennsylvania. Land in Ohio was also offered to veterans as payment for their participation in the American Revolutionary War. 

Why did so many Lybargers concentrate in Bedford County, PA. and later in Know County, in central OH? We know, from the records, that our ancestors migrated north into Bedford County from the Cumberland, MD area where they had helped to establish St. Pauls Lutheran Church. The best guess is that as a few families became established they sent word back for their relations to follow them. 

In Ohio, Henry Hains and his wife, Hanna Lybarger, migrated from Bedford County in about 1810. They pioneered in Bedford Township, Coshoction County, but no Lybargers followed them, as the land was hillier than that available in adjoining Knox County. Among the earliest Lybargers to settle in Ohio was George Lybarger Sr. in 1808 (born in Bedford County abt. 1778 died in Knox Co. 1855. and Jacob Lybarger (born in Bedford Co., 1783) and died in Wayne County, Ohio. 11849. 

Although Ohio and other Midwestern states are where most Lybargers, Lybergers, and Lybyers live, Bedford County, and specifically Madley, PA in Londonderry Township, is where our historical beginnings in America are found. The Lybarger Lutheran Church now owned the the Lybarger Memorial Association, is there as is the Lybarger Picnic Grove where the annual meetings of the LMA and the national Lybarger reunion are held each July. This is why the reunion attracts Lybargers from all over the country.

The editor is thankful to John L. Lybarger, of Mansfield. OH. for pointing him to the Social Security Index, and to Brian Smith, of Indian Trail, NC and keeper of the LMA Address list, for arranging the addresses by ZIP codes. Readers can access the Social Security Death Index via the Internet at www.ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com . For the first four generations refer lo the 1997 or 2000 editions of The Lybarger Descendants.  

WWII VETERAN RECEIVES RECOGNITION  

The Quad-City Times or Davenport, IA reported last December that “When Delmar Lybarger, now 86, returned from military service after World War II, he didn’t talk much about his heroic acts on the battlefield during the Battle of the Bulge. That battle had been the Army’s deadliest with the loss of 19,000 American soldiers. Delmar didn’t take the time to apply for the eight medals he earned. 

With the help of U. S. Rep. Jim Nussle Delmar’s family managed to find the medals he earned. “Tears flowed down Lybarger’s cheeks as Nussle presented him with the box containing the Silver Bronze Star, Good Conduct Medal. American Campaign Medals and others. “It’s terrible you have to kill people to do this,” Lybarger said after looking over his medals. “I never expected this. Every one of them brings back memories.” 

Rep. Nussle recounted the following, “There was a young, well-liked medic attached to their unit who was shot although they wore the Red Cross markings on their helmets. They could see he was gravely injured, but still alive, so one by one, two different soldiers tried to bring him back, but both were killed in the effort.” 

“Del went out to get the medic and carried him on his back along with his machine gun, crawling 500 yards. Del said the shooting never stopped. Nussle said recruits called Lybarger “Dad” because he was one of the oldest men in the unit.” Del said that many were so frightened that they would cry for their mothers at night. Del would try and crawl to their foxholes, if possible, and comfort them,” Nussle said. 

He said Lybarger detested the atrocities of war. “Del hated it when members of the civilian population, the elderly, women and children, were driven from their towns and villages. Especially painful to see were children who had been killed as a result of war, since he had a little girl at home in the U. S.” Nussle said. 

The son of George A. (1884-1969 and Katherine (Schmalhaus) Lybarger, Delmar was born on Oct. 21, 1918 in Davenport, IA. His wife is Joyce and they have 2 daughters, Nancy Glass and Joy Taylor, both of Goldsboro, N. C. 

ANSWERING INQUIRIES  

An e-mail was received on Jan 21 from Bonnie Joyce Stuntebeck. califomlaioppy@frontiemet.net  She was researching her aunt Lois Laurane Lybarger who married her uncle Benjamin Lloyd Beau. She wants lo communicate with anyone who is related to her aunt or her aunt’s sisters.

Answers were found by searching the 2000 edition of The Lybarger Descendants. Such is the kind of service that the LMA can provide. John L. Lybarger of Mansfield, OH should also be contacted as he has the latest data on Lybarger relations. His email address is jlybarger@neo.rr.com   

IT’S A GIRL! 

The editor is happy to announce that on Dec. 5th Olivia Claire Lybarger was ushered into the world She is the daughter and first child of Loren D. Lybarger and Mary R. Abowd of Chico, CA. Olivia is a Mediterranean name  which means olive branch, a peace symbol, symbolic of the values of her parents. Loren teaches religion and Mary  teaches journalism at California Stale University. Olivia’s grandparents are Lee and Connie (Diller) Lybarger of Delaware, OH Tom and Anne Marie Abowd of Toledo, OH..  

LETTER TO THE EDITOR 

Dear Editor,                             27 Dec., 2004

I saw the enclosed (about a Pittsburgh Railways streetcar) in a local newspaper last month. Wondered if you knew this Edward H. Lybarger. [Editor: a story about this appeared in the fall, 2004 newsletter.] 

Terry L. Diehl, Belle Vernon, PA

Send mail to J_Lybarger@comcast.net with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2001 John L. Lybarger
Last modified: July 31, 2008