Jacob L. Reiff married the orphan Kate (Catharine G.) Rosenberger on November 17, 1877 at the residence of their pastor, S. K. (Simon Kuhntz) Gross, which must have been the locale of her upbringing. S. K. Gross was Reformed, not Mennonite, pastor of Schlichter's Congregation, Bucks County for 35 years. His wife, Maria R. Gross; b. 12/31/1846, d. 8/14/1927 and he, Rev. S.K. Gross; b. 12/9/1829, d. 9/24/1893) are buried at Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Almont, West Rockhill township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, It would seem he was her pastor. His obit (23) says he died in an accident at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.
Harry Reiff's genealogy lists Kate's birth as 1857, but this is proved in error by a page from her family Bible giving her birth as 1856 (9/18/1856 - 11/6/83). Her sister, Maryanna Rosenberger, was born 9/31/1859. Information passed down indicates only that these two were "orphan girls," but a packet of linen of her family, assidiously kept by relatives and passed on to Anna Mack Reiff, her grandaughter, and further held by Elizabeth Reiff, tell the story of Kate's family, for the linens incorporate the mothers' maiden names They are mostly show towels embroidered with decorations, names, initials and the dates they were done. One of this collection is labeled simply "L. L. B." and must belong to Henry Mack's wife, Lizzie, who was often called that by Henry in his Ledger. The other four are:
Margaret Gehman, 185l. 13 ½ x 55 ½. Red embroidered name and figures on linen in letters ¼ inch. The name Margaret on one line, with two stars added to make ten spaces across the top width of the towel, Gehman and 1851 follow a line below, made matching the first line. Above the name is a basket embroidered in red with some dark brown accent, the same size as the letters, bracketed by two octagonal suns with square centers. Below the name two ranks or brackets appear, the top being reindeer, the bottom roosters and between the two ranks a bifuricated weather vane almost two inches high emerging out of a similarly divided flower. The figures are also accented with a citron and lighter browns. The bottom of the towel is open embroidered with beautifully executed and stylized tulips and stars. In the center a tulip blooms from a heart. The embroidered figures are white on a light beige background.
Catharina Clemer, 1843. 13 ½ x 53. in a flowing, ½ inch, script, in red on white lined, with the date centered above the signature which goes across the whole width of the towel. The bottom 12 inches of the towel is open embroidered with decorations.
Cadarina Clemmer, 1841. Must be Catharina's, done in German. 14 ½ x 44. The name in block letters is highly stylized. The 3 A's are formed of cones with a bar over the top instead of the middle, embroidered red and blue on the white background, extending above a small triangular quilting over the whole width that joins it to the rest of the linen. Centered in the top third is a large basket with a stalk of flowers, like a tree of life, extending upwards, 2 x 3 inches high, flanked by two much smaller baskets. The bottom of the linen is crocheted in a zig-zag border. Above this appear one 3 in. red and blue single flower divided into 4 petals with a long stem with arms flanked by the same smaller baskets as above.
Maria Lapin, 1772, a large linen sheet, about 88 x 71, embroidered in wide ¾ in. letters centered on the sheet, some 8 in. above the bottom in three ranks. Above two center clovers bracketed by what appear to be two large crowns, 1x 2 inches. In the center, l ½ inches below the crowns, the name, extending in large letters of l in., left and right of the crowns, and ¼ in.below the name, the date, 1772, centered but spaced 1 7 7 2. All the embroidered is in a bronze thread.
And one with just the initials MLF
Linens, show towels, embroideries, quilts of Pennsylvania mothers, dresses, hats, patches more intimate than books were made by the ones that gave birth, not by strangers at auction. Symbols of the bone and genome, their hands touched the linen a hundred, two hundred years ago. In that trunk were bracelets of hair around the bone, kidding, but only just, in quoting Donne's "Relic," for there were combings of hair belonging to Anna over a hundred years old, who had long hair all her life. Doll clothes were there that she made, another avocation to clothe dolls for the orphan, to remind her of the one doll she had as a girl, but made her daughters many. Her first communion dress in that chest with its bonnet fits a slender girl, blue grey. The quilts she knitted for her family are in that chest, but not the hat. Mennonites eschewed the hat at certain periods of their industry. Their latest hat phobia had come just when she as a young woman emancipated from all farm and ignorance, as she saw it, but then again, when she saw at ninety, the longhair grandson who taught thinking and writing, maybe she thought thinking could go too far. They looked across the ages at each other. She loved her Uncle Andrew that much, was of his blood, just as her grandson was of hers, the principled faithful kind, but when Bishop Andrew wrote her in 1906 that if she were coming home to the yearly communion at Bally she had better wear the bonnet, it confirmed the recession from the Mennonite in her mind.
All these things and more were in that trunk, the double-sided car blanket, double woven, double to guard from the chill of a car without a heater. Not a lap blanket, full size, wool, the two stitched together as one. Was that car in the trunk? Of course it was, it was a touring car for a Mennonite, for.life has more contradictions than you can fit in a hat. That car compromised between her husband and his father, who he worked for. The son could use the car if he drove the father around on Sundays too. Then Old Jake would chew his cigars, which is why there is probably never much masculine in trunks. That car was driven with all aboard by Anna's husband Howard up to the Old Mennonite root farm in Worcester on weekends. The farm is gone, the car is gone, the people are gone. The
chests remain. They are full.
