Roth Family

Visit to Gunderschofen - 1974

By John B. Roth

Gunderschofen was my grandma Roth's birthplace and home till age 20.  Beth Burbank ( my aunt Gertrude's middle daughter)  and I visited there one day in late October.  The town is located about 50 miles northwest of Strasbourg in Alsace and about 30 miles west of the Rhine. It seemed to be on the edge of a hilly or mountainous region. NOTE:   Carl standing in back left

We got off the train a short distance from the edge of town and walked on in. As we crossed a rushing stream, I looked over and noticed a shed-like structure beside the road, built directly on the stream bank with a concrete floor and no wall on the river side. I immediately recognized it as the community laundry facility. Grandma had occasionally commented to my mother that laundry rinsed in the Ohio farm well water did not smell clean and that back in Germany where clothes were rinsed in the "bach", clothes smelled wonderful.

Although the wash shed was not in use at the time we walked past it, I could easily see how charcoal fired water barrels could be used for a hot  water source and then how clothing could be suspended in the rapidly flowing--even frothing-- mountain stream for thorough rinsing. At any rate, I knew we had arrived at grandma's village. It seemed to me that nothing had changed in 86 years!

Joy On Their Faces:

By Anna L. Cook (Roth)

Every life is a dream that awakens to be, merged into one....and so the story of fire reminds me of our mother's story of her very early life and of her mother (our grandmother) working.

Her grandmother (our great grandmother) lived right across the street.  My mother (Clara) told to me the story of the fire dying out and the need for warmth, so being the eldest child of three younger brothers, she was taught remarkable skills and trusted in ways beyond what one could deem possible. 

She would run across the street to her Grandmother's house and her Grandmother would scoop up live coals and with her bare hands place cold ashes around the coals into mother's little apron and tell her to run quickly home to start a new fire.  This grandmother taught Clara survival skills that served her well as survival was difficult in those days.

Arriving in Ohio - 1939

By John B. Roth

After the California summer of 1938, we arrived at Grandma Roth's, located  about 6 miles from Marion, Ohio--- my Father's home place and the way he always referred to it. We stayed there from October until late winter. The older children attended Claridon school. Sometime in late winter we moved into Lowell and Doris Boger's log house as tenant farmers. This truly is the low point of our family life in every respect and it still pains me to write and think about it. 

The house was truly bare bones---upstairs where the big boys slept had cracks between the logs that permitted snow to blow in. I don't remember that we had electricity, certainly we did not have running water. The house seemed to have a curse on it. I remember talk about the number of people who had died there--- one man had killed himself by drinking rat poison, another by hanging himself out in the shed. This was truly a long ways down from Phoenix, Ariz.

More Memories of Phoenix and Early Ohio (1938-1941)

By Anna L. Cook (Roth)

The story begins just before I was born when Carl asked Clara what this baby would be, a boy or a girl since she always seemed to know. Because I have heard this story so much it was told to me by my mother and being a lover of stories at an early age with a mother who loved to tell stories, this story , and the many versions from each family member, are still as fresh as when it was first told.                             1429 Sheridan Street, Phoenix, AZ.

Clara said to Carl…."This baby will be a boy as she is no trouble at all. I had so much trouble carrying Lois, had to go to bed the last 3 months and almost lost her several times."

Carl answered Clara by the following. "Clara! I cannot raise 8 boys on the streets of Phoenix, Arizona!" He began to pursue a plan of moving us all back to the farm where he grew up and no doubt was entitled to farm the land he had worked as a 13 year old boy walking behind two work horses and a plow which he guided by hand.                         

My Summer of 1938

By John B. Roth

My summer of 1938 produced a lot of memories and I will try to recount the more memorable ones.                                                         

I suppose the first Cal memory was our visit to the Benner's. Their place may have been quite small (only a lot or a few acres) to a child not yet 4, It was impressive. I remember the small house, the two old men (who had  owned the farm back in Ohio where my parents started housekeeping), but most of all I remember the jungle of trees and flowers and how beautiful everything was!

I can't put other memories in chronological order ---the 4 month long trip is just filled and I will put them down as I think of them.

WELCOME!!

Welcome to the Roth Families Home Page.  Here we (and that means all of you too) intend to create a living scrapbook of our various everyday lives and adventures.  This website serves as our central location to fill with all our memories.  We can all post something in one place and everyone who knows this website address can access it anytime.  Should be fun!!

Enjoy and Happy Posting