Marcus was born in 1843 and died in 1918, probably from the flu. Magdalena was born in 1850 and died in 1939. She was the daughter of Andrew and Christina Miller.
It seems that either the father or the mother is the stern one. With Wendel and Katharina, Katharina was the stern one. With Marcus and Lena, Marcus was the stern one. As it is with boys, one morning my dad was slow to get his shoes on, and when called by Marcus to get downstairs, Charles replied that he couldn't get his shoes on. Marcus said he'd come up and help him. My dad said he thought that was nice -- until Marcus got there. The help he got was a spanking, and my dad said he never had a problem getting his shoes on again.
Marcus was also used to getting his way. One day he was at his sisters' house, helping them with something, and they asked him if he wanted to stay for dinner. He replied that he did, and proceeded to tell them what he wanted for dinner. This was not in their plans. Fronie and Kate told him that he'd eat what they had, or not at all. He said he'd go home to his Lena, and she'd fix him what he wanted.
Marcus had a temper, too. It was said that any time you passed the tavern in town, and saw a body flying through the window, you knew Marcus was inside. He would settle an argument by picking the person up by the neck of his shirt and the seat of his pants, and throw him through the window, whether it was open or closed, it made no difference to him.
I never knew my Grandpa, but I remember my Grandma as always smiling. I could never remember anything she said, though, and then it occurred to me -- she probably couldn't speak English. My dad always took her a nice basket of fruit for Mother's Day, and a trip to her house was de rigour on that day.
Hilde remembered that the boys used to have home-made wine behind the summer kitchen. It seems that Shuster (John) would imbibe too much, then get in an argument with his brothers, which ended up in a fight. Grandma warned him to stop drinking so much wine, but he ignored her. So one day, she said, "if you won't stop, I'll stop you." And with that, she turned on the spigot, and all the wine ran down the hill. I know that when I was growing up, the boys were not permitted any alcoholic drinks in the house, and now I am guessing that it stemmed from that situation. Of course that didn't stop them from drinking. They either went into town to the tavern, or up the road to Uncle Wendel's, who had wine. The boys would pitch in with the sugar, and Uncle Wendel would make the wine from the grapes and berries that he had on his farm.
