SWARTZENDRUBER
Swartzendruber is still a quite unusual name, even though members of the clan have carried the 14-letter moniker into such diverse fields as education (Loren Swartzendruber of Hesston College and Calvin F. Swartzendruber of Goshen College), business (John Swartzendruber of Eli Lilly & Co.), basketball (Aaron
Swartzendruber of KSU), and even furniture-making. The surname has at times been said to be dutch in origin, although it is most likely German, a combination of "schwartz" (black) and "trueb" (muddy) or "drueber," short for "darueber" (over or across it). "Deutsche" (German) immigrants were often mistaken for "Dutch" in rural America, especially Pennsylvania, where many Swartzendrubers settled. Various branches of the German Schwartzentrubers and Schwartzendrubers dropped the "ch" from their names around the turn of the 18th century, and the "t" may have migrated to a "d" when the families crossed the ocean.
The earliest discovered recording of the "Schwartzentruber" family is in Germany, where a man named John Schwartzentruber was born in 1727. In the middle of the 18th century, he had three daughters and three sons, the youngest of whom was named "Christian." At least one other Christian Schwartzendruber was living in Germany at the same time (ref: Don Kaufman's research). His given name would be carried by three generations of descendants, arriving in the United States as "Swartzendruber" in the mid-19th century.
Christian August Swartzendruber
b. September 27, 1863, PA
...m. Bertha S. Doyle (presumed to be around 1890, in PA)
.......b. Ruth Susan (1894, Broadway, Westmoreland Co., PA)
.......b. Edward (1896?, PA)
...w. ?
d. 1948?
Several documents have been found indicating that Christian August Swartzendruber was born in Pennsylvania on September 27, 1863, so it was most likely his father who made the voyage from Europe to the United States. Christian married Bertha S. Doyle, also a native of Pennsylvania, and in the early 1890s they were living in Scottdale, a borough of Westmoreland County, about 45 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Christian worked as a steel roller.
Records indicate a number of Swartzentrubers (spelled with a "t" drather than a "d") living in Somerset County, which borders Westmoreland, as well as in Holmes County, Ohio, in the mid-1850s. It is quite likely they were related to Christian, who was known to have relatives in the Canton, Ohio area. During the same period, there were also Swartzendrubers living as far west as Johnson County, Iowa, having migrated there from Waldeck, Germany. Their families tended to be large, with no fewer than six and as many as a dozen children in each of four generations. Unfortunately, not all of the lines are well documented, and with the many changes in spellings of the surname, the exact relationships are hard to confirm.
Doyle, on the other hand, is a decidedly Irish name, but nothing is known of Bertha's family or upbringing. In time, she and Christian would have two children of their own, a son named Edward and a daughter, Ruth Susan.
Christian outlived his wife, and we know from photographs taken in the 1940s that he was familiar with both William Henry Ainlay and his son Albert "Alex" Ernest Ainlay, who would became his son-in-law in 1923. The exact date and circumstances of Christian's death are not known, though he clearly enjoyed good health, playing croquet and traveling, into his late 70s and early 80s.
.......Ruth Susan Swartzendruber
.......b. May 19, 1894, Broadway, Westmoreland Co., PA
..........m. Horace G. Smith (presumed to be in 1916, in either PA or OH)
..........x. May 31, 1923, Canton, Stark Co., OH
..........m. Albert "Alex" Ernest Ainlay (July 19, 1923, OH)
..............b. Nadine (1925?, OH) - died as an infant
..............b. Thomas Ernest (1926, Plymouth, OH)
..........w. February 8, 1964
.......d. May 4, 1977, Los Angeles, CA
Ruth Susan Swartzendruber was born on May 19, 1894 in Westmoreland Country, Pennsylvania. Her birth certificate indicates the location as "Broadway," although it is unclear whether this is the name of a hospital or a village. At age 22, she married Horace G. Smith, and they lived in the Canton, Ohio area until their divorce on May 31, 1923, in Stark County. Less than two months later, on July 9, 1923, she married Albert "Alex" Ernest Ainlay.
Ruth and Alex's first child, Nadine, died as an infant, drowning accidently in her bath. Their second child, Thomas Ernest, was born in July 1926, while they lived in Plymouth, Ohio. But with the Great Depression came relocation. By the time their son was ready to start kindergarten, they had moved south to Hamilton, Ohio. Then they moved again to Columbus, Indiana, where Alex found work with the Cummins Engine Company, Inc. It was in Columbus that Ruth joined Delta Theta Tau, a non-profit group of women dedicated to raising funds for charitable causes across the nation. She rose to the position of President of the local chapter before another move took them to Harvey, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, in 1936. Her involvment with the philanthropic organization continued there, both during and after World War II.
In the 1950s, Ruth and Alex lived in Denver, Colorado and Palo Alto, California, before returning to the Chicago area in the early 1960s. After her husband died in 1964, Ruth moved to South Bend, Indiana, living near and later with her son's family. In the mid-1970s, she moved to Pomona, California, not far from her cousin Don Swartzendruber.
Ruth died at the USC Medical Center in Los Angeles of respiratory arrest, a complication of metastatic cancer (type unclear), just two weeks shy of her 83rd birthday.
.......Edward Swartzendruber
.......b. 1896?, Westmoreland Co., PA
..............b. Don
.......d. ?
Not much is known of "Uncle Ed" Swartzendruber, except that he had a son named Don who served in World War II and married a German woman named Inge. At last contact, Don and Inge Swartzendruber were living in Fullerton, California in the late 1970s. They had a daughter, named Tina.
