My Genealogy Hound

JOHN GIRDEL, farmer, post office Verona, was born in Bodenstein, Bavaria, in 1838. His parents, John and Gunigute (Diem) Girdel, came to America when he was six years old, and settled in Birmingham, Allegheny county, Pa. The father was employed as a laborer, and died in 1849, aged forty-two years. The only daughter, Katrina, and eldest son, Hans, died at the same time, of cholera. John, the only child left, was forced to work to support himself, and cared for his mother during the last twenty-five years of her life. She died at his home near Verona, in 1887, at the advanced age of eighty-nine years. Mr. Girdel has followed farming from twelve years of age, and rented before purchasing his farm of 150 acres, in Penn, in 1872. He occupied one farm of two hundred acres, at Birmingham, for some seven years. In 1863 he married Theresa Stoebel, who was born in Bavaria. Her parents, George and Katrine Stoebel, never came to this country. One child blesses the union of Mr. and Mrs. Girdel — Catharine Theresa. The family are members of St. Joseph’s R. C. Church at Verona. Mr. Girdel has always been a democrat.