Ananias Clime WITWER

                   Witwer genealogy of America by Ananais Clime Witwer and Rev. Geo. Witwer  1909 So. Bend Indiana
Ananias Clime Witwer, born February 14, 1853, on St. Valentine's Day, in the southeast corner of Summit County, Ohio, in the large tow-story frame house of eight rooms, four rooms on first floor and four rooms on second floor, and I was born in the southwest room on the first floor.  When I arrived at school age, Aunt Anna Witwer, now Gross, took me along to school and I attneded school quite regularly and always kept up or a little ahead of my classes, especially in arithmetic, writing and grammar, which were my favorite studies.  In arithmetic I soon had the third of Ray's by heart, and became assistant teacher in arithmetic and studied Ray's higher but had to worry that through by myself on account that the teachers were not required to teach higher than Ray's Third.  One reason of my making good headway in arithmetic was that my father enjoyed to study arithmetic with me.  HE was running the saw mill, where he had to be figuring lumber in all different ways, and as I became quite proficient with the pen and in fact could write all of the letters of the alphabet before I knew them all, I entered the saw mill accounts into the ledger for him, when quite young and thus had an early training in bookkeeping, and in assisting my father in the way he was assisting me in keeping ahead of my class and also to be proficient in writing, and while quite young wrote the copies for the teachers, quite frequently assisting them and for my practice in writing serving a double purpose.  Also, if any of the scholars had an example they could not get, they gave three raps on their slate with the pencil and I would go and help them and thus leave the teacher free to go ahead with the classes.
In August, September and October of 1869, I attended high school at SMithville, WAyne County, Ohio, taking a preparatory course for civil engineering, and the winter following I was assisting Francis Subey, who was then teaching the Mount Zion school.  I attneded to the copies for the writing of the scolars and to the arithmetic and the lower class in grammar, and such other helps as he needed, and many of the scholars claimthat they learned more in arithmetic and writing that winter than they did in any other winter of their schooling.  In the spring or early summer, on May 16 1871, my father died, which changed our home and literally broke it to peices.  I assisted in the farm work, but as the hired man undertook to "boss" us boys, and in a way that our father never did, it was but a little while until the breach was so great that I was looking towards looking out for myself, and as I fell desperately in love with my cousin, Mary Ann Witwer, who had come for Marshal County, Ind., to visit with relatives in Ohio.  Accordingly when she and her sister Emeline went home I went along and we were married on March 28, 1872, in Wabash, Indiana.  We remained at North Manchester and I worked in this flourishing city attending bricklayers, carrying the hod, until the latter part of June, when we made a short visit to Marshal County, Ind., and on July 4 we arrived at my old home in Summit County, Ohio, and we set up house keeping in the west side of the house where I was born.
   We lived here until spring, when we moved half a mile north into the house that Uncle Phares Witwer built and sold to my father, and we bought it from the estate in the fall of 1874.  I sold this property to Isaac Witwer and we moved to Twin Lakes Marshall County, Ind., one-fourth of a mile south of the lakes, in the south room of the house, where we resided until April 1, 1875.  WE bought the Shoemaker property on the north side of the lakes, being half a mile north and about a mile east from where we lived.  We accordingly moved into this home at about the first of December of that same year.  My brother B.F. and sister MAry came to visit us and they stayed all winter.  In the spring my sister went back to Ohio, but my brother B. F. prevailed on me to go in with him to buy a farm together, and we went to looking around and bought a farm, or rather traded for it, trading my home on the farm, and we moved on the farm on the west edge of West Township, Marshal COunty, Ind., and moved on this farm of 160 acres in the spring of 1876.  We were farming together each owning a team and each was to have his cattle separate, and the like, but it was not long until B.F. had two teams and of course feeding off hte pile.  WE got along fine until the fall of 1877, late, rather about December, my horses took sick and died and then on March 10, 1878, B.F., got married and he notified me of the fact about New Years, and that he wanted to move on the farm.  Well, as I did not like farming anyway and had not team, I concluded I would try something else, so we moved to LaFayette, Ind., and gave B.F. possession.  He farmed until August or September, when he sold all the crops and our cane mill and everything he could turn into money and moved to Plymouth.
We were in LaFayette, Ind., down and out.  WE first moved into a small cottage on Sixteenth Street, for one month, then we moved to Wild Cat road and the Turnpke road, at the corner house; lived there until Sept 1.  We moved back into the city of LaFayette, on Sixteenth street, about one block east of where we first lived; lived there one month, when we moved into the house we first had, where we then lived until May 1, 1878, and here was where I learned the cooper treade, in the winter of 1878 and '79.  On the first of MAy we moved into the next house, one door north, where we resided until November 20, 1882, when we moved to Canton, Ohio, No. 128 Liberty Street.  We bought this house and lot for $500, on the installment plan, paid it by the month as we could.  Is 1890 we sold this property for $1125.00. We moved to South Cherry STreet, in Canton, Ohio, and bought an acre of ground on the corner of Charles Street and Gonder Avenue, where we built an eight-room house and stable and all other necessary out buildings, and I followed millwritght and carpenter work.  In 1893 the panic struck Canton good and hard on the 15th of June; for the rest of the year and all of the year of 1894 we had to live off of our property and were getting in debt.  In 1895 it was not very much better and we got to work at the pottery again for a couple months and it began to look a little encouraging when on the 11th day of Jly, at 7 o'clock in the evening, the pottery caught fire.  "It was set afire, but we can not prove it only on circumstances and words learned since,"  and it burned down.  There we were for the rest of that year and no work.  February 1 1896, we moved to Marshal COunty, INd., again, and on March 17, 1896, we moved into PLymouth, INd., on North Main Street, and is the fall we moved into the Lincolnheld house, near the High school building, where we lived until the first of May, 1897, when we moved to South Bend Ind., on the corner of Wayne and St. Louis Streets.  On October 19, 1897, we moved to Mishawaka, INd., on Fourth Street, and we bought a lot on East Sixth Street, and built ourselves a six-room house on this, and on December 28, 1897, moved into it.  On the 28th of March, 1901, we sold this property and bought a lot on West Sixth Street, the second lot west of Main Street, and built a nice house on this, and on March 28, 1903, we sold it.  Then we stored most of our household goods and just took what we didn't car for and moved to St. Louis, at 4067 Finney Avenue where we leased a flat at $19.00 per month, with an agreement of no raise in rent, during the World's Fair, and we helped to build the World's Fair buildings.  On June 16, 1904, we sold out our flat and we moved back to Mishawaka, Ind., on East Second Street and bought a lot on South Cedar STree, between Third and Fourth, No. 215 and 217 South Cedar STreet.  We built a store adn residence building combined with a ll modern improvements and we have a grocery and live fairly comfortably, and are making a living by sticking close to business and being too extravagant.  Here the old lady, my daughter, Hazel Elsie, and a hired boy are taking charde of the store and I help when real necessity calls for it.  But I am putting in faithful time finishing up this work.  This is my first effort and I hope you will excuse short comings and the common plain flow of language, which is mixed considerable with Pennsylvania Dutch, and don't forget to read my article of "We ich en bu war."