By Nan Card, Hayes Presidential Center

Summertime is a time for reunions. Families all over the country will gather with relatives they have not seen in years. They will tell and retell stories from the past, share photographs and family traditions, and laugh as they recall memories from "the good old days."

This summer a special reunion will take place just east of Pemberville. Why is this family reunion special? Descendants of Frederick and Mary Bockbrader will gather at the ancestral homestead on August 23^nd to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of its establishment. In 1844, the Bockbraders brought their three daughters - Mary, Kate, and Louise - from Osnabruck, Germany to begin a new life in America. Fourteen years later, the family purchased 25 acres along the Portage River, where they first lived in a log house. By this time, Frederick and Mary had become the parents of four more children – Frederick, Henry, John, and William. In 1870, they built the house pictured here. It has remained continuously in the Bockbrader family since that time.

In 2000, the homestead went on the auction block. Sadly, family members were forced to resign themselves to the fact that for the first time someone other than a Bockbrader would own the red brick house they had called "home" for generations. But an unknown bidder surprised everyone. Marlyn Bockbrader of Dallas, Texas felt so strongly about the family’s heritage that he purchased the house, three acres, and several outbuildings.

Since then, he has lovingly restored the Bockbrader ancestral home. In addition, he has built a log house, much like the one Frederick and Mary first lived in. So later this summer, hundreds of Bockbraders, descendants of the seven children, will renew their family ties at this special place where it all began.