As part of the inherited items from the Verle and Betty Van Camp estate, my dad (Kurtis Lee Van Camp) has an old German Bible that was published in 1893 inscribed to Augusta Apel. From the note inside written by Wilmoth Lena Agee/Baker/Finders (her daughter) it reads: "Mom received this Bible from her father when 15 years old. He was Superintendent of the Evangelical Sunday School then. My mother Augusta Amelia Apel Agee Forrest Born August 13, 1876 Died June 26, 1964."
The Bible is written in German and has little note cards in German and ribbons to mark her places in the Bible.
Some Ancestral Clues:
- From the publish date and the birth date we know that Augusta must have been about 17 when the Bible was received brand new.
- We also can conclude that Augusta knew German and that her parents spoke German in the home, since her father gave her the Bible.
- From the 1880 censuses we can trace that her mother Amelia was born in Prussia (Germany) and her father Heinrich (Henry) was born in Missouri but was the son of both a mother and father that were immigrants from the Saxony and Hesse regions of Germany. So it follows that Augusta would have been given a German Bible.
- The Apel's were religious people, her father Heinrich (Henry) being an active participant as a superintendent of the Evangelical Sunday School.
- Handwriting sample of Wilmoth Lena Agee
- Source of Birth and death dates of Augusta Apel/Agee/Forrest
Amazing what just a little Bible and a few written words can convey.
