Anna Margaretha (1824-1907)

Anna Margaretha KLOS 1824-1907 & Katharina JUNG 1855-1917

Anna Margaretha was born on Monday, 8th March 1824 in the tiny village of Hausen to the west of Nieder-Weisel in the foothills of the Taunus ranges. Her father was one of about 30 citizens living there; he worked as a farmhand to support his wife, Anna Margaretha nee Riegelhuth, and their children.

Many young people in this village had to look for work elsewhere and Anna Margaretha found a position in Nieder-Weisel. Here she met Konrad Jung V, a widower with two young children. They exchanged vows in the Nieder-Weisel parish church on 14th March 1852 after the banns had been read both there and in Hausen. Anna Margaretha gave birth to a female child in 1852/53, naming her Margaretha; a second girl was born on 28th January 1855 and named Katharina.

Konrad had worked for several years in England as a musician and, when the baby girl was old enough to travel, he left the village for a second time, bound for the colony of Victoria. Anna Margaretha had three children to care for on the long voyage from Liverpool to Melbourne – 13 year old Konrad, pretending to be 10; his 7 year old brother Jakob and little Katharina – who was eighteen months old when “Mermaid” sailed on 22nd July 1856 but was listed as an infant of less than twelve months of age, so as to travel free. Margaretha was not with them.

They reached Melbourne on 19th October and followed the example of several other of the villagers who had gone on from Ballarat to the northeast fields of El Dorado, Stanley and Beechworth; this latter town would be Anna Margaretha’s home for the rest of her life. Most of her energies during the next twenty years were devoted to producing the remainder of her family of seven children, and raising them and her stepchildren. Adolph was born near Spring Creek, the others in Beechworth: Christopher in 1857; Peter, 1859; Adolph, 1861; Mary Ann, 1864; Mary, 1867.

Peter died in his second year, but all the others survived to adulthood. The two boys from Konrad’s earlier marriage left the district, but Christoph married a local girl and they raised their family in Beechworth. Being a grandmother helped to keep Anna Margaretha’s life busy and fruitful when her own younger children were off her hands. This was especially important after the death of Konrad in 1896, at the advanced age of 78, left her to face nearly eleven years of widowhood.

There were setbacks of course – her daughter Mary Ann went off to Melbourne where she had an illegitimate child. It was perhaps a blessing that her eldest daughter Katharina remained unmarried and, living in Beechworth, was able to look after Anna Margaretha as she went through the twilight years of her long life – her death occurred in her 84th year. She was interred with Konrad in Beechworth Cemetery late in 1907, having seen the arrival of Christoph’s children and some of Mary’s. Many of these descendants still live in Beechworth, or in nearby towns. Katharina survived her mother by ten years; she is also buried at Beechworth.

The only other person with the natal name Klos to emigrate from Nieder-Weisel was Johannes, a native of Munzenberg; he was not related.