Elisabetha HAUB 1841-1921
According to her marriage certificate, the parents of Elisabetha were John Haub and Katharina Muller of Frankfurt. The birth certificate of one child shows Elisabetha’s place of birth as “Jarcygous”, Frankfurt-on-Main. Her death certificate sets her year of birth as 1841.
Every other Haub in Victoria in the goldrush days was ex Nieder-Weisel. It was not unusual for the villagers to give Frankfurt as their birthplace, because this was the nearest large town and would be known to shipping clerks and registrars. The Nieder-Weisel parish registers record that an Anna Elisabetha Haub was confirmed in 1848 in her 14th year as was customary. Her date of birth was 15th December 1834; her parents were the local townsman, Johannes Haub, and Katharina nee Muller, from the small village of Lang-Gons, an hour’s walk to the north-west. Johannes Haub was most likely the son of Konrad Haub V and Susanna Heinz (who was born in Nieder-Weisel on 8th October 18O1, and whose marriage is not recorded in that parish). There is no other entry for this Haub family; the parents no doubt married in Lang-Gons and it is certain that Elisabetha born 1841 was a sister to Anna Elisabetha.
Elisabetha migrated to Victoria in the mid-185Os; there is no certain record of her voyage, but she may have been the Elizth.Damp, 16, who arrived on 7th November 1857 aboard “Annie Wilson”. Anna Margaretha Hauser, later Maas and later Uhl, was also on this voyage. Elisabetha went on from Ballarat to Hepburn on the Great Dividing Range, where she met up with John Body, a son of John Body and Elizabeth Congdon of Cornwall. John junior was born in Quethiock in October 1833; he took part in the massive emigration of tin and copper miners which occurred from Cornwall during the 184Os and 185Os as many local mines closed. John left Plymouth on “Albermarle” on 19th March 1853, getting to Melbourne on 7th July.
Elisabetha Haub and John Body made the journey up to Castlemaine, 4O km to the north, to be married in Christ Church there on Thursday, 5th May 186O. A few weeks later Elisabetha gave birth to a child, Herbert John Henry, in Hepburn Springs. John then moved his family to more convenient accommodation in the township of Daylesford, where there was an abundance of jobs in the underground mines. Over the next 19 years, Elisabetha produced eight more children: Emily Alice in 1862; Alfred Edward 1864; Ann Rosina 1867; Clara Elizabeth 1869; Bertha Louisa 1872; Ida Matilda 1874; Gertrude Octavia 1877; Hilda Olivia 1879. Gertrude died early in 1878, but apart from her, Elisabetha managed to rear all her children successfully.
In 1883, when she was 42 years of age, Elisabetha was approaching full term with a tenth pregnancy when she lost her husband. John was buried in the Daylesford Cemetery on 26th October and Elisabetha faced 37 years of widowhood with her infant son, whom she named John Sidney, and the younger girls to provide for. In the circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the little boy did not thrive and he died in his fifth month of life.
The two older sons married sisters, the daughters of Gernand Bang and Katharina Heinz from Nieder-Weisel. Gernand had come out from Butzbach with a group which included Georg Fleischer, who married Margaretha Hauser, sister of Anna Margaretha.
Elisabetha died on 6th April 1921 at the age of 8O.