Margaretha SCHIMPF 1821-?
Margaretha was born in 1821 to Anna Elisabetha nee Bill, the third wife of Nieder-Weisel baker Konrad Schimpf. Konrad had married Elisabetha nee Hauser, widow of Johann Jakob Knipper and, after her death in 1806, he married Anna Margaretha Riegelhuth, whose father was the Mayor of the village. She died soon after giving birth to their first child and Konrad married a third time. Margaretha was the youngest of the five children to this marriage. Her mother died when Margaretha was 14.
Konrad’s step-son, Johann Georg Knipper, married Anna Elisabetha Maas. The eldest surviving son of this marriage, Christoph Knipper, born in 1820, fell in love with Margaretha and she married him in August 1846. A daughter was born on 12th July 1847, but she died just after her first birthday. A second girl, Elisabetha, arrived on 17th July 1849.
Christoph’s sister, Katharina Hauser, her husband Peter, and other cousins were leaving with a group bound for the Victorian goldfields; Margaretha and Christoph joined them. They sailed from Liverpool aboard “Glenmanna” on 28th October 1854, with 15 weeks of rolling and pitching ahead of them and a five year old child to watch over.
Reaching Melbourne in the unaccustomed heat of the southern summer they made their way to Ballarat to meet up with some earlier adventurers from Nieder-Weisel. Christoph joined them in looking for gold whilst Margaretha tried to cope with the novel and confusing conditions of their new way of life. She became pregnant just before reaching Australia and their third daughter, Margaret, was born on 18th October 1855. Christoph’s wish to have a son was realised when Christoph junior arrived on 9th June 1858. Soon after this, Christoph went on to the Smythes Creek field, where he tried his hand at a more reliable method of earning a living – carting supplies for the miners. He became naturalised and he bought a home for his family in the township of Smythesdale as several other Nieder-Weiselerns had done. There was then a sudden change of plans, and the family returned to Nieder-Weisel. There, on 24th June 1863, Margaretha gave birth to another daughter, Maria.
Elizabeth married Jakob Adami V (who had also been on “Glenmanna”) on 27th May 1872 and they went to USA as some of her siblings did; she was in Montana in the early 1900s.