The maternal grandparents of my grandmother, Clara Noe, were Margaretha Mueller and Abraham Fickeisen. She was born in Buborn and he in Gumbsweiler in 1825. (See map below.) They left the Rhineland-Pfalz area together when they were young, sometime betwee 1843 and 1850. He was trying to avoid the Prussian draft of 7 years. They went to Amsterdam, took a boat for 48 days to New York.  Their first four children were born in New York state. Adam, the fourth child, was born in Syracuse. Eve, my great grandmother and the fifth, child, was born in Wheeling (then Virginia) in 1857. The other seven children were born on Pleasant Ridge in Washington County, Ohio. The picture above was taken when Margaret was elderly, in 1902.

The paternal grandparents of my grandmother, Clara Noe, were Carolina Harth and Andreas Noe. Carolina was born in Selchenbach, Bavarian Pfalz in 1841 and emigrated with her family in 1846. Andreas was born in the Saarland in Niederbexbach in 1835 and emigrated with his family in 1854. (See map below). They married in Washington County, Ohio in 1859. All of their nine children were born there. Their first child, born just a few days after they were married, was Ludwig Noe, my great grandfather. He married Eva Fickeisen in 1881 and moved to a farm in Lubeck, West Virginia to raise his family. Clara Noe, my maternal grandmother, was their third child. When "Lou" died in 1904, Eva and Clara returned to the Fickeisen homestead in Washington County.