Louis Noe and Eva Fickeisen

Their Marriage

Ludwig Noe married Eve Fickeisen on Nov. 21, 1882. According to my mom, when Eva married him, Louis Noe (probably Ludwig) had a wagon, a cookstove, a bedstead, a table and two or three chairs. Later they bought a rocker. Father Andrew Noe bought grandma a nice sewing machine for $25 as a gift. At some time in the past, Arthur Moellendick, mom's cousin, had the chest, towels, pots and pans.

The log cabin where they lived in Wood County, WV had a ladder for stairs, no floor. The log cabin was not even sealed. According to mom, Eva was shocked when they arrived at the farm, because she had been lead to believe things were a bit better. Eva set her bags down and made him agree to build the floor and add rooms, or she would turn around and go back to Pleasant Ridge. They had to chink up the logs before the winter. They papered one room with wallpaper, the other rooms with newspaper. They put in a grape arbor the next summer, got chickens, cow and horses. Mom says he was so mean she had to hitch the horses. Eva later supposedly told mom, "If they'd have had such a thing as divorce in those days, when I saw that shack he called a house, I'd have got one."

Their first children were twin girls. Nella Ella and Ella Nella Noe were born on Aug. 22, 1883 (Baptisms 1883 on the Hill Lowell) and baptized on Oct. 28, 1883. The witnesses were Luisa Fickeisen, Heinrich Noe, Margaretha wife of Jacob Becker, and Heinrich Biehl. Daniel Hirsch was Pastor. The other twin, Nella, died young at 4 of spinal meningitis. Then they had Clara Ida Noe, my grandmother, who was born June 20, 1890. They were farmers in Hopewell in Wood Co., very close to Clay Co. Life with Ludwig was not easy. He'd eat his breakfast and lunch and lie down on the floor. Supposedly, he fixed the stoves so the smoke would go down into the rooms. He would throw whatever he had at hand. She had a loom and would make her own clothes. He wouldn't give her money. She made butter early in the morning and wrapped it in grape leaves. She took it to the market Saturday morning and didn't tell him about the money. Ludwig died in 1904 of a heart attack or stroke.

Earlier, when I was trying to find out when Ludwig and Eve were married, it looked for a time as though the twins were born out of wedlock. I gently suggested this to my mother, and she told me this story: "People tried to say that Ella was born out of wedlock. But I just went and got the marriage certificate, which mom [my grandmother] had with her jewelry. I gave it to Aunt Ella, and she said 'That makes me feel good, Lorene.'" According to my mother, it was Carolina "Dammie" Noe Fickeisen who tried to spread this and other vicious rumors about Eve. When Dammie was on her death bed, she asked for Eve's forgiveness through Ella. Eve said she forgave her, but she didn't want anything to do with her "after the terrible things she did to me."