Family History--Schlobohm, Dobbs

With the blogs all agog about Texas Governor Rick Perry's comments about secession and a recent poll that shows 18% of Texans would be in favor of seceding from the United States, it seems to me just the right time to post about my own Texas roots. My blog's title refers to the fact that I am a sixth generation Texan. I'm counting the generations from one side of the family; as I look back at family history, though, I realize that several of my ancestors arrived in Texas about the same time, in the last years before its independence from Mexico or in the early years after Texas had achieved independence. This weekend, descendants from one branch of my family are meeting in Humble, Texas, to celebrate the arrival of their common ancestor to the shores of Texas: Johann (John) Frederick Schlobohm (in various records, sometimes spelled Schlobaum, Schlaboher, Schlabeaum, and even recorded as Slaburn, Sleighburn, Slayton, and Slighton, these last anglicized versions perhaps recorded by an earlier prototype of Texas state representative Betty Brown, who said this month that Asians should change their names to English names in order to make identification records "easier for Americans to deal with").

The Daughters of the Republic of Texas Patriot Ancestors Album, by Herbert C. Banks, part of which can be found online, has an entry on my Texas Patriot ancestor. (I can see the bumper sticker now: Great-great-great Granddaughter of a Texas Patriot!) Legend has it that in 1825 Johann (John) Frederick Schlobohm jumped ship in Galveston, Texas, with a cousin who had deserted the German army. The cousin eventually traveled on to more exotic destinations such as Alaska and China, but Johann evidently thought Texas was exotic enough. The record shows that he fought in the Texas Revolution, and "muster rolls of Zavalla Volunteers at Camp Johnson on Sept. 30, 1836, include John Schlabeaum, Private."

After his first exciting years in Texas, Johann Frederick Schlobohm married Charlotte Caroline Kleibrink on May 2, 1850; his wife was born in Germany in 1824, only one year before Johann (now John) jumped ship in Galveston and left Germany forever. The two bought 82 acres of land along Greens Bayou, where they built their home and expanded their farm to 248 acres in 1873. There they reared eight children:

• Mary married William Edward Morin;
• John Frederick married Katherine Kuehnle;
• Wilhelmina married Adolph Schuller;
• William Henry married Clara Jane Marshall;
• Fredericka died at age 13, the first person buried in Schlobohm Cemetery, near Houston, now designated a Texas Historical Cemetery;
• Margaret Darlye married Francis Marion Dobbs (my great-great grandparents);
• Louise Jane married James Jefferson Ferrell;
• Margaret Louise married Jacob Brown Autry.

Thereafter, Johann (John) Schlobohm evidently lived an uneventful life, and died on September 25, 1882. His descendants are now scattered all over Texas and beyond, and the stories of those early ancestors are just as scattered and fragmented. The story picks up for me with Johann Schlobohm's daughter Margaret Darlye, my great-great grandmother. The picture at the top of this post is of her and her husband, Francis Marion Dobbs..

In 1986, I began interviewing my grandmother about her family history, and my grandmother told me that Margaret Darlye died when her oldest child, Rosa Belle (my grandmother's mother) was seven, her son Reuben was five, and her youngest daughter Meva was three. The widower Francis (Frank) Marion Dobbs took a second wife, who died in childbirth when Rosa Belle was twelve years old. Shortly after the death of his second wife, Frank Dobbs left his three children with one of the aunts or a neighbor, saying that he was going to town. He didn't return for three years. All he would say about his absence was that he had gone to Alaska. After Frank Dobbs disappeared, different aunts took responsibility for the children. Aunt Mina (Wilhelmina Schlobohm) Schuller took care of Rosa Belle, my great-grandmother, though for a while Rosa Belle also lived with a neighbor who was a dressmaker and helped her with her work. Aunt Jane (Louisa Jane Schlobohm) Ferrell looked after the two youngest children.

This story of the three-year disappearance of my great-great grandfather Francis Marion Dobbs has always interested me. Just what happened to him during those three years? My grandmother had only faint memories of her grandfather, who died when she was five years old. When she talked of him, she spoke with some disapproval, blaming him, I think, for the hard life her own mother had experienced as a teenager abandoned to relatives. "He had auburn hair," my grandmother told me. "When he died, he was living in Snyder, Texas. A neighbor found him on the front porch, dead, propped up against a hide-bottom chair."

The picture below is of Francis (Frank) Marion Dobbs and his three children: Rosa Belle (in the back), Reuben, and blond-haired Meva.