Family Branch

Sep 12, 2018
2 min read

On a late winter day a few years ago we were headed home from a Pennsylvania Quilters Guild show in Lancaster when Sue discovered “Stauffer Park” on the map. (Yes, we still use maps. It's becoming a lost art that involves a sense of place, direction and spacial relations.) Knowing from a genealogy I complete that Sue’s family had roots in East Earl, PA (just NE of Lancaster), we had to stop.

Sue’s Lancaster connection goes back to Matthias Stauffer and his wife Anna Oberholtzer who immigrated from Baden Germany to the US settling in East Earl in the early 1700s. Skip ahead four generations to Henry Stauffer (1842-1912) who moved from East Earl to Ashland, OH after fighting in the Civil War where he married Rachel Stem (1854-1921) in 1887. Henry and Rachel were Sue’s great-great grandparents.

As we found out, the “mansion” has been the headquarters of the Manheim Townships Parks and Recreation Department since 1976. It was a bequeath of Elizabeth Stauffer Ludgate (1903-1974) to the township who desired that the 16-acre property be developed as “Stauffer Park” in honor of her parents, B. Grant and Rosa Alma (Sener) Stauffer. Her mother Rosa admired parks and as an only child envisioned the property becoming a park after her death. The house and carriage house was built in 1870 by Rosa’s parents, Mr. & Mrs. John Frederick Sener. John Sener was a banker and investor. B. Grant Stauffer had investments in electronics, coal and lumber. Meanwhile, the descents of Henry and Rachel Stauffer in Ohio developed lives and families in Ohio as factory workers (F.E. Myers Pumps, Eagle Rubber), farmers, and one owned a horse-drawn merchandise wagon.

When we were there scaffolding was up for work being done on the roof. Three fascinating aspects of the property were: 1) the stained-glass windows in the original 1870 bathroom,