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Classification: Query
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Message Board Post:
I don't know if this will shed any light on the overall research being done on behalf
of the THOLE family in question, but a distant cousin with whom I had corresponded sent me
what he knew of his family, and the following is extracted from a letter to
Dan.Cunningham(a)oberlin.edu from Wm B Brokamp, Cincinnati, on May 13, 1980
"….Second: I can give you some information on your great grandmother, Elizabeth
Varnhorn. She was the daughter of Joseph Varnhorn and Helena Thole. Their children were
Christopher - Mary - Elizabeth - Henry - Catherine (my Mother) and Fredericka. Helena
Thole, your great-great grandmother was born in Sudlohne, Germany in 1827 and she was the
sister of Franz Anton Thole. I visited her birthplace in Sudlohne in 1977 and met the
descendants of her brother, Franz Anton Thole. I have a picture of Franz Anton Thole and
his wife together with their three children Theodor - Ferdinand and their sister who died
young. Ferdinand Thole came from Germany to Iowa and established the first blacksmith
shop in Dyersville, Iowa. He has many descendants in Iowa and in 1979, I visited them
together with our relatives from Germany. The family branch in Iowa has a number of large
very fine farms in the area of Elkader - Lamotte - and Dyersville. All these people are
related to y!
ou through your ancestry in the Thole family."