McCallister's McAlisters (and some other good families)

The Oberhausen Family

One of the few German families in my ancestry is the Oberhausen family. Johannes Oberhausen was born in Hilbringen, Prussia, Germany in 1830. By the mid 1850s, he had immigrated to the United States with his parents and siblings, settling north of the Ohio River in southern Indiana. By 1857, he had married Catherine Brenner in Rockport, Spencer County Indiana. Catherine was also of German stock, but she herself was born in Ohio. Johannes worked, with his brothers, in the Livery business.

Johannes and Catherine’s daughter Jeanetta Helena, one of eleven children, came along in 1868. Sometime after her birth, the family moved to Union County Kentucky where the children reached maturity. At age 17, Jeanetta, known as Nettie, married farmer Samuel Rowan Heavrin, ten years her senior. Nettie’s older brother Henry also married into the Heavrin family, taking Sam Rowan's sister Mary as his bride.

Nettie’s parents and younger siblings would later move to Swisher County Texas.

Nettie and Sam Heavrin were the parents of nine children, including one set of twin boys, and my maternal grandmother, Mary Lillian Heavrin. Nettie was a relatively tall woman with dark hair and features. She died in 1938 in Union County Kentucky and is buried alongside her husband at St. Ann's Cemetery, Morganfield.

The log house at the top of the page is from the Berea College collection of old Appalacian log cabins photos. While it is similar to what German immigrants in the mountains might have used for housing, it has no ties to the Oberhausen family per se.