John Wilson Korns family materials

Click here To see some 1999 VHS footage of my parents showing me some items their parents, grandparents, and aunts owned — specifically, Gladys Edna (Bittner) Korns, Ida Ada (Petenbrink) Bittner, Mary (Gieger) Korns, Alma (Miller) Dietle, Mildred (Miller) Dietle, and Maggie (Miller) Williams of Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Maggie also lived in Akron, Ohio and Bedford County, Pennsylvania. This is some home video I am posting for my extended family. I doubt it will interest anyone else.

Wilson Korns farm pictures

Photos of the farm owned by Daniel Korns, Jr., Wilson Korns & Allen Korns

Click here to see a video of the exterior details of the 19th century timber-frame farmhouse in Southampton Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania that was lived in by Daniel, Wilson, Allen, and Melvin Korns.

Mary's Geiger family

Photo of Mary's father Aaron Geiger

Photo of Mary's mother Lavina (Bowman) Geiger

Items relating to Mary's brother Ephriam Geiger

Misc.

Tombstone of John and Mary Korns

Wilson Korns Obituary

A blue graphic element used as the second divider element on the Wilson Korns index page.

John Wilson Korns, the son of Daniel Korns, Jr., was born in 1858, and died Sept 13, 1926. He married Mary Elizabeth Geiger, who was born on August 4, 1867, and died on June 8, 1931. Mary was the daughter of Aaron Geiger (who was born circa 1830, and died April 23, 1899 at the age of 69) and his wife Lavina (Bowman) Geiger, who died Feb. 9, 1890 at the age of 50.

To his descendants who still live on his Southampton Township farm in 2003, John Wilson Korns is known as "Wilse". He lived on the farm that was previously owned by his father Daniel Korns, Jr.

John Wilson Korns and his wife Mary had the following children:

Earl Theodore Korns, who married Ella Lepley

Nevin Korns, who married Anna Longanecker

John Korns, who married Katheryn Martz

Allen Lester Korns, who married Gladys Bittner

L. Dietle visited one of John and Mary's grand-daughters in Wellersburg, Pennsylvania in 1998, and she recalled that Mary always kept a beautiful table, always with a white table cloth, and was a good cook. She said that the threshing crews always looked forward to coming to Mary's home because they knew they would get a good meal there.

Page 6 of Roger and Mona Huffman's 2007 book "A Look At Southampton Township Pennsylvania", Volume II indicates that Wilson Korns sold Joseph Bittner a 529 pound hog on January 6, 1906, and indicates that Joseph Bittner lived near White Oaks. The information was credited to clippings collected by Charles Burkett and Stella (Emerick) Shroyer. This suggests that Wilson Korns already knew the Bittner family at that date. Wilson Korns' son Allen Lester Korns married a grand-daughter of Joseph Bittner.

Page 7 of Roger and Mona Huffman's book indicates that Wilson Korns' barn caught fire on September 29, 1924 from a threshing machine, and burned down. The same page indicates that Earl and Allen Korns were dragging logs to a sawmill in March 1925, to help their father Wilson Korns build a new barn, and that the new barn was raised on May 28, 1925 with the help of neighbors and friends. Page 8 of the book indicates that Wilson Korns, son of Daniel and Carolina (Tressler) Korns, died on September 13, 1926 and was buried on September 16, 1926 at the Cook Cemetery. The information was credited to clippings collected by Charles Burkett and Stella (Emerick) Shroyer.

Page 8 of Roger and Mona Huffman's 2007 book "A Look At Southampton Township Pennsylvania", Volume II indicates that John Korns, husband of Kathryn (Martz) Korns and father of John, Jr. and Mary Elizabeth, was killed under rocks on December 29, 1930 in W. H. Kennel's coal mine. The information was credited to clippings collected by Charles Burkett and Stella (Emerick) Shroyer. This John Korns was the son of Wilson Korns.

According to the 1940 book "Pastors and People of Somerset Classis":

John Wilson Korns was the son of Daniel and Carolina (sic) Korns, and was born in Southampton Township, Somerset County, PA on March 10 1858, and died Sept. 13, 1926, was an Elder and Deacon at the Church, and married Mary Geiger. They had 4 sons, all who were members of Gladden's Run Church,

Mary, the wife of John Wilson Korns, was the daughter of Aaron and Lovina Geiger. She was born in Larimer Township, Somerset County, PA on August 4, 1867 and died June 8, 1931. She was baptized November 10, 1868. She was confirmed on October 22, 1882 at the White Oak Lutheran Church, and

Wilson Korns was an Elder, and Earl Korns was a Deacon, for the church known alternately as Gladden's, Hoyman's, Kennel's and Gladden's Run.

I spoke with Ken Korns (son of Lester, grandson of Earl) in January 2008, and he related how the Wilson Korns farm was passed on to Wilson's son Allen Lester Korns. Nevin wasn't interested in farming, and Earl said he was not interested in farming on such a large scale because he was doing road work, so Wilson's farm went to Allen. I was told that Allen was serving as a postman in Winber (if I remember the town correctly, and came back and took over the farm when his father died; this would have been during the great depression.

In 2008, I spoke to my first cousin, who told me that he believed that Wilson's grandmother (nee Tressler) was raised on a farm down the same road that my Grandfather Dietle lived on, further back the same road (on the right side of the road). My cousin knows the present owner of the Tressler farm, and the present owner told him that the farm had formerly been in the Tressler family for many years (the house burned down). Grandpap Dietle lived on the Ephriam Geiger place, and Ephriam and his sister Mary (Wilson's wife) were raised next door to that, on their father Aaron Geiger's place. It isn't hard to imagine that Wilson must have met his future wife as a result of her living near the Tressler place (i.e. near Wilson's grandparents' place).

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