The Hyphen Family Lineage

Note: John Wesley Tribolet

John Wesley Tribolet was born 10 Apr 1849 in Ohio and relocated with his parents to Bluffton, Wells Cty, Indiana; his father Jacob Tribolet, a cabinet maker by trade, entered into the undertaking business (with partner Henry Thoma) and began making caskets, only to exit the partnership to enlist in the Army at the start of the Civil War. (The Wells County, Indiana Family History 1837-1992 contains additional information on the undertaking business, including a photo of a hand-crafted casket made by Jacob.)

Initially a clothing and textile merchant, "Wes" eventually entered into real estate and maintained an office in the city of Bluffton. On 17 Sep 1872, he married Mary Margaret Bayha, daughter of Johan George Bayha Jr., Bluffton's first commercial tailor. Wes and Mary made their home in Bluffton, and had six children over a span of eleven years - two boys and four girls.

Tragedy came early and often to their household, beginning with middle daughter Maude, who had suffered poor health for many years before passing away at home in 1896, not long after graduating from high school, at the age of eighteen.

Their eldest child, William Henry (known to everyone as "Harry"), was a very well-known young man in Bluffton business and social circles; he had co-founded the newspaper The Evening News, which he sold after six months and where he remained for nearly a decade as an editor before leaving the business to join his father in real estate. Harry had remained active in the local news scene after his departure from the paper, and was frequently found in the news office or on the front steps of the building. In 1909, after a few years' struggles with throat problems, he received a diagnosis of cancer which he kept from the family. Harry left his father a note, cash, and the deed to his home, and then went to the "play house" (a small structure behind the family home, named so as the children's favorite recreational spot) and committed suicide by inhaling large quantities of chloroform. His popularity, along with his connections to the news and business communities, made for large and frequent headlines and news articles about his death in the local papers, including the printing of his suicide note to his father.

In August of 1910, the family lost mother Mary to declining health (the articles on Harry's suicide indicated she'd been an invalid for several years). Six weeks later, Wes and daughter Margaret (an unmarried school teacher, twenty-seven years old, who had remained living at home with her parents) boarded an interurban train for Fort Wayne. Wes had business to attend to in the larger city, and his daughter was accompanying him, presumably for company and perhaps to do some shopping. A confusion of orders relayed to trains on the line led to a head-on collision with an empty returning train (carrying only the two operators) at just after noon on 21 Sep 1910. Wes was killed instantly, along with nearly all of the other passengers; a few others survived only days, including Margaret, who'd suffered a fracture at the base of the skull and died in the hospital in Fort Wayne ten days later, on 1 Oct 1910.

(A more thorough accounting of the accident, along with more detailed information on the passengers, can be found at kingslandwreck.com.)

Of the three surviving children, George married Obbie Ashbaucher, only daughter of a prominent local family; they had a daughter, Helen. George and Obbie each died before Helen was twenty years old; no information on the causes of their deaths is immediately available. After her father George died, Helen married Joseph E. Welborn in 1926, and then remarried in 1929 in California to the Indiana-born Joseph McConnell. Helen had two children, and suffered a stroke on her fortieth birthday, passing away eight days later.

The two remaining daughters - second-born Anna, and youngest child Charlotte - each lived for many more years. Anna married Edward Bruce Williamson, a local banking executive, and they adopted three daughters. Bruce eventually left banking and started Longfield Iris Farms, at which "Bruce" and middle daughter Mary worked for many years. Anna passed away in 1950. Charlotte married Henry Foster Clippinger, also an executive in banking and trusts, and lived in Indianapolis with "Foster" and their two children, passing away in 1968.

It should be noted that there are no living descendants of John Wesley Tribolet still bearing the Tribolet surname.