LOVE STORIES
Love, it seems, is timeless throughout history. The means of communication may change but love stories are much the same. Some Waterville love stories are recorded in our history and we will use this St. Valentines holiday to recount a few.
John Pray, our founder and his wife Lucy Dunham Pray came to this Maumee Valley frontier with four children plus an orphan nephew to care for in 1818. She suffered all the privations that all frontier folks endured yet remained, bore six more children and the family all eventually prospered. If that isn’t love and devotion then what is?
Peter Ullrich came from Germany in 1864 to the United States while his betrothed Sophie Schneider remained behind waiting for Peter to become “established” in his new country. They of course communicated by slow transatlantic mail. Peter, after a short two month stint in the Civil War army, settled in Waterville where he established a harness makers shop. This was the trade he had trained for in Germany. Finally, in 1866 he sent for his bride-to-be and to her surprise traveled to meet her at the dock in New York. The newly wed couple settled in the present-day Reed-Ullrich House on River Road and were among Waterville’s prominent citizens, with descendants still in the area. Peter’s letters to Sophie exist, some printed in “Watervillore” by Midge Campbell.
John Findlay Torrence Isham (Torry or J.F.T.) was the youngest son of John George Isham, a canal contractor and maintenance supervisor. Torry was a school teacher as a young man, then in 1888 he worked surveying for the Great Northern Railroad during its westward expansion through Wisconsin, Minnesota and Idaho. He carried on a long distance relationship by mail with the love of his life Emma Knaggs and his “My Darling Emma” letters were kept in his family. The two were married in 1892 after his return to Waterville and they settled on the family homestead built by his father on the canal and river south of town. The house still exists across from the Farnsworth Park shelter house and the farm is mostly part of the Browning property.
The “Pumpkin Vine” electric railway between Maumee and Waterville opened in 1901. A handsome young conductor, Leroy Waffle, would meet the daughter of William Cobb, Miss Bessie Cobb, as the interurban line ran right through the Cobb farm just south of Waterville. Perhaps it started as a wave as the car rolled by and perhaps they met when Bessie would ride the car into Waterville or to Maumee. Loved blossomed and Leroy and Bessie were married on April 11, 1904. They first lived in Perrysburg but later moved back to Waterville when the interurban line closed. Leroy and Bessie were the parents of past and fondly remembered Waterville librarian Lois Waffle.