My first encounter with Mrs. Debiah E Yohn was on Mary Catherine Strausser Clemens' death certificate. Mary Catherine's death certificate is another story in itself, but Debiah was the Informant. I had no idea who she was. John and Mary Catherine did not have any children named Debiah listed on the censuses. I did some research but was unable to learn much about her at the time except her husband was William H Yohn. She and William were neighbors of John and Mary Catherine on the 1900 censuses. They had four children die in a three-week span between March 24, 1890, and April 14, 1890. Later research indicates the children died of diphtheria. Another researcher suggested that perhaps her maiden name was Clemens and she was the Elizabeth Clemens on the 1870 census. I thought it was a possibility but was unable to find any documentation at the time.
Recently I was looking through Presbyterian Church records on Ancestry. From the Wayne Township/ Newton Hamilton area of Mifflin County and I found numerous Clemens' records. In the records, I found a marriage record for Debiah E Clemens to William H Yohn. It reminded me of the death certificate and I decided to see if I could solve this mystery.
On
Find-A-Grave I learned she died in 1915 from her tombstone. Since the State started keeping Death Certificates in 1906 I was able to find her death certificate, but like her mother's, Debiah's is wrong as well. Whoever filled out the certificate wrote her name as Rosanna Yohn. All of the other information was mostly correct; where she lived, date-of-birth, the Informant is her husband and her parent's names. Her mother's maiden name was given as Kelley, probably from Grandmother's maiden name - Keely.
Since I now had the date of her death, I was off to the State Library to look for an obituary. There were two newspapers published in the area at this period of time, The Lewistown Gazette and The Democrat & Sentenial. These two newspapers were published weekly at the time. The papers printed the week after her passing had her obituary.
Her death was mention in the 'County Correspondence' section. This article is not quite correct. While Hannah and Clara are both nieces, Clara's last name is Strauser. Her mother is Margaret (nee Clemens) Strauser. The G. B. Clemens mentioned is George Benton Clemens, Debiah's brother. Hannah Clemens is G. B.'s daughter.
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| Lewistown Gazette September 2, 1915, Page 2 |
Her actual obituary. As I said, they had lost four children to diphtheria, but they did have two children that lived; Roselia G. (b. 1880) and Edward L. (b. 1889).
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| Lewistown Gazette September 2, 1915, Page 2 |
From the list of deaths in the paper.
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| Lewistown Gazette September 2, 1915, Page 5 |
The obituary from Lewistown Democrat & Sentinel. This is the final confirmation for me to believe this is the same person.
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| Democrat and Sentinel September 2, 1915, Page 8 |
