The Pfahler Family Story
The Pfahler family history begins just where it sounds like it should--in Germany. The name, Pfahler (pronounced "Fowler"), has origins in the vineyard and plum-growing occupations. So raise a glass to our ancestors next time you crack a bottle of wine. Our Pfahlers made their way from Germany to the Ontario / Michigan area. We are quite a bit removed from the large (stinkin') Ohio Pfahler clan.
The Pfahlers Come to America, 1867
Our story goes back as far as the mid-nineteenth century when George "Michael" Pfahler (b. 7 Oct, 1836) brought his wife, Anna Margaretha "Maggie" (Reuter) Pfahler (b. 16 Jul, 1841) and 9 month-old son, George J. Pfahler (b. Dec, 1866) from Bremen, Germany to New York aboard the "Western Metropolis". The family rode in steerage with most of the other passengers, not springing for cabin accommodations. Curiously, both Maggie and son George were listed under her maiden name [P]Reuter on the ship manifest.
​
Their choice to leave Germany was a curious one, given the timing. Germany was in the midst of great turmoil under the leadership of Bismarck, but on the other hand, the Pfahlers headed straight for a nation that had just ended a costly civil war and was still rebuilding.
Whatever their reasons, the family settled in Buffalo, New York where Michael worked as a laborer. There, they added three more babies to their brood: William Pfahler (b. 2 Oct, 1869), Elizabeth Pfahler (b. 15 Sep, 1872), and Anne Christina Pfahler (b. 9 Nov, 1874). They stayed in the Buffalo area until at least 1877, when the family pulled up stakes and moved to the Windsor, Ontario area. Michael and Maggie rounded out their family with the birth of two more children: Charles Pfahler (b. 9 Aug, 1878), and Francis Pfahler (b. 20 Nov, 1880), both in Ontario.
The First Generation of Canadian Pfahlers Grow Up
​
The next decade was largely unremarkable for the family from a historical perspective. By the mid to late 1890s, each of the now-grown children was beginning to get married and starting their own families, starting with daughter Anne, who wed John Elmer Stinson on June 25, 1892. George married Cora Bauer on September 25, 1894. Elizabeth married Gideon Vivier on December 4, 1895. Charles married Hedwig "Edd" Ebbinghaus on March 12, 1902.
For my family's sake, we are most interested in the marriage of the youngest child, Francis "Frank" Pfahler--my great-great grandfather--on August 14, 1901. He wed a young lady of the same age named Minnie Myrtle Burling.
​
The six Pfahler siblings survived, and seemingly thrived through adulthood--save for one. Anne Christine (Pfahler) Stinson passed away at age 36 on June 5, 1910 of peritonitis. Such an infection could have developed in a variety of ways, including a burst appendix. The children she left behind were at least partially shipped off to live with relatives. Little Allase Stinson, age 10 at the time of her mother's death, went to live with her uncle, George J. Pfahler.
Frank and Minnie's Marital Enthusiasm
My great-great grandparents, Frank Pfahler and Minnie (Burling) Pfahler, it seems, were quite affectionate in their marriage. Or at least lacking any hobbies. Between the years 1902 and 1927 they created a family of fourteen children. Fourteen! Ten girls and four boys. Here is the list:
​
1. Lena Florence Pfahler (b.1 Aug, 1902)
2. Earl Norman Pfahler (b. Jul, 1905)
3. Edna Maude Pfahler (b. 25 Jul, 1907)
4. Dora Louise Pfahler (b. 18 Aug, 1909)
5. Hattie Myrtle Pfahler (b. 9, Nov, 1910)
6. Minnie Blanche Pfahler (b. 21, Nov, 1911)
7. Ruthie Jane Pfahler (b. 19 Jun, 1913)
8. Karl Glen Pfahler (b.16 Jan, 1915)
9. Helen Pfahler (b. 1916)
10. Elmer B. Pfahler (b. 29 Sep, 1917)
11. Edward James Pfahler (b. 17 May, 1919)
12. Marion Evelyn Pfahler (b. 19 Sep, 1921)
13. Eleanor Olive Pfahler (b. 29 Jan, 1923)
14. Nance Margaret Pfahler (b. 1927)
The Fates of the Pfahler Fourteen
Lena - At barely the age of 17, Lena married Alexander Lalonde in 1919. Not much is known about their lives together. Lena passed away on October 16, 1993, at age 91.
​
Earl - By 1926, Earl married a woman named Catherine Minnie Fielding in Walkerville, Ontario. He worked as a trucker during at least part of his life. His last known living date was 1953.
​
Dora - Young Dora married Frederick Edmond Dobson on January 4, 1928. She lived to age 86, passing away on an unknown date in 1995.
​
Hattie - By 1925, 15 year-old Hattie was suffering from both rheumatism and heart disease. These were likely lifelong afflictions, and she succumbed to them on August 3, 1925.
​
Minnie - Minnie must have really adored her younger brother, Earl's new in-laws. Exactly one year after his marriage to Catherine Fielding, 15 year-old Minnie married Ernest Norman Fielding (on 27 Sep, 1927). The two had at least one child, Charles Fielding. Not much is known about what happened with Minnie's husband, Ernest, but at some point later in her life she wed for a second time, this time to a man named Lewis Birch. Minnie survived until September 30, 2003. She is buried in Elm Vale Cemetery in Ontario.
​
Ruthie Jane - Ruthie ended up being a fairly mysterious figure. At some point before 1937, she married a man named Chauvin, but by the late 30s, she was moving to Michigan, alone, to live with her sister Helen. In 1945 she was working as a maid. Beyond that we no nothing of her life.
​
Karl - Little Karl was was only about 15 months old when he contracted measles. He succumbed from the illness on April 15, 1916. This must have been doubly frightening and sad for mother Minnie since at the time of Karl's passing, she had just given birth twelve days prior to little Helen.
​
Helen - Helen may have been born at or near the family home in Belle River, Ontario, but she spent much of her life residing in Michigan. She wed Edmund P. Pranger on May 25, 1934. The two lived in Warren, Michigan until the early 1990s when Helen (with or without Edmund) moved to Tennessee. She passed away there on November 25, 2009.
​
Elmer - Elmer stayed in Ontario for his entire life, and whether or not he married is unknown. He passed away on May 4, 1995 at age 77.
​
Edward - Elmer's little brother, Edward, probably also never married. He made the trek from Ontario to Michigan at some point, and remained there until his passing in 2005 at age 86.
​
Marion - ?
​
Eleanor Olive - Eleanor married Eugene P. McDonald in 1945, presumably at the close of WWII. The two resided in Detroit in 1946.
​
Nance - Nance married Edwin L. Bosel in 1948 in Detroit. She resides in Frankenmuth, Michigan today.
The Murderous Edna Maude and Other Violent Eldery Women
​
Third child, Edna Maude (or "Maudy") was my great grandmother--a complicated woman who was harsh and sparingly affectionate, probably in part due to her role in helping to raise her younger siblings.
On paper, Maudy's life was mostly straight-forward. At age 20, she wed George A. Boylan in Plattsville, Ontario. The couple had but three children (another nod to the idea that perhaps Edna's early life wasn't a dream): Earl Russell Boylan, Edith Georgianne Boylan, and James Frank Boylan. Edna was very hard on her one daughter, Edith, and taught her that cleaning and cooking for the family was the only necessary way to show affection.
Hedwig "Aunt Edd" (Ebbinghaus) Pfahler, little Earl Boylan, and Edna Maude (Pfahler) Boylan, 1928
​
See, in addition to a potentially difficult childhood, Edna Maude also probably suffered from some degree of mental illness. This manifested itself most acutely later in life. Long after Edna had buried her first husband, George, in 1956, she was remarried to a man named Ralph Rex, a sweet man who brought out the best in Edna Maude. She lost Ralph in the 1970s, and ended up on her own again. And without Ralph's calming influence, some of the darker nuances of her character re-emerged. The little old lady I remember from the 1980s loved to watch Unsolved Mysteries and read The National Enquirer magazine. We had that in common. But, even as a child, I knew she was a fairly cranky character.
​
Edna Maude (Pfhaler) Boylan-Rex with second husband, Ralph Rex, c.1960s
The Beige Bathroom Tile
The first incident was shortly after Edna Maude moved into the new home. Bobbi, a paraplegic who walked on crutches, went to visit her grandmother in her new home. Immediately she found it suspicious that Edna Maude greeted her with extreme warmth and joy. Edna Maude was not a sunny person. And then she began raving about how amazing the tile was in her new bathroom. "Bobbi Lu, you just have to see it." My mom moved over there on her crutches and looked. Plain beige tile. Nice, but completely unextraordinary.
​
"No," said Edna Maude, "you have to get in there to see it up close, it's just amazing." So my mom moves more into the doorway, but won't budge any farther. The hairs were standing up on the back of her neck, and all of a sudden she had a very certain vision that the moment she moved into the bathroom, Edna Maude was going to shove her in and trap her without her crutches. Bobbi made an excuse and left quickly. Technically, nothing particularly bad happened that day. But the inexplicable creepiness meant that Bobbi never wanted to see her alone again.
​
The Tabloid Magazine
After the bathroom tile incident, Bobbi thought that her grandmother might be more comforted from a distance. So, she sent Edna Maude a gift subscription to The National Enquirer to help her adjust at the new residence. A couple weeks later, a recent issue was delivered to Bobbi's mailbox. She thought it was curious, since it had Edna Maude's name and address scribbled out, and hers added. Could it be a mistake in the subscription? Then Bobbi noticed that something about the magazine smelled bad. Edna Maude had urinated all over the magazine and mailed it back to my mom. After that, my mom stopped visiting or contacting her grandmother. But Edna Maude wasn't done with her.
​
The Pencil
Sometime not long after the tabloid mailing, Edna Maude stabbed her daughter, Edith, in the hand with a pencil injuring her quite badly. That was the last time that anyone from our side of the family had contact with her. Daughter and granddaughter finally conceded and agreed to leave Edna Maude alone.
And then Edna Maude drove her car into the brick face of a building by accident in the late 1980s, when she was approximately 80 years old. That is about the time that her daughter Edith (Boylan) McClure, and Edith's daughter, Bobbi (McClure) Stevens (my mother) made arrangements for Edna Maude to enter a nursing home, and this is when things went very, very wrong. Murderously wrong.
Edna Maude strongly resented the idea that she was being put into assisted living, and once she saw that granddaughter Bobbi was listed as her nearest relative (geographically speaking), she set out to get Bobbi.
A Cousin's Windfall
Some time passed without much word from Edna Maude, and then out of the blue Bobbi's cousin, [Name Redacted], living in Florida, rang her on the phone. He wanted to let her know that Grandma Edna had paid him $5,000 to kill Bobbi. This cousin kindly remarked that he always liked Bobbi enough that of course he wouldn't go through with it, but he thought she should know. This cousin kept the money, of course. And Edna Maude fled to Florida.
​
The Lonely Old Lady
By the early 1990s, Edna Maude had made her way back to Michigan for reasons and by means unknown. We know very little of what transpired during the last seven years of her life. However, during the early 1990s, granddaughter Bobbi picked up a newspaper and found an incredibly ironic photo and headline. There was a large picture of Edna Maude, with a headline begging for a family for the old woman. Details described that she had been abandoned by her family and needed a new one. Couldn't you help her? My mom laughed and laughed, (and regrettably discarded the paper immediately). It was only recently that we learned that Edna Maude (Pfahler) Boylan-Rex passed away on April 23, 1997 in Leonard, Michigan at the age of 89.
​
Daughter Edith
It may very well be that whatever mental illness plagued Edna Maude was passed down to her daughter and other females of the family. When her daughter, Edith (Boylan) McClure, was incapacitated enough in her old age that she required to be in an assisted living facility with round-the-clock nursing care, she too became angry and violent. She liked to do to the nurses what her mother did to The National Enquirer. She told nurses that her daughter, Bobbi, was out to get her--or alternatively, that her daughter Bobbi was dead. And on one darker day, she made some subtle moves to stab her daughter, Joan (McClure) Murray, in the hand with a hair pick. The ladies of our family are officially on notice that we apparently get "stabby" when we are older.
​