Ernst Vohs

ERNST VOHS, a substantial landowner of Van Buren township, over in the neighboring county of Shelby, now living retired the village of New Knoxville, where he and his family are very comfortably situated, is a European by birth but has been a resident of this country and of this section of Ohio since he was eighteen years of age, a period of more than fifty years. Mr. Vohs was born in Germany on October 30, 1853, and is a son of Frederick and Elizabeth (Katterheinrich) Vohs, the latter of whom was a member of the well known family of Katterheinrichs that became pioneers of Washington township, this county, and which family is largely represented hereabout in the present generation. Frederick Vohs died in Germany, leaving his widow with four children, about the year 1870. In the next year, 1871, the Widow Vohs came this country with her children to join kinsfolk who had settled in New Knoxville neighborhood and she set up her home at New Knoxville. Of the four children who accompanied her here two are still living, the subject of this sketch having a sister, Fredericka. As will be noted by a comparison of dates above, Ernst Vohs was eighteen years of age when he came here with his mother and at New Knoxville. He had received excellent schooling in his home land, but after his arrival here for some time attended night school at New Knoxville in order to acquire a better working knowledge of the language of his new country. Upon his arrival he began working in the saw mill and for about eight years continued thus employed in the timber and lumber industry. That was in the days of the big timber and there always was plenty of work for the willing timberman, for there were many calls on the lumber mill, the money thus earned Mr. Vohs, who meanwhile had married, decided to buy a farm and settle down as a farmer. He went down over the line in Van Buren township, Shelby county, bought a tract of fifty acres there and on this place established his home. As he got that cleared and improved he bought an adjoining forty and thus got a farm of ninety acres, on which he continued to make his home until his retirement from the active labors of the farm and removal in 1919 to New Knoxville, where he bought a comfortable home and where he has since resided, now renting his farm, Mr. Vohs has been twice married. His first wife, Mary Niemeyer, daughter of Henry and Mary (Katterheinrich) Niemeyer, died leaving three children, Emma, Henry and Sophia, after which Mr. Vohs married Elizabeth Fenneman, daughter of William Fenneman, also a member of one of the old families of Washington township. Mr. and Mrs. Vohs are members of the Reformed church at New Knoxville and are Republicans. Mr. Vohs's children all are married. Emma Vohs married Benjamin Neuman and has one child, a son, Leonard. Henry Vohs married Mary Schroer and has three children, Rinehart, Leonard and Olga, and Sophia Vohs is the wife of George Clausing.