Helena Maria Rosenbach Jochem

Born 11 April 1826 to Mathias Rosenbach and Catharina Maria Pfeiffer, in the little town of Grenderich,
near Koblenz in the Rhine Valley of Germany, Helena immigrated to the United States at the age of 24,
in 1852 with her brother Jacob's family.
The community paid the passage, in an attempt to rid it of the poor, who were
required to renounce their German citizenship and never set foot on German soil again.

 

By 1855 Helena and her brother were living in Michigan City, LaPorte, Indiana, where
Helena married Mathias Jochum. Together they had 8 children, whom Helena was left
to raise when Mathias died in an accident in 1870. The children were then aged 2-15.

 

Sketch similar to those found of son John and his wife

Helena's obituary

Helena eventually moved to Iowa where several of her children lived. She passed away on May 6, 1896
in Neola, Pottawattamie, Iowa at the age of 70. She was buried in the same cemetery as her husband,
the Calvary (Greenwood) Cemetery, in Michigan City, Indiana.