ABOVE LEFT: This photo, preserved and passed down through Margaret (Seager) Leyes’s grand-
daughter Bernadina (Leyes) Zavakos to great-granddaughter Laura Zavakos Wood, resembles the
identified one to the right. We’d wager that it’s another picture of Margaret (Seager) Leyes.       ABOVE RIGHT: A photo of Margaret (Seager) Leyes, courtesty of Laura Zavakos Wood.

ABOVE: This image of the 1853 civil marriage record for John Leyes and Margaret Seager is a composite of two separate images. Their names can be seen at the bottom of the register image on the left; the record on the right pertains to John and Margaret only. This record not only gives us the date of their union but also provides confirmation of what we had suspected about John – that his given name was simply John, because he wrote wrote his first name as Johannes. The use of this form indicates that he had no other given name. (For an excellent description of German naming customs, visit Charles F. Kerchner, Jr.’s website. You might want turn your speakers down, though; the site is rigged to play Beer Barrel Polka.)

Notice also how John wrote his surname: There is an umlaut or diaeresis over the Y. The only description we have found for this involves an unusual Dutch digraph combining the letters I and J into a Y, with that set of dots overhead. All indications are that John’s ancestry was German; perhaps this points to the surname’s earlier origins, or time spent in the Netherlands before emigrating? Ancestry.com suggests that the surname Leyes derives from the name Elias. It’s not easy to tell if John wrote his surname as Leyes or Leyse on this document. The official’s handwriting on the rest of the record clearly shows John’s name spelled as Leyse. But we also know that until about the 20th century, no one cared much about spelling surnames consistently.

ABOVE LEFT: Louise Stich, born in August 1881, is pictured all in white, wearing a veil and holding a paschal candle. She looks so very young; and yet the occasion could have been her reception into the novitiate of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Louise’s religious name, Sister Louis Joseph, may have been a tribute to her uncle Louis J. Stich, who died in November 1901. Louise died sometime prior to 1910.

ABOVE RIGHT: Elizabeth C. Stich was born in July of 1887. She followed in her sister Louise’s footsteps when she, too, became a nun in the same religious order. Elizabeth’s religious name was Sister Julia Agatha. While the 1930 census noted her occupation as that of high school teacher, Sr. Julia Agatha apparently taught in the lower grades as well: Margaret Jergens remembered her mother’s cousin as a lovely nun who sometimes substituted for Sister Theodore in the first and second grade classroom at Our Lady of the Rosary school in Dayton, Ohio.

Louise and Elizabeth Stich were the only daughters of Catherine E. Leyes and her husband Andrew Stich. These photos were preserved and passed down through Bernadina (Leyes) Zavakos to Bernadina’s great-granddaughter Laura Zavakos Wood.

ABOVE LEFT: In 1858 Margaret (Seager) Leyes purchased a second-hand cradle for Joseph, her firstborn. This cradle was used for her four other surviving children before being handed down through the family. Apparently of the Queen Anne style, it is made entirely of walnut. In the above photo, taken around 1996, Margaret Leyes’s great-granddaughter Rita Schmidt smiles at her great-grandson Matthew, the latest of Margaret Leyes’s descendants to use the venerable cradle. ABOVE RIGHT: John and Margaret Leyes’s youngest child, Henry J. Leyes (1870-1949) with his harvest, circa 1918.

ABOVE: Margaret Louise Clayton (1920-1997), second from left, stands with three
of her Jergens cousins. Margaret Louise was the daughter of Louise “Lula” Leyes.

Cecilia Leyes is shown here in a close-up cropped from the larger picture, below.
This class picture of grades 4 & 5 in a Dayton school was taken on April 25, 1907,
per the notation written on the slate held by one of the children. (Cecilia, who was
twelve years of age in April 1907, seems a little old to have been a 5th grader.) In the
larger picture, Cecilia stands in the next-to-last row, third from the right.

ABOVE LEFT: Peter and Cecilia (Leyes) Jergens and their children in 1921. ABOVE RIGHT: Cecilia Margaret (Leyes) Jergens in the 1950s. To see Cecilia Leyes’s wedding picture, click here.

ABOVE: We found this Report of the Death of an American Citizen for Catherine Leyes (Sister Flaviana) at Ancestry.com.

ABOVE: One of Andrew and Irma Leyes’s daughters, alive and well and still living in Ohio.

Photos below this paragraph are courtesy of Michael Cunningham, the son of Mary Jane (Leyes) Cunningham (Louis J.³, Joseph², John¹). Because it was necessary to tailor the size of these photos for this page, we offer a link to Mike’s original image in each case. Mike’s Leyes family photos are part of a larger collection that can be viewed by clicking here. Thank you for sharing, Mike!

ABOVE LEFT: Louis J. Leyes, circa 1910. (To view the original image, click here.)
ABOVE RIGHT: Louis J. Leyes in 1913 with “Babe” and another draft horse at the Schantz brewery on Warren St., Dayton, Ohio. (To view the original image, click here.)

ABOVE LEFT: Joseph and Mary Leyes’s daughter Annie died in 1905 at age 6. (To view the original image, click here.)
ABOVE RIGHT: On the occasion of her 8th grade graduation in 1929, Mary Jane Leyes was photographed with grandparents Joseph and Mary Leyes. (To view the original image, click here.)

Joseph and Mary Leyes celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1933 with a family gathering. We are told that the barn in the background is the one that stood on Joseph and Mary’s property at 137 W. Bruen Street in Dayton.
Front row (left to right): Eugene Langenkamp (son of Louis and Clara [Leyes] Langenkamp); Dorothy Leyes (daughter of Harry and Coletta [Haas] Leyes); Rosemarie Langenkamp (daughter of Louis and Clara [Leyes] Langenkamp).
Second row: Kathern (Custenborder) Leyes (wife of Albert Leyes) holding their little son Clarence; Joseph and Mary Leyes; Coletta (Haas) Leyes (wife of Harry); Irene (Stoecklein) Leyes (wife of Louis J.); Mary Louise Leyes (daughter of Charles and Mildred [Kist] Leyes).
Back Row: Mildred (Kist) Leyes (wife of Charles); Clara (Leyes) Langenkamp; Charles Leyes; Albert Leyes; Louis Langenkamp (Clara's husband); Charles Joseph Leyes (son of Charles and Mildred); Harry P. Leyes; Louis J. Leyes.
We thank the young lady in the center of the front row for identifying everybody in this picture! (To view the original image, click here.)

Mary Leyes, her son Louis J. Leyes, Louis’s daughter Mary Jane
(Leyes) Cunningham, and Mary Jane’s son Mike pose for the camera in 1942.
(To view the original image, click here.)

ABOVE: Mary (Schutte) Leyes, widow of Joseph Leyes, died a tragic death in 1946. (Note that her husband’s name is listed erroneously as George.)
One of Mary’s great-granddaughters has passed along the info that Mary “insisted on living there alone [in her home] after she was widowed,
refusing to live with any of her children. Her sweater caught fire.” Great-grandson Michael Cunningham said he “heard that Louis [Mary’s son]
was the only one who saw and identified her.” (To view the original image, courtesy of Michael Cunningham, click here.)