Kathy Squared...

Kathy Staufer
Medina Library Teen Library Associate

In 2017, Kathy Stauffer joined the staff at the Medina Library Adult Reference desk. Kathy S. has been kicking around the MCDL library system for 16 years, working at the Lodi Branch, leaving for awhile to pursue her art,  returning to work at the Seville Branch, moving to the Lodi Branch and now, she is here in Medina.



Kathy is a wonderful addition to our Teen Department staff with her low-key personality and artistic talents. Besides our first names, we share a number of traits: premature grey hair, and fair coloring. Which means we have similar wardrobes and often show up to work similarly dressed. We share similar interests. We are about the same age. And of course, we work at the same place.

Eliza Stauffer's tombstone is broken into three parts.
Old Cemetery, Rootstown, Portage County, Ohio.

One day, I mentioned to Kathy that I have Stauffer's in my family tree, too. Back in 1850, my 4 X Great Aunt, Eliza Tagg, married Lewis Stauffer in Portage County, Ohio. She died in 1852, and I have not been able to trace Lewis Stauffer after that to see if she had given birth before dying. Spellings of the Stauffer name often vary according to the record - I was not put off by the different spelling.

Kathy was not particularly impressed with the connection.

But then she pipes up with "My husband isn't really a Staufer anyway. His father was born with Grandma Julie's first husband. But when she remarried, her second husband, Felix Staufer, adopted both of her sons and so their names changed to Staufer." She related the story of how the younger son died in an train accident. Grandma Julie told Kathy that her first husband's name was Miller, but Kathy's husband said that wasn't right and gave Kathy his biological grandfather's true surname, which Kathy couldn't remember.

And that is all it took for me to start researching the family. Kathy S. was unclear on specifics and I wanted to know more about the train accident.

1934 Cleveland Ohio Directory
From Ancestry Library Edition

 A couple of quick searches on Ancestry LE and the Familysearch.org website turned up some entries in the Cleveland City Directories for the 1920's and the younger son's death record - from an automobile accident. But strangely, nothing was turning up in Census records.

Robert Staufer's Ohio Death Certificate, dated 14 May 1933.
Ohio Deaths 1908-1953 at Family Search.

Digging a little deeper, I searched the online index to Cuyahoga County Marriage Records for Grandma Julie and found it.

Marriage record of Grandma Julie and Felix Staufer, showing her first husband's surname.
Ohio County Marriage Records 1774-1993 from Ancestry Library Edition

And voila! Grandma Julie's first husband's surname was ---- Petrash - a Slovak surname which has been Americanized to Petras in my in-laws branch of the family.

So, if Felix Staufer had not adopted Grandma Julie's two young sons, we would be...

Kathy Petras²

Kathy Petras and Kathy Petras or Kathy Petras² 

Isn't a weird and wonderful world that we live in??