In the 1830’s, while in the regular army, I met and wooed a winsome girl from my native Canton Berne. Mary Elizabeth Yaggi soon succumbed to the eloquence of my courting, and became my bride. She was in her late teens and I in my early twenties, there being about six years difference in our ages. In due time, our family began to arrive. First Mary, then Rose, Emma and, at last, a son whom my wife immediately named John.
