Saturday, November 17, 2018

Query: SteinbergerSteenbarger Family, Shelby County




                I am the youngest son and our family history keeper and am looking for any references to locations where my dad: John Willard Steenbarger may have lived and/or worked in Indiana from 1920 to 1944. His father was Frank Walter Steinberger/Steenbarger and his grandfather was John Clark Steinberger/Steenbarger.

                The historical family's last name was Steinberger but there was a transition to the last name of Steenbarger from around the early to later 1800's & early 1900's (Source: US Census records). I have no specific info on why the name change, except that our early family name was Steinberger from Europe in the Tyrolean Mountain area in then Prussia (now called Austria, near what we now know as Innsbruck). One branch of the family emigrated from that region to America to the ports of call in Philadelphia & Baltimore in 1750s in the Northeast. From there, their family members migrated to Virginia (1760) then to Ohio (1804) then some to Indiana (in the 1820's and on). 

                I know my dad's Home town is Shelbyville, Ind.  I have collected much info from there on after about 1944. But I have only a little about him just prior to the 1940s and later up to 1944.

What I have is that he played "Town Ball" sometimes (town sponsored baseball teams of the 20's - 30's) near Higginsville & Corder, Indiana in the mid-30s, but nothing about where he lived at that time frame or earlier.

                After that I know he was back near Shelbyville where he joined the Army in 1944. He Had some experience in Blacksmithing, his father's and grandfather's trade then. and I have one address where he had lived in the mid-1930s. It is 151 Grant 6 and a reference to "The Maze house" in/near Geneva, Indiana.

                I also have a picture of him and my mother outside of the Marshal Co. Courthouse where they may have been married in 1944 but have not tried to find any court records of that event yet either. 

                Besides playing baseball in the mid-30s, I have a reference, written by Dad on the back of a picture of him and a Boxing promoter's last name of "Timmons" from 1936, but I do not know where in Indiana.

                This would be the time frame that dad, then 26 years old would have last played baseball and returned to the Shelbyville area? I have a picture from the Shelbyville paper of him and others that had enlisted in Army around 1944. I know he served in the Pacific-Asiatic Theatre (specifically the Burma Campaign) and came home in '45/46. 

                Any info you can find or where to look online about these specific years/events or time frames would be helpful and much appreciated. Thank you for your time.



Gary Charles Steenbarger

13627 S. Brougham Dr.

Olathe Kansas 66062



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