The Power of Testimony

CHAPTER TWO
Dad was born in 1904,in Austin, Minnesota, the seventh
generation of Eberharts in America. We count our line as commencing
with Paul Eberhart, who was born at sea in 1727,
while his parents were en route from what is now Germany
to Philadelphia. As was the case with most eighteenth-​century
immigrants, the Eberharts came to this country for greater civil
and religious freedom and for greater financial opportunity
than they had in the Old World.
They emigrated from Wurttemberg, which is now part
of Germany, anchored by its capital city, Stuttgart. If you go
to Stuttgart today, you will find statues there of our ancestors,
among them Eberhart the Noble, Eberhart the Groaner,
Eberhart the Fat, and—​ this is the one I like the best—​ Eberhart
of the Rushing Beard.
Once our family came to the New World, we pressed ever
westward from Philadelphia through western Pennsylvania,
Illinois, and finally into Iowa.
Dad’s grandfather was Jeremiah Snyder Eberhart, a Great
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