| Notes |
- Obit: Herald of Truth, Vol V, No 11, November 1868
On the 14th of October, in McLean county, Illinois, of old age, Andrew Ropp, in the 92nd year of his age. His memory was good and he was rational to the last.
He has seven children living, all of whom were present except one, who was on a journey at the time. He had 82 children, grand-children and great grand-children, who are still living, and 20 which have died.
A large concourse of people were present at the funeral, and a discourse appropriate to the occasion was delivered by Pre Joseph Stuckey, from Rev 21. He was a member of the Amish Mennonite Church.
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• Source: Amish Mennonites in Tazewell County, Illinois by Joseph Staker
"At the time of the marriage [Andreas' marriage to Elizabeth Eiman], Andreas's brother and sister were living at Jettingen. It is located about 10 miles southeast of Froeningen, midway on the 20-mile road between Altkirch and Basel, and less than 10 miles from the Swiss border community of Allschwil. Both Froeningen and Jettingen fall within the canton/department of Altkirch.
Elisabeth Eymann's first two children were born at Jettingen in 1807 and 1809. The birth entry of oldest child André (later bishop Andrew Ropp) describes father Andreas as André Ropp, a
29-year-old Anabaptist farmer and cultivator, married to 'Elisabetha Ayman.' Witnesses included 37-year-old Anabaptist farmer Jacob/Jacques Stauffer and his 21-year-old valet Joseph Burgermeister. Neither birth entry states that Andreas was actually a resident of Jettingen.
Their next three children were born at Falkwiller in 1810, 1812, and 1815.58 (The marriage entry of sister Catharine suggests that Andreas may have been living there as early as 1804). Christian Ropp wrote: “My father lived in Upper Alsace about six miles from Basel, two miles from Dammerkirch, and five miles from Belfort.†These were 'German miles': an hour's walk, or three English miles. The tiny village of Falkwiller is 5.8 miles north of Dannemarie, and the distances west to Belfort and southeast to Basel are approximately 15 and 18 miles. The largest employer in the area of Falkwiller was the Wasserhaus estate in adjacent Linden. 59 The Wasserhaus Château was destroyed after the French Revolution, and Linden no longer exists, but carp are still raised there in clay basins and man-made ponds created in the 16th century. Jean Burÿ [Buri], a witness on one Ropp family birth entry, was a laborer at Wasserhaus.
Andreas' ties to his uncle Joseph Ropp are apparent. Joseph was probably the reason that Andreas, his sister, and his brother are found in the Sundgau Region.
...Andreas may have been influenced just as much by his uncle Christian Rupp, who lived at a far greater distance. A number of coincidences link them:
Christian and Andreas were both very familiar with Amish Mennonite families on the opposite side of the Vosges Mountains in the tiny village of Hellocourt, Moselle (now Maizières-lès-Vic). It is likely Christian met them through his second wife, Magdalena Brechbühl; Brechbühls also married into the Vercler and Mosiman families.
Christian was a witness at the marriage of Peter Engel at Hellocourt in 1804. Peter was a son of elder Christian Engel, who Andreas later considered his 'cousin.'
Christian's children include Barbe, who married André Vercler; Joseph, who married Anne Mosimann; Jean, who married Marie Vercler; Elisabeth, who married Joseph Gerber and Joseph Augspurger; and Madeleine, who married Jean Salzman. Catherine Vercler, an older sister to the Verclers mentioned here, married Christian Bälzli/Belsely and lived at Azoudange; they were the parents of 'Red Joe' Belsley, who may have been the first Amish Mennonite to settle in Tazewell County (in a part that later became Woodford County). See the supplemental genealogy VERCLER.
Andreas Ropp's oldest son Andrew married Jacobina Vercler, from the next generation of this Hellocourt family.
And finally, two of Christian's great-grandchildren emigrated to McLean County, Ill., where they married two of Andreas Ropp's grandchildren (Marie A. Rupp and Peter S. Ropp, 1868; and Marie Anne Valerie Rupp and John S. Ropp, 1872). Andreas lived to see the first marriage."
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1776 - 1868 (92 years)
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