HistTheoElla

Theodore Studer was born in Switzerland in 1872. How he came to live in Norwalk, I do not
know.

He married Ella Maria Hankammer in 1894; their marriage license hangs in our library as it
did at 30 Harris Avenue for 101 years. Ella's father, Phillip Karl Hankammer, was born in
1845 in Heringen, Germany. Phillip Karl and Anna Marie Hankammer had 8 children, one of
which, Emma Eliza Hankammer, died at the age of 3 in 1881. (see below).

As far as I can tell, the Hankammers were from from Monroeville, Ohio which is about 5
miles southwest of Norwalk.

Their house was at 30 Harris Avenue in Norwalk and was the center of Studer and then
Powers family history for over 100 years. That house was where lives were launched and
where people returned to time and again to see and visit friends and family and to sometimes
live.

Theodore worked at the Jefferson Hardware store in Norwalk, and he eventually came to
own it. One of the things that he sold in the store was guns, and one day a customer was
looking at one when it went off and shot Theo in the leg. As a result he used a cane and
walked with a limp thereafter.

Theodore and Ella raised 3 daughters; Esther, Marie and Irene. Aunt Irene said that he was a
great father who loved his girls. The house at 30 Harris Avenue never had a bathroom until
around 1915. After it was added onto the house, Theo pushed the old outhouse over the hill
that was next to the house, and out of sight. Later, the girls found jokes written about them
on the old outhouse, apparently put there by some mischievous neighborhood boys. When
they told their father, he became angry, and went to the garage and pulled out an axe. She
said she thought for a minute that he was going to go kill the boys, until he went down the hill
and chopped the outhouse into bits.

She also said that one of her fondest memories was at night time when her and her sisters
had gone to bed. Before the house had electricity, each room had a gas light hanging from the
ceiling. When they went to bed they would turn the lamp down but leave a small flame
burning. Every night Great Grandpa Studer would come into each of their rooms and
extinguish the lamp; he would then sniff each one carefully to make sure no gas was leaking
from it. Aunt Irene said that the sound of him quietly walking through their room, sniffing
those lamps gave her a great sense of security and home.

I have a certificate dated 1894 that is Theo’s release papers from the Ohio National Guard.
This would have been the same year that he and Ella were married.

Theo died July 14th, 1959. Ella passed away January 5th, 1961. The house at 30 Harris was
left to Aunt Irene and Uncle Clarence, they would return to live there only four years later.