Berea Cousin

Here is a photo of my cousin Gail and me that was taken earlier this summer.

We are sitting in a park in Berea, Ohio.  Gail lives in Berea, and I live five minutes away in the neighboring town of Olmsted Falls.  In the background is Coe Lake which originally was a sandstone quarry.  In the late 1800's and early 1900's Berea was known as the "Sandstone Capital of the World".  Berea sandstone was used in the making of grindstones, sidewalks, and the construction of buildings throughout the world.  The Canadian Parliament Building in Ottawa, and even a small portion of the Kremlin in Moscow are built with stone from Berea.

Our great-great grandfather was a stone worker in Switzerland, and the family owned a quarry on the edge of Othmarsingen.  (The remains of it can still be seen in the forest outside of town.)  During a severe economic depression in the late 1800's, our great-great grandparents and their children (including Gail's great grandfather and my great grandmother) emigrated to Berea.  They had heard about the sandstone industry here, and the father and some of his sons got jobs in the quarries.

So, if it were not for those sandstone quarries, our Swiss ancestors would not have settled in  Ohio, and Gail and I would not be here today.