Flossie
(Harbaugh) Heins
(1893-1957)
Rachel
'Flossie' (Harbaugh) Heins was born at Maple Summit, Fayette County, PA on
March 22, 1893, the daughter of Robert
and Elizabeth (Long) Harbaugh Sr.
She was an early teacher in our family, working at a one-room school across the road from the Maple Summit Church. She later was a teacher and farmer in Nebraska.
Flossie married John Heins (1892-1957), a German immigrant. They had one daughter, Lucille Wallace-Christiansen.
Flossie’s husband was born in or near the Hanover Province of Germany on Jan. 4, 1892, the son of Henry Heins. John’s parents brought him to the US when he was age 4, and they settled in Nebraska. John was an outdoorsman who enjoyed his horses, farming, dairying and orchard.
Flossie met her husband in a most unusual way. In about 1916, she went to visit her Long cousins in McCool Junction, NE. While there, she came down with pneumonia. Her physician advised her not to return to Pennsylvania until spring because the Nebraska climate would be better for her health. Thus confined, she took a part-time job at the McCool Junction Post Office.
A rural school in Thayer, about 25 miles northeast of McCool Junction, needed a teacher, and Flossie agreed to fill the position. It was arranged that she would board there with the Behnken family. After packing her belongings in a trunk, she took the train to Thayer. Waiting for her at the station was John Heins, nephew of the Behnkens, who had been told to “go get the new school marm.”
In the words of their daughter, Lucille, “He not only hauled her trunk in but he hauled it out on March 14th, 1917 when they got married.”
The
Heinses resided in Polk County, NE from 1917 to 1931, where they were farmers.
They then moved to York County, NE. She was a member of the First
Lutheran Church in McCool Junction.
After 40 years of marriage, John and Flossie passed away in 1957, within 3 months of each other. John died on May 5, and Flossie died on Aug. 15. They are buried at Greenwood Cemetery in York, NE. Flossie’s brother and sister in law, Oakey and Gertrude (Shroyer) Harbaugh, came to McCool Junction for Flossie’s funeral.
Following in Flossie’s footsteps, her
daughter Lucille (seen here) was a teacher of high school English for 20 years. Lucille has painted several pictures of the Maple Summit Church
which her grandfather, Robert Bacom Harbaugh Sr., built in the early 1890s.
Lucille and her husband Lou attended the Harbaugh
Reunion in 1997, receiving the 'Furthest Traveled' Award. In 2002, she
privately published a compilation of her creative writing over the years,
entitled Lifetime Collection of Poetry.
Copyright © 2001, 2003 Mark A. Miner