How the Gasts enhanced our family.

.Marge and Bob with friends around the time of their wedding.

The person who had the most influence on my teen years outside the immediate family was my wonderful first cousin, Marge Gast. I have published several of her writings here starting with her account of growing up at Angleton. I have always been amazed about all the ways our family have connected with the Gast family which I will record after some background on how they got here. I found this description doing research at the Old Jail Museum.

Maria and Andrew Halbeisan came from Switzerland with two children. They moved to Freemont, Ohio before coming to Akron, In. Andrew was a shoemaker and often walked to Peru for supplies. In September,1855, twins were born, Andrew Almondo and Mary Helen. Nine children reached maturity and attended school with Indian children. 
Andrew Almondo, called Double A, married Laura Bell in 1879, but she died in 1884 after having two sons,Estil A. (Marge's father-in -law) and Thomas.
In 1886 Double A. married Flora Etta Bitters. They had Karl B (Brick)1887 and Whitney Kline 1885,Marie Kathleen (Talbot)1900 and Robert Purcell(R.P.) 1904.

Double A grew up and became a building contractor, road builder, and extensive land owner. Elected sheriff of Fulton county in 1888, he served two terms then became Postmaster in Akron. He also built, owned and operated the Opera House there. His brick mills supplied material for the high school in 1914 and for many homes and churches. (but wait, there's more)..Double A helped form the telephone utility plus Akron Heat, Light and Power Co. Both he and his wife "Ettie" lived 101 years.

Here is where we come into the picture. Many years before our Marge and their Bob (Double A's grandson) met and married, Gaylord Long (my husband, Glen's dad,) got a job with Gast Construction Co. working close to where Gaylord lived in Morocco, In. He stayed on with them when they won a construction job around Warsaw. During that time he met and married Glen's mom, Martha Hoover.

Fast forward to the early 1950s when I am living and working with Marge...kind of a live in nanny. (She stayed in my bedroom on Washington St. when I was a child and she was in her early twenties.)  I could not count how many times Marge and Bob were a beacon to me and a boon to this community.