On the Western
Edge of Canton St. Gallen

Gottfried Oberholzer Home, Oberholz,
Switzerland -- Nelson Lafon © 2011 All
Rights Reserved
This
is about Nelson Lafon's visit to
Switzerland in August 2011, along with
his wife, Emily Marston, that included a
hike from Wald to the village of
Oberholz, and beyond.
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Compiled,
Written & Edited by K. R. Overholt
Critchfield
A Beautiful Beginning, written by Nelson
Lafon © 2011 All Rights Reserved
Photographs by Nelson Lafon © 2011 All Rights
Reserved
~ Published May 15, 2014 ~
Nelson
Lafon Visits Oberholz
The
picture above, the work of Nelson Lafon,
is the "new" Gottfried
Oberholzer home, which replaced the
400-year-old Oberholzer family home about
a decade ago. Nelson is a descendant of JL
Jacob Oberholtzer, whose
genealogical line is recounted in The
Oberholtzer Book (pp. 115-148),
which was compiled and edited by Barbara
B. Ford, published in 1995, by the
Overholser Family Association.
Portions
of Nelson's family tree appear at the end
of this web page, but first, we get to
see some of his lovely photographs
featuring Oberholz, Switzerland, the
ancestral home of our "O"
families, along with a look at the
surrounding area.
Some of
these photos and Nelson's essay, A
Beautiful Beginning, appeared in the
Summer 2013 edition of the OFA
Bulletin, a newsletter published by
the Overholser Family Association on a
semi-annual basis. In order to benefit
from their ongoing genealogical research
-- and all "O" family
researchers should do so -- go to the OFA
web site and get on the mailing list.
Currently, OFA newsletters can be found
in pdf format.
Overholser
Family Association
http://www.overholser.net/
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A
Beautiful Beginning
Written by Nelson
Lafon © 2011 All Rights ReservedOn August 13,
2011, my wife, Emily Marston, and I
visited the ancestral villages of Aatal
and Oberholz, near Wald in northeastern
Switzerland. The generous advice provided
by Dennis Oberholtzer, John Shinpaugh,
and Jack Sholl of the Overholser Family
Association made the visit more enjoyable
and fruitful.
On a Friday evening,
after a whirlwind walking tour of Zurich,
we entered the world of the local Swiss,
and commuted eastward to the small
working class village of Dürnten. We
rented a room for the night from a nice
family, who pointed us to a local
festival. It was one of those little gems
that a tourist might miss -- bratwursts,
fried potatoes, and a Swiss-style country
band playing just enough American cover
songs for us to forget we weren't at our
own town fair!
The next morning, we took
a bus to Wald. Close to Wald, the winding
road hugged a whitewater stream amid
dense conifer forests, before leveling
out into a high valley surrounded by
small mountains (for Switzerland),
reminiscent of the Appalachians. Arriving
at the bus station in downtown Wald, a
picturesque but not overly-touristy
little town, we struck out immediately to
find the Wanderweg (footpath)
north to Aatal, where our Protestant
Oberholzer family would have lived, prior
to their emigration to Germany.
Since the day was perfect
for hiking, and since our main goal was
to trek to Aatal and Oberholz on our way
to a local peak, we didn't look too hard
for churches or graveyards that our
ancestors may have used. There was a
prominent Protestant Church building
there, which could have been where some
of our Oberholzer family worshipped. We
walked upstream along a well-groomed
trail for a couple of miles, weaving
among ruins of old stone dams and
spillways, to some large pasture lands
surrounding the little settlement of
Aatal.
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~
o ~

Aatal, where the
Protestant Oberholzer family lived before leaving
for Germany
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~

View of Aatal
(Detail)
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~
We
encountered an interesting gentleman
there, who was quite familiar with the
history of the area. We learned that the
streams around Wald had powered mills and
textile industries, in the 1800s. In his
view, the Protestants who moved to the
valleys and towns were more educated and
industrious than their agrarian,
traditional Catholic cousins, who stuck
to their mountain villages and farms. He
stressed to us just how clearly divided
the Protestant and Catholic areas are to
this day.
As we stood outside of
his house in Aatal, we were within one
mile west of one of those dividing lines
-- the canton boundary between Protestant
Zurich and Catholic St. Gallen. Reversing
the steps of my ancestors over three
centuries ago, we climbed the sunny
slopes and crossed the line.

Nelson
Lafon entering the village of Oberholz
Nelson
Lafon © 2011 All Rights Reserved
Oberholz is perched on the western
edge of Canton St. Gallen, and to the
east, overlooks the Jona Valley, where
Wald and Aatal are located. The distant
Alps and upper Lake Zurich (the Obersee)
are to the south.
~ o ~
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View from
Oberholz, looking northeastward into the Jona
Valley, above Aatal
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~

View Into the
Jona Valley (Detail 1)
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~

View Into the
Jona Valley (Detail 2)
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~

View across the
village of Oberholz, southward toward the Alps
(left horizon);
Upper Lake Zurich is on the right (not visible in
this picture)
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~

View of the Alps,
from the village of Oberholz (Detail 1)
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~

View of the Alps,
from the village of Oberholz (Detail 2)
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~

View of the Alps,
from the village of Oberholz (Detail 3)
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
Karen's
Note: In the picture
above, the large building with white
strips on the roof is the backside of the
Oberholzer barn. Their house is
immediately to the right of the barn,
mostly hidden by a tree. The spire of
Trinity Chapel can be seen beyond the
roof of the big barn. |
~
o ~

The Village of
Oberholz, Switzerland (Detail 1)
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~

The Village of
Oberholz, Switzerland (Detail 2)
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~

The Village of
Oberholz, Switzerland (Detail 3)
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~
We strolled along the
several streets that comprise Oberholz,
trying to adequately take in the distant
views, while absorbing the atmosphere of
the close-knit village. Young men in
shorts and sneakers were out, tossing hay
with pitchforks. As in other villages
we'd visited and would visit later on our
trip, residents took pride in tending to
flower baskets beneath their windows. A
typical-looking, though relatively new,
house is the one owned by the Gottfried
Oberholzer family. 
The
Gottfried Oberholzer home in Oberholz,
Switzerland
Nelson
Lafon © 2011 All Rights Reserved
This house
replaced the original home (built circa
1500) at the same location. The picture
above was taken from a similar vantage
point as the one on page xii of Barbara
Ford's The Oberholtzer Book.
Willard E. Overholtzer's 1994 photograph
showed the original home and middle barn.
The family's big barn is seen on the
right.
~ o ~

The
Gottfried Oberholzer home in Oberholz,
Switzerland (Detail)
Nelson
Lafon © 2011 All Rights Reserved
During a fortunate
encounter with Gottfried's own
granddaughter, who was tending flowers
next door, we learned that we missed the
original 400-year-old house by only a
decade! It had to be torn down and
replaced, circa 2000. As we discussed our
story getting there, it was clear that
she has gotten used to her American
cousins coming visiting!
~ o ~

A common
encounter on the ridges above Oberholz!
Nelson
Lafon © 2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~

The hills
were alive with the sound of music . . .
from the cowbells!
Nelson
Lafon © 2011 All Rights Reserved
Leaving Oberholz, we
spent the rest of our day rambling along
an idyllic ride of pastures and forests,
high above my ancestral haunts. Days
later, finding ourselves among the more
spectacular Alps, we nonetheless looked
back fondly on our first encounter with
the authentic Swiss countryside.
~ o ~

Emily
Marston near the Schnebelhorn (elevation
~ 4200 feet)
Nelson
Lafon © 2011 All Rights Reserved
~ o ~

Emily
Marston near the Schnebelhorn (Detail)
Nelson Lafon ©
2011 All Rights Reserved
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This
was at a well-marked Wanderweg
(trail) junction some five miles
up the trail from Oberholz -- a
12-miler that was good training
for the Alps the next week! |
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~
o ~
Thank you, Nelson
and Emily!
End of Page ~ ~
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