Applique Quilt
Eliza Wilhelmina Vierling was one of Benjamin Vierling’s nine children and one of the eight children he had with his second wife, Martha Elizabeth Miksch. She attended the Salem Girls’ School and became a teacher there in 1826. In 1829, shortly after the death of her sister Frederika, she left teaching to help in the home of her brother-in-law, Girls’ School inspector Gotthold Reichel. Frederika died leaving her husband with several small children of his own and a school to run. The records of the Aufseher Collegium note that ” she is very willing to help is his home and in the school” suggesting that she was helping to not only care for her nieces and nephews, but also take on the duties her sister had tended to in the school. Eliza married saddler Charles Kremer in 1832 (his portriat by Daniel Welfare is Acc. # 2922.1). The couple had six children between 1833 and 1851. Charles Kremer died in 1851 leaving Eliza Wilhelmina to raise her five surviving children.
The donor, Julia Kernan, was the great great granddaughter of Dr. Banjamin Vierling and his second wife Martha Elizabeth Miksch Vierling and the great granddaughter of their daughtes,Eliza Wilhelmina Vierling (1811-1899). Eliza married saddler Charles Kremer in 1832 and they had six children. One of their daughters, Sophia Carolina Kremer (1833- ) married Thomas Kernan. One of the Kernan’s sons, Edward owen (1860 ), married Rose Gravely. The donor, Julia K. Kremer was the daughter of Edward Owen and Rose Gravely Kernan.
