Maria Winkler Kern
Reprinted from 8/11/1992 Saginaw News
By: Jean Marie Balconi

Maria Winkler Kern was the mother of all Kerns - not to mention many Heinleins, Schnells, Abrahams and Arndts.

More than 250 of her 3,000 living descendants will gather Sunday for a reunion at the St. Lorenz Churchgrove in Frankenmuth.

Maria Kern emigrated from Rosstal, Germany in 1861 after the death of her husband, Frederick.  Her oldest sons, John and Peter, had immigrated to Frankenmuth nearly ten years earlier and were working at the Hubinger Brothers flour mill.  She brought her six other children.  The oldest was Kunigunda, 31 and the youngest Margaret, 9.
The eight week voyage aboard the sailing ship "Clara" required careful maneuvering on the part of the crew.  Passengers sighted 17 icebergs and the wreckage of a less-fortunate ship that had collided with an iceberg.

Marie Kern, then 52, traveled to Frankenhilf, a settlement later renamed Richville.  She kept house for the Rev. George Bernthal of St. Michaels's Lutheran Church of Richville.  Seven of her eight children settled on farms in the Saginaw Valley.  Some worked as laborers and masons to supplement their income.  They cleared land, planted crops and raised children - 77 altogether.

"The last big reunion for the clan was back in the '40's" said James Kern.  "At that time, they had counted 860 descendents."    James Kern, a 65-year-old Frankenmuth resident, is the financial consultant for Frankenmuth's Independence Village.

To honor their ancestor, family members raised $750 to mark her grave at St. Michael's.  The black marble stone has the original epitaph in German, with the old name plate inserted in the back.  An additional inscription proclaims, "Mother of the Kern families in this area."

There are so many relatives that even family members have trouble keeping track.  Richard Kern of Caro, a retired Tuscola County district judge, did not realize that Tuscola County Sheriff Thomas T. Kern was related.  After Thomas Kern testified in a court case, the two spoke about their common surname and traced their roots.

"He's my distant cousin," Richard Kern said.

Wallace A. Kern of Chesterfield, Mo., will attend the reunion to update files on the family.  "He has everbody's tree all computerized," Richard Kern said.  "He's just a foutain of information."