The Family Tree

Born near Heidelberg, in the Rhineland-Palatinate. Left at twenty-seven, during the great wave of Palatine emigration that followed a war which had killed a third of the region's people — traveling weeks down the Rhine to Dover, then six to ten more weeks across the Atlantic aboard the Snow Molly under Captain John Howell, with roughly a hundred and fifty people crowded aboard a ship built for far fewer.

Arrived Philadelphia on 10 September 1737 with his teenage son Heinrich, and signed the oath of allegiance to George II required of every arriving male.

His own burial has never been located. The date above is a reasonable estimate from secondary genealogies, not a confirmed record — one of the open questions this site is honest about rather than papering over.

Crossed as Philipp's dependent teenage son in 1737, not yet eighteen. Settled as a farmer in Northampton County, and appears in the 1772 Proprietary Tax Archives there, taxed two pounds thirty pence that year.

Married Elizabeth Fuchs. His tombstone still stands at Lower Saucon Church Cemetery in Hellertown, near present-day Allentown, inscribed entirely in German. A family member's handwritten translation survives alongside a photograph of it: "Heinrich Kratzer, born the 15th of January 1719, died the 29th of October 1778. His age was 59 years, 8 months and 2 weeks. His funeral text was from Psalm 119, verse 60 — 'I will hasten and not delay to obey your command.'"

His children with Elizabeth Fuchs

• Anthony Krotzer (1755 – 1821) — already emancipated and an adult by the time his younger brother went to war.
• Hannah Salome Krotzer Hass (1760 – 1843)
• Johan Philip Krotzer (1763 – 1841) — carries the direct line forward, next.

Hannah Salome and Philip were still minors when Heinrich died, and were assigned court guardians in an orphans' registry that survives to this day. Curiously, Elizabeth Fuchs herself doesn't seem to have kept custody — an 1800 census lists a "widow Kratzer" living alone in Allen Township, and she never joined the rest of the family when they later moved to Clarion County. Where she went, and why, is one of the open questions this project hasn't resolved.

Orphaned at fifteen. Emancipated 27 December 1781, at eighteen. His guardian, John Oberly, enlisted him the following April into the 4th Company, 4th Battalion of the Northampton County militia — alongside Oberly himself, and alongside Philip's own brother Anthony, an officer in the same unit. This was after Yorktown, so the family's own account suspects the three of them likely never saw combat — "they didn't know what to expect at the time that they came forward to fight for our independence."

Married Catherine Jacoby (20 Mar 1768 – 5 Dec 1840); the couple moved to Clarion County after the war. Philip is recognized as a soldier of the Revolution, buried at Churchville Cemetery with a DAR-maintained plaque and flag — which makes his female descendants (through an unbroken female line) eligible for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution.

His and Catherine's children

• Margareth Krotzer (b. 3 Jul 1787)
• Johan Heinrich "Henry" Krotzer (b. 11 Sep 1788) — not to be confused with his grandfather of the same name, or his great-nephew five generations later.
• Johan Krotzer "John" (b. 4 Oct 1790) — carries the direct line forward, next.
• Johan Abraham Krotzer (b. 10 May 1792)

Three different men named Philip Kratzer show up in the county records with overlapping dates — which is why two separate burial sites exist in the research folder, one in Clarion County and one in Snyder County under the town name "Kratzerville." In 2018, a research project through the Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society concluded Clarion County is the correct grave, marked "Soldier of the Revolution." Read more about how that question got settled in Our Story.

A second marker stands at his grave: a stone cube inscribed "OUR GRAND PARENTS KROTZER," set with a DAR medallion. Its plural, generic-sounding wording once left this site describing it as a wider family-plot marker — but the family's own research folder captions this exact photograph, in so many words, as the "Grave stone of Johan Phillip Krotzer, 'soldier of the revolution.'" It's his own second marker, not a general one — see the Photographs page.

Baptized 7 November 1790 with a sponsor named Elizabeth Zierckelsin. The "-sin" suffix on a name indicated an unmarried woman at that time — and it was customary for a baptismal sponsor to be the child's grandmother, which raises a real question, since Philip's own mother was recorded as Elizabeth Fuchs. The family's own researcher, working independently, arrived at a further theory: that "Ziercke" is not a German surname of the region but does appear as a Jewish one. None of this is proven — it's an interesting pattern in the record, not a documented fact — and this site presents it as an open question rather than a claim.

Became a stonemason in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, and probably carved some of the gravestones that still stand at Churchville Cemetery. Family lore notes one detail: every gravestone there faces East, except one — the gravestone of his own third son Jacob, which faces West, "the custom regarding the spiritual leader of the community." Jacob was apparently a figure of some standing in the church and secular affairs of the region.

Married Anna Mary Rime (b. 17 Aug 1784).

His and Anna Mary's children

• Phillip Krotzer (b. 1811)
• Daniel Krotzer (b. 8 Apr 1813) — joined the Confederacy in the Civil War, along with one of his own sons.
• Jacob Krotzer (b. 1817) — the gravestone that faces West.
• Julia Krotzer (b. 1820)
• Reuben Krotzer (b. 7 Jul 1826) — joined the Union.
• William Krotzer (b. 1829)
• Henry J. Krotzer (b. 26 Sept 1833) — carries the direct line forward, next; also joined the Union.

The Civil War divided this family the way it divided the country: of John's seven children, Daniel and one of his sons wore Confederate gray, while Reuben and Henry wore Union blue — brothers, in the same family, on opposite sides. As the memoir that first recorded this puts it: "we can particularly relate to families divided by politics."

Served Company F, 67th Pennsylvania Infantry, from 15 September 1862 to 14 July 1865 — essentially the entire war — while his brother Daniel and a nephew wore Confederate gray. His service included Fredericksburg, the Wilderness, and the Battle of Monocacy in July 1864, where a Union force of 5,800 was outnumbered nearly three to one by Confederate General Jubal Early's 14,000 troops. The Union side took heavier relative losses — but the delay it cost Early is credited with buying Washington, D.C. the time it needed, earning Monocacy its nickname, "the battle that saved Washington." Henry's commanding officer there was General Lew Wallace, who later wrote Ben-Hur.

After the war, Henry relocated the family south to Tennessee, where southern relatives reportedly called him a "carpetbagger." He worked as a carpenter as well as a farmer — the intricate woodworking of a historic Winchester County house known as Hundred Oaks is said to survive as evidence of his craft. He is also where the family's saw tradition begins: he left behind a saw with his own initials carved into the handle, and every generation since has added their own — see The Saw.

A powder horn also survives, hand-lettered with his name and this exact birthdate — the closest thing in the family's possession to a signed object from him.

Three marriages, fourteen children

• Margaret Hillard(y) (1 Sept 1825 – 20 Nov 1869), his first wife — Cora (died in infancy), Priscilla (1858–1942), Mary "Mamie" (1860–1941, who would later raise Henry's grandson Duran), Jane, Alice (1863–1911), and Milton Stanley Krotzer (1868–1945), who carries the direct line forward, next.
• Rebecca Zerba (20 Mar 1840 – 4 Jul 1874), his second wife — one child, Ellis, who died in infancy.
• Mary Francis George (25 Jul 1851 – 23 May 1901), his third wife — Wilbur, Roy, Maggie, Ida, Frank, Henry, and Florence.

Henry died in Winchester, Tennessee. A typed caption in the family scrapbook, tucked beside his portrait, traces the line down by hand: "He was the father of Milton, the Grandfather of Duran, the Great Grandfather of Robert, the Great, great grandfather of Suzanne & Steven... and the Great, great, great grandfather of Ross, Solo, Frank, and Toni... five generations & 129 years later."

Born in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, the youngest of Henry J. Krotzer's six children with his first wife, Margaret Hillard — after Cora (who died in infancy), Priscilla, Mary "Mamie," Jane, and Alice. Married Ida Weidner.

Milton and Ida's first child died in infancy; Ida herself died delivering their second, Duran — by family tradition, though the chart that documents Ida's 1892 death and Duran's 1893 birth doesn't quite agree with itself on the timing. By the family's own account, "Milton seems to have been missing in action for his son's parenting" afterward — he left his only son to be raised instead by his own sister, Mary "Mamie" Krotzer, a spinster who raised Duran on "a garden, one cow, chickens, and a glorious grape arbor."

Steven Scott Krotzer — Milton's great-grandson and the memoir's co-author — recalled meeting Milton once, as a teenager who rode a bus alone to Tennessee to investigate his southern roots: Milton "welcomed him graciously" and later made him the beneficiary of his life insurance policy. One family photograph of Milton on a porch carries a wry caption: "Milton looks a bit frightening in this picture. Thank God for suspenders!"

Milton also had seven half-siblings from his father's second and third marriages, among them a half-sister, Ruth Krotzer — a 22-page document titled "Memories of Ruth Krotzer" is referenced in the family's research but hasn't yet turned up in the material reviewed for this site. Died in Winchester, Tennessee.

Raised by his aunt Mary "Mamie" Krotzer after his own mother, Ida Weidner, died delivering him — or so the family's own account has always had it, though the clearest surviving copy of the family chart records Ida's death as 1892, a year before Duran's own recorded birth date. Neither figure has a stronger claim than the other; see Our Story. Described in the family memoir as "a Tom Sawyer like character," happily raised with "a garden, one cow, chickens, and a glorious grape arbor" — "not the student type," he left home early to travel.

Joined the U.S. Navy around 1911, serving aboard the armored cruiser USS Montana. The ship was involved in the 1913 Balkan War, and in 1919 made six trips repatriating American "Doughboys" home from France after World War I — possibly, by family speculation, including a member of Laura Chitwood's own family. Duran was also a Freemason, a member of Metropolitan Lodge No. 319, F. & A.M.

After discharge, married Laura May Chitwood (4 May 1891 – 8 Mar 1953) in Chattanooga on 29 May 1916 — the marriage certificate shows Duran had already moved to Detroit by then. Laura came from a large, respected Southern family that predated the Revolution, with seven siblings and a family tradition of teaching; the family had ties to Sharp College in Winchester, Tennessee, founded 1851 as one of the first women's colleges to offer degrees equivalent to the men's colleges of the day. The Chitwoods freed their own slaves in the 1850s, sending them to Liberia — and Laura's own great-grandfather fought for the Union in the Civil War despite being from the South. The extended Chitwood/Eden family claims kinship, unverified, with John Hancock, Francis Scott Key, and Anthony Eden of Great Britain; a cousin, poet and writer Sharon Doubiago, became nationally recognized, and letters between her and Steven Scott Krotzer survive.

Duran and Laura lived in a two-bedroom, coal-heated house in downtown Detroit, in a Polish and Italian neighborhood near Hamtramck. Duran worked as a tool-and-die tradesman at the Dodge and later Chrysler plants, and — according to his son Steven — was fired from Chrysler at the height of the Depression for union organizing; he was known as a good public speaker, with a reputation as "a ladies' man."

His and Laura's children

• Albert Ray Krotzer (1917 – 1990) — m. Xenia Kitchen; a daughter, Jill Krotzer Pletz.
• George Milton Krotzer (21 Sept 1919 – 8 Mar 1978) — followed his father into the Navy; m. Lottie Marchewka; children James Robert, Diane, Frances Lee, Frank Duran, and Albert Fred.
• Robert Keith Krotzer (1921 – 2011) — carries the direct line forward, next.

Grew up in Detroit alongside his brothers Albert Ray and George Milton, in a modest house with no central heating or basement, in a neighborhood that was mostly Polish and Italian — Detroit's population tripled between 1919 and 1930, three-quarters of it immigrants or their children. He attended Pershing High School, where his friends formed a social club called "the Hi-Lites"; a classmate, Edwin Zurawka, eventually introduced him to his own younger sister, Christine "Penny" — Robert's future wife, to whom, in his son's words, "he remained loyal and supportive to the bitter end."

Graduating into the Depression-era job market, he was promised a trade position at Ternstedt — until it went to the foreman's son instead. Rather distraught, he walked straight from that disappointment into a Navy recruiting office and signed on for six years. It was 1939, two years before the United States entered the war. His first ship was the seaplane tender USS Albemarle, stationed on the East Coast; he was on shore leave at a Norfolk movie house one evening when the film stopped, the lights came up, and every serviceman in the theater was ordered to report to his post — Pearl Harbor had just been attacked.

By 1942 he had volunteered for submarine duty as a Pharmacist's Mate aboard the USS Pilotfish, training as a medical corpsman at the Naval Hospital in Balboa Park, San Diego. He was the only medical presence aboard a diesel submarine at war in the Pacific, and carried step-by-step written instructions for performing an appendectomy at sea, on the reasoning — his own — that "it won't rain if you carry an umbrella." His shipmates called him "Doc" for the rest of his life, and he kept a newsletter connecting his old Pilotfish crewmates well into his eighties, "until there were none left." The Silent Service lost roughly one submarine crew in five during the war; the Pilotfish ran silent under Japanese depth charges more than once, and at times patrolled alongside two other boats as a "wolfpack" — a minor flaw in its own propeller shaft occasionally gave off a hum his family's account says was "perceptible to a Japanese destroyer's sonar."

He was there for the end of it. Here is his own account, in his son Steven's transcription:

"A submarine operates alone, mostly. We were escorted the last and first 4 or 5 hours into and out of port so that 'friendlies' would not attack us. After that we were alone…awfully alone…usually at far advanced spots to harass the enemy. So it was the day the war ended; alone off Honshu, the big Japanese island, on rescue duty for the bombers from Saipan and the fighter planes from Iwo Jima. We were assigned to Tokyo Bay with the fleet for the peace signing and I was on lookout when we saw them (the fleet) a couple of days later. Suddenly the horizon was filled with masts…like a picket fence. Hey, we weren't alone!…hooray for our side. The Pilotfish flew down between two lines of ships…flank speed…showing off, I guess…as horns blew all around. Soon other subs joined in and we all steamed into Tokyo Bay where McArthur signed the war's end aboard the USS Missouri. How can I forget that day?"

He carried a card in his wallet for the rest of his life certifying his presence aboard the Pilotfish for the formal Japanese surrender, signed by Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood (commanding the submarine force), and Admiral William Halsey; a Detroit newspaper ran his name among the witnesses under the headline "Witnesses Japanese Formal Surrender." Decades later, treating a prominent Japanese patient at the Mayo Clinic, his son Steven found himself describing that same day back to her.

Married Christine "Penny" Zurawka (3 Mar 1923 – 23 Apr 2008) on 7 September 1946, the year he converted to Catholicism to do it — the first time this German Protestant line joined a Catholic, Polish-Detroit family. Their wedding party: bridesmaids Audrey Dibier, Lois Mercer, and Dorothy Derstadt; groomsmen John Petrevich, Ed Zurawka (the bride's own brother), and John Kaleta. Penny trained at the Highland Park General nursing school and finished the war as a commissioned Navy ensign at Great Lakes Naval Base — technically outranking, on paper, the enlisted chief petty officer she'd go on to marry, much to the amusement of the guards who saluted her and sneered at him. Robert used the GI Bill for pharmacy school, becoming the first college-educated professional in this family's three-hundred-year American line; Penny joined the nursing staff at Highland Park General Hospital. Their first apartment was at 17137 Lamont, not far from Robert's own boyhood home on Davison Street, in the same Detroit neighborhood both families called home.

The Pilotfish didn't outlive its own crew's peacetime by much: the Navy expended it as a target ship in the postwar Bikini atomic bomb tests, and it now rests, sunk, at about 80 feet of water — a depth Robert liked to joke his old boat "was quite comfortable at."

His two older brothers lived very different wars. Albert Ray, drafted first, later developed epilepsy — or, his nephew Steven has wondered, possibly what would now be recognized as chronic fatigue syndrome — wrote poetry, worked as a tool-and-die tradesman, and married Xenia Kitchen; their daughter was Jill. George Milton, "the black sheep" of the three, enlisted in the Navy and served aboard the USS Pennsylvania during WWII under a young ensign the family remembers as Johnny Carson; he died in his forties from the consequences of alcoholism. In their own boyhood it was George who watched over and protected his youngest brother, "Bobbie."

His and Penny's children

• Suzanne Christine Krotzer (b. 2 Aug 1947, Highland Park, MI) — m. Richard Donald Fleming; their son Ross Richard Fleming (b. 1976) m. Catherine "Casey" Rodgers.
• Steven Scott Krotzer (b. 10 Oct 1951, Highland Park, MI) — carries the direct line forward, next; physician, and the memoir's author.

Physician, Mayo Clinic Scottsdale. Co-wrote Generations: The Krotzer Journey with his sister Suzanne Christine Krotzer Fleming, and personally drove the 2018 research with the Northampton County Historical Society that finally resolved which of three Philip Kratzers this family descends from.

Born 10 October 1951 in Highland Park, Michigan, four years after Suzanne — both dates now confirmed by the family's own current-descendants chart, closing a question this site was carrying as open as recently as its last update.

Married Christine Palum… (b. 28 Sept 1958) — her surname runs off the physical edge of the photographed chart that's the source for this generation, and can't be recovered without a new photograph of the page. Left here honestly unfinished rather than guessed at.

The memoir itself runs to at least three parts. Part I alone spans five chapters and ninety-some pages — "Ancestral Histories" (1719–1920), "My Parents" (1920–1947), "Roseville" (1950s), "Harrison Township" (1960s), and "Ann Arbor / Boston / New York City" (1970s) — of which "Ancestral Histories" and "My Parents" have now made it onto this site, the latter woven into Robert Keith Krotzer's entry above. A later chapter, covering 1959–1965 in Harrison Township and the L'Anse Creuse school district near Lake St. Clair, Michigan, is confirmed to exist but hasn't yet been supplied in full.

His and Christine's children

• Solomon Scott Krotzer (b. 30 Aug 1983, Phoenix, AZ) — carries the direct line forward, next; sole editor of this site.
• Francisco Robert "Frank" Krotzer (b. 25 Jul 1985, San Carlos, AZ)
• Antonia Christine "Toni" Krotzer (b. 12 Mar 1987, Globe, AZ)

Born 30 August 1983 in Phoenix, Arizona. Currently in possession of a hand saw passed down through the family, carved with the initials of six generations of Krotzers — see The Saw.

Married Laura Mary Pasqual… (b. 10 Oct 1983, Phoenix, AZ) — her surname is cut off at the same torn edge of the photographed descendants chart that leaves his mother's maiden name unconfirmed too, a generation up. A clearer photograph of that page would settle both at once.

Children

• Domenic Steven Krotzer (b. 5 Feb 2015, Phoenix, AZ) — future keeper of the saw.
• Lucy Rose Krotzer (b. 20 Aug 2018, Phoenix, AZ)

Picked up the research thread again in August 2026, and built this site to keep it growing.