Bertha & Joseph Steinberger Family Genealogy

Bertha Zapp HS diploma	Bertha Zapp	Bertha Zapp 1903 Heroic Act. China is situated at the Shelby and Madison townships line.	Bertha Zapp Teaching Certificate June 1904
Bertha Zapp driving buggy

Bertha was born in 1881, one of six children born to Christina Bumen and Nicholas Zapp in the scenic river town of Madison Indiana. Bertha's mother, Christina was soft spoken and just a sweet woman that everyone adored. Nicholas was a strong hard-working German man that farmed for a living. Growing up on Michigan Road in Madison, life was good for Bertha. She was a remarkable woman, graduating high school with honors, she taught school in Madison Indiana. (See "A Heroic Act".)

 The road to China from Madison is all curves and hills.
It must have been quite a ride by horse and buggy when Bertha taught school here.

There is a creek beside the school and a very tall hill is on the other side of the creek. When you look at aerial maps, this is in a valley surrounded by hills.

Next to the old school house is St Anthony Catholic Church.

The Creek has a bridge over it now.

  Not long after she began teaching, she met a doctor in Madison who moved to work in the hospital in Logansport, Indiana. Bertha traveled to the Logansport Hospital to train to be a nurse. During this time, she worked as a "candy striper". After working there for a short time, she missed Joe and returned to Madison to marry him. (as told to me in 2001 by Mary Louise Werner, Bertha's daughter)

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