DAR #A206967

Peter Brown/Braun was born in April of 1748, in Germany and died May 23, 1835, in Rockingham, Virginia, at the age of 87. He married Elizabeth on July 10, 1778, when he was thirty years old. Together they had at least two children, Magdalena and John. Magdalena was born September 20, 1781, in Northampton, Pennsylvania and died March 15, 1865, also in Northampton. She would marry Johannas Toma, in 1801, and they would have a son, John Thuma. John and his wife Mary Jane Jackson had seven children, three who fought in the Civil War, on the side of the confederacy: Pvt Robert Thuma was with the 52nd VA infantry, Co D, died at Port Republic, VA; Pvt Thomas Jefferson Thuma who would serve in the Confederate Army; and Chapman Thuma served as Pvt, under JW Carter’s Co., VA Horse Artillery. Chapman was taken prisoner in 1864 and released at Point Lookout, MD.

Though little is known about Peter and Magdalena their family would continue to grow, settling in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kansas, and Illinois. John’s daughter Isabella “Belle” would marry Jacob P. Byerly on March 21, 1867, in Rockingham County, Virginia. Their daughter Mary Elizabeth was born in in 1869, in Bridgewater, Virginia. At the age of nine she would move with her parents to Butler County, Kansas. While living in Kansas she would meet and marry Charles Grant Thurman on December 24, 1885. They would leave Kansas in 1891, moving to Fulton County, Illinois. There they would rear thirteen children. Bernice Elizabeth, their fifth daughter, would marry Clifton Ghlee Cooper in 1925. Their son, Robert Giles “Coop” Cooper, born in 1932, would grow up in Fulton County. He graduated from Prairie City High School before serving in the US Army, 1953‐1955, during the Korean Conflict. In 1954, he would marry Patricia Anne Deweese. They have all passed now but have carried on the love and legacy of their ancestors.