Johan Georg Nicklas born and died in Gross Gumpen, Hessen, Germany.  Gross Gumpen is about 2 kilometers from Reichelsheim, Odenwald in the Kreis Erbach.  His son, Johan Adam, came to America in 1850. 

Johan Adam Nicklas, born in Gross Gumpen, Germany, in 1822 or '23, came to America on the ship "Maria Elizabeth" from Rotterdam to NY in June 1850. Two other Gross Gumpen Nicholases were with him but I have not ascertained their relationship.  There is a lapse of 10 years before Adam appears in Clark County OH where he marries Elizabeth Rachel MYERS HOAK, a widow with one daughter.  I would like to find where he lived during those ten missing years.  Adam and Elizabeth bought land in Wells County IN and eventually moved back to Springfield, OH.  They had ten children, among them my grandfather, Charles Edward.  Adam died in a wagon accident in May 1895.

Charles Edward Nicklas was born November 26, 1876 in Springfield OH. He was a pressman at Crowell Collier Publishing Company in Springfield.  He married Mamie Katherine Jacobs, daughter of Andrew and Kunigunda "Carrie" (Knauer) Jacobs, relatively recent immigrants from Bavaria in Germany.  Charles and Mamie had nine children.  Their second eldest daughter, Frances May Nicklas, was my mother.  Charles died from throat cancer in May 1930 and Mamie from a heart attack in May 1954. 

Frances May Nicklas was born May 19, 1900, the second daughter of a large family.  She was the proverbial mother-type, loved children and animals, and was very easy-going.  At the age of 24, she married Emil Morton Idle in Springfield OH.  She had only one child, ME.  Frances died from a heart attack, after suffering a disabling stroke, in December 1966.