Caroline Miller Spoerl was portrayed by Jodi Moughamian at Wood County Living History Day. (Photo: Bianca_Garza/Sentinel-Tribune)

"I had a happy life, but I always wondered how it was that I was an orphan," she said.
Spoerl's children would conduct a genealogical investigation. They discovered that her parents were Irish immigrants with four other children and that she had a twin who died in infancy. Her father died near the time she was delivered to the sisters at the hospital.
Her mother had been 26 with six children, no husband and no money.
Beginning in 1854-1930, she said, about 200,000 children from overcrowded orphanages in large cities along the east coast boarded the orphan trains.
"Yes, the orphan train did pass through here, and it dropped off some precious cargo and traveled on its way west," she said.
In 1947, Spoerl was buried in St. Rose Cemetery.
Albert Froney was born in 1842 in Germany and arrived in the states at age 5.
"I attended a one-room school in Elmore, and it was there that I learned ... to speak, write and spell the English language, albeit with a German accent," said portrayer Dale Bruning.
As a young man, he traveled 15 miles to Pemberville with his possessions tied in a red handkerchief. Building his career from scratch, he would become a successful businessman and created the first brick block in town. He supported the town's incorporation and served as its first treasurer before his death in 1911. He is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery.
"People said that I was broad-minded and liberal in my ideas," he said. "I was charitable to the poor and to the needy, and in my successful business career, I had developed industry with sound judgment and frugality so characteristic of us of the German-American heritage."
After the program, Virginia Treece Hutflies, recalled some early memories of her grandmother Caroline Spoerl. Hutflies said Spoerl used to babysit her until her grandmother's health declined. Her mother used to talk about walks through the woods, during which her grandmother liked to identify flowers.
"(Spoerl) loved everything that had to do with education," she said.
Hutflies, who provided much of the research for the program's presentation on Spoerl, said she found the performance satisfying.
"I was very thrilled," she said.

Local residents observe reenactors at Wood County Living History Day at Oak Grove Cemetary.

Living History honors former residents
Local re-enactors breathed life into the people who lived Wood County's past at Oak Grove Cemetery on Sunday.
Sponsored by the Wood County Historical Society, late county residents spoke through proxy about their personal experiences for Living History Day - a program organized by the historical society's Living History Committee to promote county cemeteries and to preserve memories of the county's late residents.
Mary Brandeberry related the details of her grandmother Margaret Rider's dedication to the cause of politics.
Born in 1880, Rider was active in several community organizations, especially the Daughters of the Revolution. She voted for the first time in 1907 for school board. And after the women's suffrage victory in 1920, she served as judge of elections that November and continued to work Election Day for several years. Additionally, Rider was the first woman elected to the Washington Township Board of Education and served in the county Republican club.
"I loved politics," she said.
She died in 1967 and was buried in Washington Township Cemetery.
"It was Election Day, and according to my family, that was my favorite day of the year," she said.
Jan Larson and daughters Anna Erfman and Alexia Larson portrayed the VonKanel women who assumed management of the family jewelry store after Mary's husband Frederick unexpectedly died.
Mary VonKanel, 1848-1932, had no intention of staying in the "pioneer town with unpaved streets," Larson said. But her husband, who had established VonKanel Jewelry Store on South Main Street, convinced some "refined women" to persuade his wife to stay.
"They convinced me that Bowling Green may not look like much right now, but it has great potential," she said. "They proved to be right"
And when her husband died in 1893, she and her daughter Elise resolved to take over the business and kept the store running until 1919. The store had been a leading establishment in town for 40 years, continuing under the ladies' management for the last 24 of those years. Mary's daughter Carrie also found success through a nursing career.
Mary and her daughters were buried in Oak Grove Cemetery.
After retiring from teaching, Troas Dunn - the oldest of six children, born in Deshler in 1902 - developed a strong interest in special education, said Dunn's granddaughter Judy Reynolds. Dunn abandoned a contract with Rossford Schools and took a position in 1955 as a teacher at Wood Lane School's first class of 11 students. And with less than a $500 budget, the school's first staff began looking for ways to raise funds. Schmidt Chevrolet of Perrysburg donated a car for transportation, and the students made some profit for the school through various projects.
The Wood Lane residential home on Klotz Road was named for Dunn, whose efforts early on helped the school gain its footing. She was buried at Oak Grove Cemetery in 2000.
William Sherman portrayed his friend Leonard Davis, born 1918, a Portage native who served in a bevy of community groups - Portage Center Gleaners, county committee on aging, Wood County Rural Carriers and Kiwanis to name only a few. Sherman donned caps from numerous organizations as he rattled off Davis' lifetime of affiliations.
"Maybe you have noticed that I have worn many hats over the years and have always tried to help my fellow man, and hopefully I have accomplished that," he said.
Larry and Gail Nader took on the personae of Larry's grandfather Frederick Uhlman and his wife Grace.
Frederick, 1881-1974, learned right away that he had an aptitude for business. With some inheritance money, he began purchasing stores in other cities until he owned a store in almost every county seat in western Ohio. He also contributed substantial funds to help establish Wood County Hospital.
"In the Great Depression, I had the knack of being able to tell whether a store could be purchased and kept running and whether it should be liquidated," he said.
His wife Grace Millikin, born in 1889, served as trustee of the First Presbyterian Church and was a founding member of the Women's Club of Bowling Green. Gail explained that Grace's father had developed oil interests in Northwest Ohio but wanted to shelter the family from the grizzled business.
"Oil well roughnecks were a rowdy bunch, and he wanted his family not to be around them," she said. "That is why he settled us in safe, civilized Bowling Green."
Grace died in 1983. She and her husband are buried in Weston Cemetery.