Mahala E. Loffer

   Another name for Mahala was Haley.

  General Notes:

Mahala was born on the family farm in the township of Maine, Linn Co. Iowa. Her nickname was Haley. The first two years of her life were spent on the farm where her father grew wheat and corn. About 1859 the family moved back to Kokomo, Howard Co., Indiana, where they had lived in 1850. Mahala's uncles Christian and Simon Loffer had homesteads there.

Mahala was a pretty girl, with dark hair and dark eyes. Her father went off to fight in the Civil war when Haley was six. She was eight years old, when next she saw him. At the age of 18, Haley married Jacob Waltman, son of Philip and Catharine Fink Waltman, in her parent's home in Washington, Crawford Co. Kansas. Jake, who was blind in one eye, ran a freight line from Pyatt, Arkansas just outside of Dodd City, to Springfield, Missouri. He carried freight and mail by wagon. They settled in Dodd City, Arkansas.

After the death of her father-in-law Philip in 1880, Catharine came to live with Haley and Jacob. One day Haley asked Jacob to go to the well and get a pail of water. He didn't acknowledge the request, and Mahala asked him again, a little more sternly. Without saying a word, Jacob went to the well and got a bucket of water. He came back into the house, walked directly up to Mahala and dumped the water over her head. Witnessing this, Catharine jumped up and said "I thought Phillip was dead and gone, but there he be, right there!" Jacob apparently inherited a devilish streak, a trait of the Waltman males.

At 28, Haley died in childbirth in Dodd City. The child, Daniel Ray Waltman, died with her. She is buried in an unmarked grave in the Dodd City Cemetery. Dodd City, a mining town of the day, no longer exists as a town.

On April 1, 1888 Jacob was remarried to Rebecca Jane Thomas. Together, Jacob and Rebecca raised Mahala's three boys, and their own two daughters, Nora and Stella.

Mahala married Jacob Waltman, son of Philip Waltman and Catherine Fink, on 12 Mar 1875 in Washington Township, Crawford Co., Kansas. (Jacob Waltman was born on 19 Dec 1851 in Washington Township, Mercer Co., Ohio, died on 20 May 1921 in Dodd City, Marion Co., Arkansas and was buried in An Unmarked Grave In Dodd City Cemetery.)