She married Edward Hall, age 69, in Jun 1880 when she was 49.

Julie, the wife of Thomas Mertz, contacted me in 2014 and we discussed her ancestry and her husband’s. She descends from a Maertz family from Russia. Her husband Thomas H Mertz was the son of Don Allen Mertz of Ponca City, OK. His father was Roy Mertz born 1879 in Mattoon, IL and died in 1952 in Ponca City.  Roy was married to Sarah Jane Beckett. 

Julie believed (based on Ancestry trees) that Roy’s father may have been Franklin B. Mertz (1840-1925 born Allen Town, died Iowa). 

I convinced Julie to have Thomas submit his DNA. I actually thought the Allentown connection might well link Thomas to the Mertz Church DNA group -- so I was quite surprised when it turned out he was of the Longswamp Mertzes. That made me quite curious, so I began digging on my own.

I was able to show Julie that Roy was in fact LeRoy Mertz and his father was Charles A Mertz. She then found the marriage record of Charles A to Catherine Dornblazer and we were able to find solid evidence that this was the Mertz family of Mattoon, IL.

We still do not know who Charles A Mertz was for certain, but the marriage record Julie found was from Fogelsville, Lehigh County, PA. That sure rang a bell as I had already known that a Peter Mertz and his wife Joanna Fey were buried in Fogelsville as well their son Ely/Elias.

So I have placed Charles A in my database as the son of Ely -- but this all could still be described as a little speculative. Charles is designated P7a1a.

I found the family in 1860-1880 in Mattoon. His wife was Catherine in 1860 and 1870 consistent with the Fogelsville marriage record, but then Annie in 1880. Catherine, meantime, was still alive in 1880, living with her son Eugene and his wife.

Charles A Mertz is on find-a-grave. He is buried in Olney, Richland County, IL. His date of death given on find-a-grave is 1 Dec 1884. From the photo of his tombstone, I can make out that he was age 51y, 9m, 15d which computes to a birth date of 16 Feb 1833, which is not inconsistent with his age as given in Census. Olney is not too far from Mattoon but I have no idea why Charles would have been buried there. No other Mertzes are buried in Richland County.

There was a State Legislative Act I found by searching for Charles of Mattoon that granted a pension to Annie, the widow of Charles A Mertz who died 1 Dec 1884 after years of suffering from a disease he contracted during service in the Civil War.

So Charles on find-a-grave is clearly Charles of Mattoon.