Valentine Stork, son of Adam Stork and Katharina Schmetzspahm, was born December 26 1793, in Arheilgen, Hesse-Darmstadt. He married Katharina Bach in 1818. Born to this union were six children.
Valentine and Katharine had a courtship of seven years which was interrupted when Valentine
joined the Hessian Army, that was hired out to Napoleon, by the Grand Duke of Hesse, Louis X.
Valentine became a personal bodyguard to Napoleon and was one of the few survivors of those who marched on Moscow, that severe winter of 1812.
After the retreat from Russia, Napoleon awarded Valentine with a bronze for his loyalty and bravery, and he was given an honorable discharge from the Hessian Army. Because he dearly treasured this medal, his children pinned it to his clothing before retiring his body to its final place.
In 1848, when the popular will of the Hessians sought revolutionary changes under the reign of Louis III, four of the Valentine Stork's grown children migrated to Toledo, Ohio. There they waited nearly year for the arrival of Valentine, his wife and his other two children. Both groups made their entire journey by water way Atlantic Ocean, Hudson River, canal to Buffalo, New York and Lake Erie to Toledo. From Toledo the reunited then traveled the Maumee River to Defiance, Ohio, landing June 2,1849.
Valentine Stork helped form a church for the German Lutherans (St John) in the Defiance area. He was later elected one of the first elders of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Valentine died on January 4, 1854 in Defiance and is interred in Riverside Cemetery; his wife Katharine died May 4, 1864
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