Judith Perigal Werner

The remote village of Brodbecks was the birthplace of Judith Perigal and her future husband George Werner. Both families had left the war-torn, religiously oppressed Baden region, migrating through Philadelphia to York county to pursue opportunity. The frontier had its hazards, minimal food, wild animals, and diseases as well as the local natives, discriminating British authorities, and other prejudiced Europeans, all of which would be just as challenging for the broad-minded and daring Judith. With her mother passing when she was just six, and her father not remarrying, her childhood was a struggle from the very beginning but her avant-garde spirit would allow her and George to secure land, start a farm, survive the revolutionary war, and raise eleven children. Judith’s dynamic modern approach to motherhood as well as her Lutheran church connections at the newly established St. Luke’s Church, would give her the fortitude to nurture and educate her children, allowing them their best opportunity to succeed. Even as her husband passed at the turn of the 19th century, Judith’s revolutionary fervor would continue for the next two decades as she helped her own children raise their own broods.