JUNE 2 MEDIA RELEASE__Fred Steiner will present a Swiss family migration program at the Bluffton Senior Citizens Center at 11:00 a.m., Thursday, June 5.

The presentation’s focus is on how and why ancestors of area residents immigrated to Bluffton, using the example of Steiner’s maternal great-grandparents, Rudolf and Barbara Amstutz Althaus.

Rudolf Althaus, who immigrated to America from Switzerland in 1845, owned a Bluffton general store and was also a trained landscape artist, painting scenes of Switzerland in oil, selling them to other Swiss immigrants.

The parents of Barbara Amstutz Althaus immigrated to America in the 1840s, originally moving to Wayne County before settling on a farm in what is today rural Beaverdam. 

In May Steiner gave this same program at the public library, sponsored by the Bluffton Ohio Historical Society.The program is free and open to the public.