Zehrung family came from Fairfield County, Ohio. Eliza’s great uncle, Adam Zehrung, had lived in Tama County since the early 1850s and had named the fledgling frontier town of Toledo, Iowa, after the city in his native Ohio. Eliza’s parents, Jonathan and Mary, were farmers with seven daughters and one son. When they loaded the wagon to join Adam in Iowa, Eliza, the second oldest, was 17.
Eliza’s sister, Catherine, was 18 when they began the journey. She was also unmarried and pregnant. The family settled northwest of Toledo, where Catherine gave birth to twin girls, Katie and Caroline, on December 23, 1855. Catherine survived childbirth by just a few weeks, dying January 11, 1856.
In Toledo, Eliza met Jacob Reinig, a German immigrant working as a farm hand. Though the Zehrungs had been in the U.S. for 150 years, they still spoke German, which was an asset when courting the young Bavarian immigrant. They married August 15, 1859, and Eliza gave birth to their first son, William, on January 31, 1860.
A second son, Franklin, would arrive while Jacob was away fighting in the Civil War. Eliza lived with her parents during the war, receiving $9 a month for compensation from the county while her husband was marching through the South. By the end of his service she would save more than $300.
After the war Jacob bought land near his in-laws and Eliza had more children – 10 total over the span of 26 years. They adopted Eliza’s orphaned niece, Caroline Zehrung, bringing their total to 11. When Jacob died in 1909, Eliza filed for a widow’s pension from the government. She would outlive four children, three in infancy and a son, Lewis, killed in 1916 when his car was hit by a train in Tama. In her later years she would live with her youngest son, Elmer, on the farm northwest of town. Her funeral was held from his home on January 25, 1925, and she was laid to rest next to her husband in Woodlawn Cemetery, near her parents, great-uncle Adam, and sisters, Maria, Elizabeth, and Catherine.
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