The Thompson · Hoffmann · Kipp Book
This is the book of Benjamin's father's family — three surnames that became one household. The Kipps came down from the Tennessee frontier in 1810. The Hoffmanns arrived in Cincinnati from the Duchy of Nassau in 1854. The Thompsons were already in Massachusetts before the Civil War and made their way to Kentucky and then Ohio. We've kept the family's spelling — Hoffmann with two f's, Kipp without the second p — where the records sometimes wrote it differently.
The chapters that follow are stories of people and places: the boy on the boat in 1854, the youngest enlisted flag-bearer in the Civil War, the Thompson men in the world wars, the Cincinnati of the 1920s where Jack and Virginia met. They are written for the children of this family to read once they are old enough to want them.
—Chapters
Druggist Jack Thompson
Jack Ralph Thompson (1922–2009) lived his entire life in Cincinnati, Ohio. This chapter records the dates and relationships we can verify from the family tree and clearly distinguishes them from authorial framing.
The Kipp Line
The Kipp line, traced from the deepest provable date in the family record (January 14, 1810, Fentress County, Tennessee) through four generations to the marriage in Wayne County, Indiana in 1923 that turned the surname into Hoffmann. Every claim cited; every flourish removed.
James Kipp of Tennessee
Born January 14, 1810 in Fentress County, Tennessee, James Kipp is the earliest provable name in this branch. He raised five sons in Tennessee and moved them as a unit to Kentucky in 1857.
Alvin Kalo Kipp
Third of James Kipp''s five sons. Born in Tennessee in 1841, died in Kentucky in 1905. Six children — including Eugene Alonso, the next-generation line. The binder is titled in his name.
Eugene Alonso Kipp
Born in Kentucky in 1864, eldest son of Alvin Kalo Kipp. Married Martha Ellen Nance. Father of Tina Agnes Kipp, who carries the line forward into the Hoffmann marriage. Died in Connersville, Indiana, 1950.
Tina Agnes Kipp
Born in Boone County, Indiana in 1893. Married Fritz Hoffmann in 1923 in Wayne County, Indiana. The marriage that joined the two German-named families on this side of Benjamin''s tree.
The boy on the boat
Five years old, leaving the Duchy of Nassau, arriving in Cincinnati in March 1854. The chapter follows the family from the German village they left to the half-German city they joined — and the trade in upholstery and furniture that Charles would build there.
The youngest enlisted man
A Civil War story passed down through Aunt Sissy Kock: that Charles Hoffmann Sr., too young to bear arms, served the Union as a flag-bearer — by one account a drummer boy in Company K. He was honored with a plaque that hung in the Harrison, Ohio courthouse. The chapter will look at what we can confirm and what we cannot.
The Hanoverian in Cincinnati
One of the German-language immigrants who made Cincinnati the second-largest German city in America by 1860. The Ahlenstorfs would marry into the Lipps and the Bichmillers, eventually producing Hazel Alberta Ahlenstorf — Jack Ralph Thompson's mother.
The Bichmillers of Sierning
Franz Bichlmüller was born in Sierning, in Upper Austria, in 1813. His grandson Franz Xavier emigrated to Cincinnati in the 1870s or 80s, where the name was Anglicized to Bichmiller. The chapter traces the line from Steyr-Land to Hamilton County, Ohio, and forward to Virginia Bichmiller, who married Jack Ralph Thompson in 1947 or thereabouts.
World War I — the Thompson men
Maps, regimental paths, and the names of the Thompson and Hoffmann men who served between 1917 and 1918. To be filled in from draft cards, unit histories, and any letters or photographs the family can find.
World War II — the Thompson men
The chapter will cover Jack, his brothers (if any), and the cousins who served. Maps of theaters of operation, ship manifests, discharge papers. Held until we have the documents in hand.
When Hoffmann met Kipp
February 24, 1923, in Wayne County, Indiana. Tina Agnes Kipp, then twenty-nine, marries William Wilmar "Fritz" Hoffmann, then twenty-four. They raise four children. Through their son Jack — known to the family as Jackie Darrel — the line runs forward to Jennifer, then to Benjamin.
The Lancers, March 1967
A senior starting guard on the Liberty Lancers basketball team during the program's first Regional title run. Through seven scanned newspaper clippings and one team photograph, the chapter traces the tournament from the Connersville Sectional in late February 1967 through the Regional title on March 4 and on to the Sweet Sixteen at Indianapolis. Jack R Thompson — known as "Skip" at the time — is named in nearly every article.
Betty Jo of Connersville
Betty Jo Gruell Hofmann grew up in Depression-era Connersville, Indiana, lost her father at fifteen and her mother at twenty-five, married Jack Hofmann a few weeks after VJ Day and built fifty-nine years of marriage on the floor of a Liberty body shop. This chapter is built around the 2018 eulogy that her eldest daughter Jennifer Hofmann wrote and delivered for her — the document that gives the GEDCOM its voice.
Virginia of Greenhills
Virginia Lillian Bichmiller — known to family as Ginny — was Benjamin Thompson's paternal grandmother. Born in Cincinnati, raised in Greenhills, Ohio, she graduated from Greenhills High School in 1943, married Jack Ralph Thompson, and followed him to Indiana — Richmond in 1947, Liberty from 1950 to 1968, and finally New Castle, where she would spend 55 of her 97 years. In Liberty she became the first woman elected to the Town Council, twice. In New Castle she built a 35-year retail career at Sears and J.C. Penney, remarried after Jack's departure (to Victor Howell, 1982–2005), and lived to see four children, nine grandchildren, and sixteen great-grandchildren — at whose joint 97th birthday party she made the joke that titles the closing section of this chapter.
Jack Hofmann of Liberty
Jackie Darrel Hofmann grew up on a Wayne County, Indiana farm as the second of four children; graduated Brownsville High School in 1944; met Betty Jo Gruell in downtown Connersville on VJ Day 1945; married her in May 1948; ran Hofmann Body Shop just north of Liberty, Indiana for nearly forty years; and died at 81 in May 2007, eleven days after entering the hospital on his fifty-ninth wedding anniversary. The chapter is built around the 2007 eulogy that Benjamin Thompson wrote and delivered for his grandfather.