The attached documents are being made available as a tribute to the Runsers who are the story and those who provided the information.  Hopefully, all those having an interest in the Runser family or  the history of the period will find them interesting. 

The information may be used, but with the understanding of who originated the documents and the numerous steps that have been taken to make it available in the current form.

Documents:

1) Autobiograph by Sebastian Runser dated Nov 25,1891, followed by a history of his family as written to his wife. 

2) A memorandum by Sebastian dated Sept 4 1893, that  provides important incidents of his life.

3) An exact copy of the obituary of Catherine Runser, prepared by Jonathan O. Runser, dated July 6, 1958.

4) An exact copy of the obituary of Andrew Runser, prepared by Jonathan O. Runser, dated July 6, 1958.

5) A compilation of Runser births, marriages and deaths from the Catholic Church records in Alsace, France provided by Rev. Aloyse Reithmuller, dated 11/9/56.

The first 2 documents come from a hand written manuscript by Sebastian Runser, which was subsequently transcribed by Jonathan O. Runser into a typed version. 

Documents 3 and 4 were typed by Jonathan O. Runser.

Document 5 was originally a manuscript in French that was prepared by Rev. Reithmuller at the request of Robert E. Runser who subsequently provided a translation into English, and typed versions of both.

Portions of the copies of the initially available typed versions were hard to read because many individual letters had become indistinguishable.  Since I found the information to be a very informative and interesting history of early days in America, and helpful to my genealogical efforts on behalf of my wife, I thought the documents  should be made widely available. To provide a copy in a format that could improve the availability of the information, the documents were electronically scanned and proofed for accuracy.  No changes were deliberately made to the original spelling or phrasing.  Many thanks to those who created this history and these documents.