Marie Aschmann was born 19 Mar. 1828 in Kreis Niederrung, Reguring Bezirk Gumbinnen, East Prussia and immigrated to Texas in Nov. 1856 with her brother Michael, supposedly seeking adventure. According to family legend, Michael died almost immediately, leaving Marie alone to support herself as a house-servant. This story was a romantic varnishing of the truth, as there is evidence that Michael was still alive as late as 1880. There seems to have been an estrangement in the family caused by money owed from their paternal inheritance. Also, Marie's sister, Margarethe (Aschmann) Westphal, was already living in Yorktown, married to Johann August Westphal. Marie married Johann Heinrich Afflerbach on April 12, 1858. They built a log cabin in which they lived until they later built a house. The couple had eight children, including a set of twins. The twins, Heinrich and Bertha, barely a year old, died within six days of each other from a dysentery-like illness commonly called the "summer complaint." The Afflerbachs later lost another child, also named Heinrich, to this disease when he was but three years old. Five of the Afflerbach children survived to adulthood--Emma, Berthold, Lydia, Marie and another daughter also named Bertha. Marie had a spinning wheel which she used to make her family's clothing. She was also kept busy cooking, baking, canning food, and making homemade wine and grape juice. Her family kept bees and had a honey extractor which used centrifugal force to separate the honey from the comb. A mule-driven cane press was used in the making of molasses. Marie's family had a pump organ which one of her descendants has restored and plays occasionally. Marie (Aschmann) Afflerbach died 26 Nov. 1907, and is buried in Westside Cemetery, Yorktown, DeWitt County, Texas.