When Earl William Kolb was born on 25 December 1894, in Winnebago, Oshkosh Town, Winnebago, Wisconsin, United States, his father, William Frederick Kolb, was 31 and his mother, Jennie Ione Foote, was 32. He married Mary Henrietta Podoll on 30 June 1921, in Duluth, St. Louis, Minnesota, United States. He lived in Nepeuskun, Winnebago, Wisconsin, United States for about 30 years and Rush Lake, Winnebago, Wisconsin, United States in 1940. He died in November 1977, at the age of 82.
German: nickname from Middle High German kolbe ‘mace’ or ‘cudgel’, which was both a weapon and part of an official's insignia, in some cases the insignia of a jester; or a topographic or habitational name referring to a house named with this word. In Silesia the term denoted a shock of hair or a shorn head. Compare Kulp .
History: Dielman Kolb (1691–1756), a Mennonite preacher who arrived in America in 1717 and assisted Swiss and German emigration to America, was born in the Palatinate, Germany, and migrated to PA, following two of his brothers (Martin, John, and Jacob, who came to PA in 1707, and Henry, who came in 1709) who were also Mennonite preachers. Some of the family, which is probably of ultimate Swiss origin, settled in Germantown, PA. Among the Mennonites in the US the name Kolb is also commonly found in the altered forms Kulp and Culp .
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