Caroline Sawyer was born March 10, 1850, on Green Turtle Cay, Abaco to Samuel Sawyer (1829-1889) and Catherine Ann Curry.

Her siblings included…

• Benjamin Edward (1854)
• Samuel Lewis (1862)

On December 30, 1879, in Key West, Florida, Caroline married John Ernest Jerome Hans Ernst Hieronymus deVedig (1841?-1926) from Germany.

Their children included…

• Sophia Ellen (1882)

Sophia was born in Milton Florida to Ernest and Caroline DeVedig, she grew up living in different parts of Florida from Naples to Milton. Residing at times in “palmetto shacks” that were common among Florida Crackers living in the wild Florida Frontier, (a simple hut made from branches and logs and covered with palmetto “fronds”). The family eventually settled in Tampa, Florida, where she met a young single Pastor named Edward Fischer who was starting a new Lutheran congregation in Tampa. They married in April 1898 and moved to Gotha Florida. From Gotha, they moved to Texas where they started Saint John’s Lutheran Church. Eventually returing to Florida in 1921, they returned to Gotha where the couple lived until her husbands death in 1958. In 1960, she moved yet again to Winter Haven Florida where she remained the rest of her life, finally passing to eternal life in 1979 at the age of 97. “Grandma” Fischer, as she was known by everyone in the family, is fondly remembered by her family as very loving, always concerned and interested in family affairs and activites and a deeply devout and devoted Christian believer. She was a wonderful example of Christian kindness, patience and love.

Glenn Fischer, a great grandson recalls…

My great grandfather was a sea captain who came to Florida circa 1870 from Germany. My great-grandmother was born in the Bahamas to a family involved in “Wrecking.” Her family moved to Key West which at that time was the center of the “Wrecking” business. A mutual friend introduced them, and they were married in Key West December 1879.

My great grandfather spent his career sailing around the coast of Florida shipping goods. Circa 1900, he lost his ship in a hurricane off the west coast of Florida, swimming to shore using a broken piece of the ship as a life preserver. He retired from the sea at that time and moved with his wife to Gotha, Florida, were he served as Justice of the Peace for Orange County, Florida. He died in 1926, she died in 1933. Both are buried in the Lutheran Cemetery in Gotha, Florida.

Caroline deVedig née Sawyer passed away in 1933 (age 82) in Gotha, Florida.