Sarah Ann Stehle was the second child and daughter of Francis Xavier Stehle and Sarah Day. Though her grave marker gives her year of birth as 1856, the birth record from the Stehle family Bible has it as 1855. This year matches the information in the 1900 U. S. census. On December 3, 1879, she married a Farmington, Michigan undertaker named Karl F. A. Kynast. The ceremony took place at the Stehle family home in Franklin and was performed by Baptist minister Isaac Bloomer. Sarah and Karl lived on Main Street (Grand River Avenue) in downtown Farmington with her sister Anna and his brother Oswald who were married in 1878. Oswald built cabinets at the family business while Karl did the undertaking. Sarah and Karl had a son named Edmund Lawrence Kynast, who was born in Farmington on January 13, 1882. Karl Kynast died of a massive heart attack at the age of 32 on September 26, 1884. Sarah's sister Anna had died in 1881 from what was probably typhoid fever. After Karl's death, Oswald and Sarah did what seemed to be the natural thing to do and were married in Linden, Genesee County, Michigan on January 13, 1886. They settled Karl's affairs, closed the Farmington business, and relocated to Saginaw, Michigan with the rest of the Kynast family in 1887. Here Sarah opened a millinery store while Oswald took over the family grocery store from his father. As she aged, Sarah became increasingly crippled by rheumatoid arthritis. She sought treatment at various institutions, but to no effect. Her condition deteriorated to the point that her family could no longer care for her. In 1919, she was taken to the Arnold Home for the Aged and Incurables on Selden Street in Detroit, Michigan. Sarah (Stehle) Kynast passed away here on March 12, 1920, from heart failure. Her remains were sent back to Saginaw for burial beside her second husband Oswald.
Biography compiled by Jeff Stehle. Please credit appropriately.