Sandra Lee (Fennick) Updegraff, 76, of Grove City, who died Thursday, is linked to some significant names and events in the history of Western Pennsylvania.

Through her mother, Ruth Eleanor Studebaker Fennick, she is the seventh generation removed from Heinrich Studebaker, who is mentioned in many histories of the region.

Updegraff's nephew, Jay Fennick of Eugene, Ore., said his family history is linked to the Studebaker family.

Heinrich Studebaker and his cousins, Clement and Peter Studebaker, arrived in Philadelphia in 1736.

They, along with other antiwar German immigrants, settled to farm a region in what is now the Maryland/Pennsylvania border.

Heinrich Studebaker, with his family, was farming when his homestead was attacked by a war party of Native Americans from Kittanning on March 3, 1756, during the French and Indian War.

Heinrich, according to the history of the Studebaker Family National Association, was shot to death in his field while preparing for spring planting. The war party took his wife and children prisoner.

During the raiders' retreat back to Pennsylvania, Mrs. Studebaker and her 2-year-old child were killed. The surviving children, Philip, Joseph and Elizabeth, were taken to Kittanning and adopted into the Delaware tribe.

The Studebaker siblings were at Kittanning in September 1756 when settlers, led by Col. John Armstrong, attacked the village.

The Studebakers' captors split the children up and took them into what is now Ohio.

Philip Studebaker was returned to his family in 1762 as part of a peace pact between the settlers and the Native Americans. Joseph and Elizabeth were returned in 1764 at the end of the French and Indian War.

Elizabeth was unable to adapt to her new life and returned to her Native American family.

After the Revolutionary War, Joseph's son, David, found a tract of land and built a log cabin near Jacksville in Worth Township, Butler County. Joseph, his wife and other children moved to the site.

Sandra Lee (Fennick) Updegraff is descended from David Studebaker.

Her grandparents, Bill and Ruth Fennick, ran a trucking company, WE Fennick Trucking, in Slippery Rock, said Jay Fennick.

He also said her brothers, George and Chalmers Studebaker, both had farms in the area.

But two other Studebaker brothers who started the wagon works at South Bend, Ind., in 1852 were descendants of Heinrich's cousin, Clement Studebaker.

The Studebaker brothers sold thousands of wagons to the Union Army during the Civil War. These wagons were considered by many to be the best and most dependable built at that time. In the early 1900s, they began building the Studebaker automobiles.