John Treiber was a wanderer. Born in Germany in 1839, he moved to America with his parents around 1848. As a sailor, he traveled to Europe, Mexico, South America, India, and the Far East. He later worked as a lumberjack and briefly owned a lumber boat, which was lost in a storm on Lake Michigan. He met his wife, Mary McCarty, while he was hiking across Michigan to visit a brother. Mary McCarty Treiber was born in western New York State in 1840 to Norwegian and Irish immigrant parents. When she was nine months old, her family set out for New Orleans, but her father died of yellow fever during the journey. Returning to New York, her mother eventually remarried and the family lived for about nine years in a Quaker community in the western part of the state. Around 1852 they immigrated to Kalamo township, Eaton County, Michigan, which was essentially still a wilderness at that time. When she met John Treiber, Mary McCarty was living with her younger brother, John, and she continued to do so for several years after her marriage because of Treiber's frequent absences. They finally settled in Carlisle, Eaton County, Michigan, and raised their five children there.