ROSINA -- PART 3

In researching these Rosina blogs, I was intrigued to find I had pictures of most of the houses Rosina lived in. It's not EXACTLY accidental since I'm thrilled if I can find the actual place and, especially, the actual house where an ancestor lived. So, I seek these places out and, naturally, take pictures of them. The intriguing thing (to me) is that Rosina is pretty much the only ancestor for whom I have a trail of homes.

Of course, since I don't know where Rosina came from in Germany, I don't have a picture of her home there. Odds are good, though, that it still exists. At least as I've visited the cities, towns and villages of Germany, I've seen many, many homes that are at least 200 years old.

The first house that I have pictures of that Rosina MIGHT have lived in is located in Tazewell County, Illinois, a few miles east of Pekin. The attached picture was taken in 1919. I honestly have some doubts as to whether this was the house the Ritterhouses lived in. I'm no student of historical architecture, but, to me, this house does not look like it could have been built in the 1860s. Nevertheless, it is fairly certain that the Ritterhouses lived in a house at this site. And this particular house has not changed significantly in the past 90 years, except for the addition of beautiful trees and flowers and a front porch.




From Tazewell County, Illinois, Rosina and her family moved to Marshall County in northern Kansas.
Rosina bought a farm of 80 acres just a few miles south of the Nebraska border. The legal description of the land was S1/2 SE1/4, Section 3, Township 3, Range 10. Rosina apparently farmed this land from October 1890 to early 1899. I'm not absolutely certain this was her farm. I visited the site in 1994 and as near as my parents and I could follow the township map, these ruins were on the property identified in the land records. They certainly looked like they could be 90 years old!




I'm not sure where Rosina moved after selling her land (several of her children had purchased land in Marshall and neighboring Nemaha Counties), but in 1904, William bought a house in Blue Rapids, Kansas (still in Marshall County) and Rosina moved in with him. At this point she was over 70 years of age. The house was located at 301 N. Main St. They lived in this house about 15 years while William worked as an engineer at the city water works. From 1914 to 1916 (I think), Rosina's granddaughter, Edna Ritterhousee lived with them while here while she attended the Blue Rapids High School. In April 1919, he sold the house and they moved out to western Kansas, settling in Scott City.




For some reason, in 1919, William and Rosina moved to southwest Kansas, nearly to the Colorado border, where William worked for the City of Scott City as their "stationary engineer". This was definitely sparsely populated area. Despite Scott City being the county seat, the population at that time was under 1500. They lived there several years until William's health apparently failed, and he moved to Wichita to live his final years in the Mason's Home. They were still living in Scott City at the time of the 1925 Kansas Census.







As nearly as I can tell, the last house that Rosina lived in was in Colorado Springs. She apparently went to live with her daughter, Anna, when William could no longer take care of her. Anna lived with her husbands, first Ed Nolte and then William Ebright in Colorado Springs at 1011 N. Corona. According to Rosina's death certificate, this house was where she died.