Sixty-five years ago this week, the eldest son of John William and Rosena Ritterhouse broke his leg in an accidental fall and died two days later from the "shock of [the] fracture of [his] leg." His home at the time was the Masonic Home in Wichita, Kansas.William Frederick Ritterhouse was born, like the rest of his siblings, in Tazewell County, Illinois. According to his death certificate, he was born in Tremont, Illinois on Halloween of 1858. No doubt, he helped his father farm on land west of Pekin, Illinois. Then, as the oldest son, he would have helped his mother after his father's untimely death in 1870.
William was the first of his family to leave home and settle in Kansas. By the time William was 21, he was a farm laborer on a farm in Brown County, Kansas, near Hiawatha (according to the 1880 Census). Brown County is in northeastern Kansas approximately 375 miles from his home in Illinois. Although it may not be possible to ever know, I wonder why William went there. In 1880, he was working on the farm of Samuel Meyers. Five years later, when the state of Kansas took a census, he was working as a farmer and living with the J.D. Crook family in Hamlin, Kansas (also in Brown County). Mr. Crook was a butcher.
Probably when the rest of his family relocated to Kansas in the 1890s, William began farming in Nemaha and Marshall Counties. In October 1904, he purchased a home in Blue Rapids, at 301 N. Main where he lived with his mother. In Blue Rapids, he was the water superintendent. Later, he moved with Rosena to Scott City, Kansas, where he also served as water superintendent. (According to his death certificate, he was an electrical engineer.) He reportedly became deaf, possibly from working around the noisy machinery in the water plants.
William's Blue Rapids, Kansas, home ca. 2000The eldest Ritterhouse child went by the name Rittershouse until World War I, when anti-German sentiments convinced him to change it. According to his niece Edna, he always stated that "Rittershouse" was the “German way”. He never married, apparently taking care of his mother until he was no longer able to. Rosena lived with him in his house in Blue Rapids and his house in Scott City. His niece, Edna, lived with them during her high school years since the schools near her stopped at the eighth grade.
Advice from “Uncle Bill” to his niece Edna in her autograph book in 1903.
In Marshall County, William (or Uncle Bill or Uncle Will as his nieces and nephews called him) was active in various patriotic/fraternal organizations. He participated in meetings at the P.O.S. of A. camp, and the Masonic Grand Lodge. He reported having a “grand good time” when he visited the Leavenworth Masonic Grand Lodge (according to the February 26, 1892 Axtell Anchor). (The Patriotic Order Sons of America (P.O.S. of A.) was "organized December 10, 1847 to preserve the Public School System, The Constitution of the United Sates and our American way of life.")William also helped organize a lodge of Odd Fellows in the neighboring town of Baileyville while he was living in Axtell.
Uncle Bill spent the last 12 years of his life in the Masonic Home in Wichita, Kansas. In 1896, the Masonic Order and Order of the Eastern Star purchased the estate of Robert Lawrence and used his former home as a retirement home for members until a fire destroyed the facility in 1916. In 1917, a new facility was constructed at the site (on the corner of Seneca and Maple), designed in the Mission architectural style. Completed in 1921, the buildings are known for their white stucco walls and red tile roof. On June 25, 1946, William fell and broke his leg. Unfortunately, he died two days later, at the age of 87, from complications from the fall. He is buried in a simply-marked grave in the Maple Grove Cemetery in Wichita in a section donated by the cemetery for the Masonic Home.
[Note: I started this post last year, but basically wrote it in June 2011 and actually posted it June 25, 2011, which is why I refer to the anniversary of his death being "this week".]
