THE RITTERHOUSE DAUGHTERS

It appears that in my previous blog posts I have ignored William and Rosena's daughters. This was brought to my attention by one of our cousins who requested seeing pictures of the daughters. So here they are.

The oldest daughter was Rosa Ritterhouse. Obviously named after her mother, Rosena (who often went by the name of Rosa) she was born in 1860 in Illinois. I think Rosa's real name was probably Anna Rosa since that name shows up in her father's probate papers. She married John William Schlereth, a German immigrant who was living in the Tazewell County area. They moved to Nemaha County, Kansas where Rosena and the rest of the family purchased or leased farms. In 1900, the Schlereth family moved to Falls City, Nebraska, where Rosa lived the remaining 41 years of her life.

A second daughter was apparently born September 2, 1861. Named Anna Mary, she was Rosena and William’s first child to die. According to one source, she “died as an infant”. Her death date and cause of death are not known. As far as I know, no picture remains of the infant.

William and Rosena's third daughter was born in 1869. They named her Anna Louise, calling her Anna. Anna also lived in Falls City, Nebraska for a time, before moving to Colorado Springs, where she lived for the remainder of her life. Rosena was living with her daughter Anna during the last few years of her life.

Rosena had a fourth daughter, Emma Louise VanDorn. in 1880, by her second husband, Joseph VanDorn. Emma married Edward M. Montague. Ed and Emma farmed in Brown County, Kansas, in the far northeastern corner of the state, their entire lives.

These were the Ritterhouse daughters. I will try to do fuller profiles of Rosa, Anna and Emma in the future in this Ritterhouse Roots blog.