ROSINA -- PART 1

In honor of Women's History month, it's only right that we talk about Rosina. Rosina Kramer Ritterhouse Vandorn was the wife of John William Ritterhouse and mother of the seven Ritterhouse kids who were our first generation American-born Ritterhouse ancestors, as well as mother to another daughter by her second husband. Rosina lived a very long life and traveled a long way in the journey of her life.

There are many questions about Rosina's early life, but we pretty much know where all she was the last 75 years of her life! There is some controversy over when she was born. Some of the family believe that she lived to be nearly 103 years old, being born April 7, 1828 and dying February 27, 1931. Throughout her life a wide array of ages was given to the census takers. According to her death certificate (for which information was given by her daughter Anna) she was born April 8, 1831. (Her actual death date was January 31, 1931, so she most likely lived to be 99 years and 9 months.)

We know that she was born in Germany and died in Colorado Springs, Colorado -- a mind-boggling distance to travel in the days before airplanes and interstate highways. But, we do not know where Rosina was born. One cousin told me that Rosina was from around Strasbourg (which is actually in France), but she also told me that Rosina was born near the Stuttgart Castle. I am unsure which is the correct immigration record for Rosina. There are several Ros???? Kramers who were born around 1830 and immigrated in the 1850s. If the 1920 census information is correct, Rosina immigrated in 1852. The closest match to Rosina that I've found so far is a "Rosette Kraemer" who arrived in New York City aboard the ship Marmion. This Rosette was 20 years old and hailed from "Bavaria". There was a Rosina Kraemer born in Hambruecken, Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany, which is about 60 miles from Stuttgart. I'm inclined to believe this is the area Rosina came from even though I doubt that the Rosina Kraemer that I have a record of is "our" Rosina since she died as a child.

(Note: Unfortunately I didn't finish this post last week and haven't had a chance to work on it, so I'm going ahead and posting this as Part 1. I'll try to post a Part 2 tomorrow.)

HOME IN TAZEWELL COUNTY

Three years ago, I made a trip to Tazewell County, Illinois. My goal was to visit William Ritterhouse's grave. He's buried in the Miars Cemetery which is about five miles outside the small town of Pekin. We were lucky to have some of the members of the Tazewell County Genealogical Society assist us. They had already prepared some information for us and had it waiting at their wonderful library. This included a couple of maps of the county which showed not only where Miars Cemetery was located, but also where William's farm was located. One of the members even drove us to the cemetery. She even stopped by the Pekin Cemetery to show us the grave of Pekin's most famous son -- Senator Everett Dirksen.


The Miars Cemetery is a very small country cemetery located in the Elm Grove Township. Our local guide had arranged for the caretaker of the cemetery, Keith Keller, to meet us out there. Actually, Mr. Keller arranged to be plowing right by the cemetery and parked his tractor and walked over to the cemetery when he saw us. Unfortunately, our ancestor's grave is not marked. There is a record of his grave in row 4, grave number 28. Mr. Keller unfortunately did not know where row 4, grave 28 was located. We did locate approximately where he was buried. (Note: We may try to raise funds to buy a marker for William's grave. If you happen to read this blog and would be interested in contributing to such an effort, let me know in a comment. I'm sure Mr. Keller would help us accomplish that if we decided to do it.)

While we were at the cemetery, Mr. Keller showed us where William's farm was located. You can see it from the cemetery. His farm bordered the Miars' property which holds the cemetery. It is due west of the cemetery, maybe a quarter of a mile.

After we were finished at the cemetery, our wonderful guide took us to the farm where we met the current owner, Wilda Keller. (Wilda is Keith's mother.) She grew up on the old Ritterhouse farm, in the house she believes was built by William. The house is a two-story frame house in the salt box style.. Wilda told us that when she was little, in the early thirties, an older gentleman, whom she believes was one of the Ritterhouse boys, visited the farm and said he was born in the house. She described the farm and some of the changes that had taken place there -- like when the various barns and out buildings had been added. Wilda even sent me pictures of the farm from 1919 after I got home. We were not able to enter the house because of the condition it was in, but Wilda has plans to restore the home and Keith may be moving into it eventually.

It is difficult to describe the thrill of walking around the old farm knowing that the American roots of our Ritterhouse clan began there. I felt a connection to the site and to our history.

TWO VICTORIAN GENTLEMEN

Recently I found a photograph online of Fred Ritterhouse that reminded me of a picture I had of his brother, Charles. They're a little older than in the tintypes discussed previously, but are still fairly young men. I'd judge they are in their twenties when these two photos were taken. My guess is that they were taken between 1890 and 1895, probably after they moved to northern Kansas from Illinois, which was around 1890.


Both young men are dressed in fairly typical late Victorian clothing. In this era, three-piece suits ("ditto suits") consisting of a sack coat with matching waistcoat/vest and trousers were worn, as were matching coat and waistcoat with contrasting trousers. The centerpiece of men's dress at that time was the waistcoat or vest. According to one source I read, it was typical for men to own several vests to change the look of their main suit. These vests usually had collars or lapels and were single-breasted, which is the style worn by both Charles and Fred. Also according to the above-mentioned online source: "In the Victorian era, daily dress was much more formal than it is today. Unless they were a workman or laborer, every gentleman was expected to wear a coat, vest, and hat. To walk around in shirtsleeves without vest or coat would be the modern-day equivalent of traipsing about in one’s underwear. Very unseemly, and most ungentlemanly!" In these two pictures, Fred is looking particularly dapper!

Both men are also wearing the most basic accessory for every Victorian gentleman which was the cravat. Charles' ensemble also includes the nearly universal pocket watch and fob, which were prominently displayed hanging from the front vest pockets. Their shoes are probably the square-toed style of the turn of the century. Both men sport the short hair cuts of the times and the ubiquitous moustache.

I would guess these pictures were taken several years apart since the brothers look to be a similar age. Charles was eight years older than Fred, so his picture was most likely taken earlier in the decade, probably before his marriage in 1893. Fred's may have been taken in the latter half of the decade, sometime before his marriage in 1898.

The stylin' brothers look very similar and one can certainly tell they are related.

JOHN WILLIAM'S VOYAGE TO AMERICA

We may not know WHY our ancestor, Johann Wilhelm Rittershaus, left his home in Germany and journeyed to America, but we do know WHEN and HOW he came. According to the ship record, William left the northern port city of Bremen, Germany May 2, 1848 aboard the George Washington. I've tried to imagine what that trip was like for the 28-year-old who was leaving the ancestral homeland of his family who had deep, deep roots in the Barmen, Germany area. William would have paid about $16 for his steerage passage from Bremen to America. The voyage could not have been a lot of fun. It lasted six weeks. He surely knew many of his fellow passengers since they mostly came from the same area of Germany that he did. But the quarters were close and uncomfortable. There was not a lot to do. And six weeks is a long time.

When I was in Germany last fall, I visited a museum in the port city of Bremerhaven, which is about 50 miles (via the Weser River) north of Bremen. The Washington would have traveled through Bremerhaven on its way to New York. The museum showed what the German immigrants would have looked like as they stood on the dock with their belongings piled around them. Dressed in simple, peasant clothing, with their faces a mixture of eagerness and anxiety, these ghosts of our ancestors convey the hopefulness they were feeling about their new life. This museum also had reconstructions of the boats the immigrants traveled in. The one most similar to the Washington showed just how cramped the space was. The shared bunks housed 20 or so people, many of them coughing, crying and vomiting (which the museum highlighted via a soundtrack of the varied noises passengers would have been making). For William's voyage, there were 186 passengers most of whom were crammed into steerage for the six week voyage.

Notes included with the displays at the Bremerhaven museum explained that for hundreds of passengers, the cramped quarters in steerage were dining hall, dormitory and lounge in one. When the weather was good, the steerage passengers could spend time up on deck with music and dancing provided a welcome change. But, when storms rose at sea, the passengers had to leave the decks. For steerage passengers that could mean days without fresh air or daylight. Close quarters and poor sanitary facilities were conducive to disease. Spoiled food and bad drinking water only made matters worse. There was no doctor on board. It was not unusual for passengers to die on the voyage across the Atlantic.

What was the George Washington like? According to the "Palmer List of Merchant Vessels", the George Washington was built in 1822, probably in Killingsworth, Connecticut. According to Bremen records, it weighed in at 450 tons. From 1839 to 1849, it was owned by the Bremen firm of C.L. Brauer & Sohn. William's 1848 voyage was captained by Mathias Probst. Another source, "The Ships List" website, describes the George Washington as a 2,000 ton steamship. This ship was described as "the first American Atlantic liner and also one of the ugliest ships ever put afloat" (in Mail and Passenger Steamships of the Nineteenth Century). In June 1847, a review of the Washington's trip to Quebec claimed that she turned out to be slow and "rolled rather than steamed along." A letter in 1832 described the voyage across the Atlantic to New York on the George Washington as "a most delightful passage." The Washington was a paddle steamship. Her paddle wheels were apparently 39 feet in diameter. She had two boilers and three furnaces. Here's what she looked like:

Imagining William's six week trip to his new life only increases my admiration for my immigrant ancestor. It seems like it would have taken courage, fortitude and optimism to leave his family, friends and known life and endure the journey, first to Bremen and then across the ocean to the unknown. Whatever drove him to the extreme decision to make the journey to America, I appreciate the sacrifices he made to start his new life!

WILLIAM THE LOCKSMITH

Great-great-grandpa William Ritterhouse was a schlosser or locksmith. Most locksmiths were blacksmiths who made locks, so they were called locksmiths. As early as 1411, Charles IV of Germany created the title of "Master Locksmith". Locksmiths were skilled metalworkers who trained as apprentices and became journeymen locksmiths. One source I read mentioned that the work of a locksmith required ingenuity and accuracy. Ingenuity was probably needed to stay ahead of the lock-pickers.

To become a master locksmith, the journeyman designed and produced a one-of-a-kind "masterpiece" lock as a "test". These locks were displayed without covers to show the component parts of the mechanisms, their functions, etc. and were never actually used on a door. The lock displayed above was made by great-great-grandpa William. I'm wondering if it could have been his "masterpiece" lock. It has been passed down through the family. At one time, William's granddaughter, Edna (the daughter of Charles), owned it, but she passed it to her youngest brother, Merle Ritterhouse, who willed it to his grandson, Jim Ritterhouse, the current owner.

William was identified sometimes as a blacksmith and sometimes just as a smith. The ship record listed him as a smith. Then in 1850, according to the census, he was working as a blacksmith in Blair, Pennsylvania. The 1860 Tazewell County, Illinois, census also states he is a blacksmith. By this time, locks were being mass-produced, but maybe not out in the prairies of Illinois. William also farmed, probably because he couldn't support his family on his smithing alone.

RITTERHOUSE TINTYPES

These tintypes of four of the Ritterhouse boys are the earliest Ritterhouse photographs I own. These are four of great-great-grandfather William Rittershaus' five sons (from top to bottom): Fred (born 1874), Lew (born 1867), Charles (born 1866) and George (born 1863).

Tintypes were photos with the image on a metal surface that was blackened. They were cheap, durable and instant (available a few minutes after taking the photo). The process was patented in the U.S. in 1856 and, by the end of the Civil War, they were the most common type of photos. They remained the preferred type of photo until the end of the 19th century. They were usually taken outside at fairs, carnivals, etc. by itinerant photographers, because the equipment was easily set up and the photographs were instantly available.

Judging by the ages of the boys in the Ritterhouse tintypes, I think these photos were taken about 1880. By 1880, the oldest Ritterhouse boy, William, who was 21, was already living in Kansas, working on a farm in Hiawatha County. George would have been 17, Charles (my great-grandfather) would have been 14, Lew 13 and Fred 6. It may have been a year or two sooner, but it was surely around then. At this time, they were living in Tazewell County, Illinois. It was shortly after their father's death (in June 1876) and their mother's marriage to Joseph Vandorn (in late 1877).

So, do we learn anything from these pictures? All of the boys were surely dressed in their "Sunday-go-to-meeting" clothes. They are all wearing jackets with vests. None of them look too comfortable, with poor Lew looking particularly uncomfortable, with all of his jacket buttons buttoned and the jacket appearing to be a bit small. While the photos may have been taken by an itinerant photographer, they surely must have planned to have them taken and dressed accordingly. They are all very solemn, but taking photographs were a much bigger deal back then. They had to remain still and I'm sure wanted to appear as dignified as possible. To me, it's obvious they are brothers, sharing traits like the shape of their heads, similar mouths, noses, and hair. Is there a Ritterhouse feature that continues in the family today? What do you think?

THE IMMIGRANT

My immigrant Ritterhouse ancestor was John William Ritterhouse -- or more accurately, Johann Wilhelm Rittershaus. William (as he was most often referred to) was born in Barmen, Germany. Barmen was a small town located in the valley of the Wupper River, north of Koln/Cologne and east of Dusseldorf. Rittershaus families had lived in this area for several centuries by the time William was born on January 3, 1819 (and there are still many Rittershaus families living there today).

Great-great-grandfather William was probably the fourth child born to Johann Wilhelm Rittershaus and his wife, Anna Wilhelmina Pistor. He had at least three older sisters: Anna Wilhelmina (born April 18, 1814), Johanna Gerdraud (born September 16, 1815), and Helena Carolina (born March 12, 1817). As far as I know (at least so far), that was his immediate family. The family story (according to my Great-Aunt Edna who never knew William, but who lived with his wife Rosena while Edna went to high school) was that the Rittershaus's were farmers, but we don't know for sure. William was a locksmith, probably learning the trade in Barmen.

In 1848, at the age of 28, William left home and sailed to New York City. He first traveled 160 miles to the port city of Bremen -- by foot, a several day hike. So why would a young man with a marketable skill leave the home of his ancestors and his family and friends, carrying all of his belongings in two trunks, journey several days across northern Germany, then purchase passage (for probably around $16) on a small sailing ship, packed in tight steerage quarters with 200 of his fellow countrymen for six long weeks? Oh for a copy of a letter he wrote home or a journal with his deepest thoughts to solve the mystery! But no such luck!

In 1848, revolution in Germany brought many immigrants to America. These immigrants were called Forty-eighters. Other factors that encouraged the German immigration around that time included economic depression on the farms, the introduction of machinery causing displacement and unemployment, and political and religious persecution. In general, German immigrants were not destitute, but were seeking a higher standard of living and were seeking to replicate their cherished agricultural system which was rapidly disappearing in Germany. When I asked my Aunt Edna why our ancestor immigrated, her response was: "I don't know why they came to America. I just supposed that they became dissatisfied with life in Germany." It just seems that life would have had to be pretty dissatisfying to endure the hardships, sacrifices and expenses of such a journey.

Recently, I found that a local Barmen businessman, Theodor Wettstein, organized a large group of Barmen-area residents, including our William Rittershaus, to immigrate to Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. They traveled as a group to Bremen to board the ship George Washington. Reviewing the passenger list for the May 2nd journey of the Washington, you can see that nearly every passenger was from Barmen, Elberfeld or another town from the Wupper valley. Of the 186 passengers, 156 of them ended up with Wettstein in Wisconsin. Fortunately for me, William struck out on his own once he arrived in New York City. Another mystery. Why didn't he go with his fellow Barmenians, surely people he'd known all his life and with whom he had just endured the arduous journey across the Atlantic? There is probably no way to ever know.

What is documented, is that instead of being in Wisconsin, William was in Blair County, Pennsylvania, working as a blacksmith in 1850. From there, he continued to head west to Tazewell County, Illinois, where he is found in 1857, marrying the also German-born Rosena Kramer.

So, if anyone knows more about why and how William immigrated, please add your comments! In the meantime, I'm just grateful that he did make the sacrifices and the extreme efforts to move to Illinois when he did, or else I wouldn't be here to write about him!