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.

INDIANAPOLIS 500 RACER -- TROY RUTTMAN

So far in this blog, I have been trying to go somewhat chronologically, but as I finally resume writing about our Ritterhouse Roots (after a year's absence), I'm departing from that practice. And, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500 which is being raced this weekend on Sunday, May 29th, I'm profiling the man who is probably our most famous American “Ritterhouse”: Troy Ruttman. In 1952, at the age of 22, he became the youngest winner ever in the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” – the Indy 500 – a record that stands to this day. He won it the year I was born (in fact a week after I was born) on May 31, 1952.

Troy was born March 11, 1930 in Mooreland, Oklahoma, the son of Ralph "Butch" Ruttman and Mary Ellen Ritterhouse. Mary was the daughter of George and Cora (Tyner Shipman) Ritterhouse. George was one of William and Rosena's sons who went to Oklahoma in the early 1890s. He settled in the Mutual, Oklahoma area in Woodward County (in the panhandle). Ralph grew up in Mooreland, Oklahoma, not far from where Mary's older brother, Lloyd George, was living in 1920. According to one online site (The Autosport Bulletin Board), Ralph "was an unsuccessful racer in Oklahoma in the twenties and the thirties, and with his family moved to California in the forties to find his luck". He apparently was a fine mechanic, though, and served as chief mechanic for several successful open wheel racers.

Troy began his driving “career” at the age of 9 when he received his first traffic ticket, having volunteered to drive his mother to visit a friend. At 15, he raced "jalopies" in Los Angeles backyards. According to his Wikipedia article, he entered his family car in a roadster race at San Bernardino, California in 1945 (when he was 15) and won the race. He reportedly went on to win 19 of the 21 events staged there that season. At 16 he was racing track roadsters at Carrell Speedway in Gardena, California and at 17 he graduated to WRA (Western Racing Association) "Class B" Sprint Cars. By 1947, he was the California Roadster Association roadster champion. He also won his first five midget car races that season. The next year he again won the CRA championship, along with the United Racing Association Blue Circuit championship and 23 midget car events. In 1949, Troy left California for the AAA Sprint and Championship car circuits of the Midwest. His New York Times obituary (published May 21, 1997) reported that Troy "first raced at the so-called Brickyard in 1949 at 19, two years younger than Indianapolis Motor Speedway rules allowed. 'I had to fudge to get in,' Ruttman recalled years later. 'I had to produce a birth certificate. Ralph Wayne Ruttman was my cousin, and I used his. They asked me why I went by Troy and I told them it was a nickname. I corrected it when I turned 21.'"


In the 1952 Indy race, after qualifying seventh, Ruttman led 40 laps in mid race and was steadily closing on leader Bill Vukovich. He took the lead 20 miles from the finish when Vukovich's car had a broken steering pin. His victory came while driving one of the famous red and cream No. 98 cars entered by J.C. Agajanian, a Southern California race promoter. He also set a new record at 128.922 miles per hour in that race. “A towering figure at 6 foot, 3 inches and 250 pounds, he undoubtedly was the biggest winner, too,” writes Shav Glick in Ruttman's Motorsports Hall of Fame profile. He won five times in the AAA and USAC Indy Champ Car competition in 58 official starts. He won only one more Indy car race, a month after the 500, before breaking his arm severely in a sprint car accident in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which kept him away from racing for nearly two years.

Troy Ruttman competed in numerous Indianapolis 500 races from 1949 to 1964. In 1958, he became the first Indy 500 winner to drive in a Formula One race when he drove at Reims, France.

According to racing historian Terry Reed, Troy is “arguably America’s greatest automobile racing talent.” But, Troy admitted that his winning the 500 at 22 was “a classic case of too much, too soon.” One online source argues that Ruttman could have been a contender on the Formula 1 race circuit if it hadn't been for the "petty pace lap crash" at Cedar Rapids on August 17 in 1952. Before the accident, he qualified fastest for 40 events, against only two after 1952. From 1949 to 1952, in just four years, he won 49 "AAA Big Car races" and finished second in most other races in which he finished. After his accident, he never won again. Instead of undergoing strenuous rehabilitation following his arm injury, he spent his time, in his own words, "Drinking, playing cards and chasing women."

After driving in his 12th 500, in 1964, he abruptly retired. He was only 34. In hia words, "I want to walk out of it alive with my head up." He said he felt racing had been good to him but "every time I sit down in a race car death is sitting right beside me." He had been injured seriously several times and narrowly escaped death in that year's Indianapolis 500 in which one of his closest friends, Detroiter Eddie Sachs was killed. Troy had been running alongside Sachs when the fatal crash occurred. Sadly, it was Troy's son, Troy Ruttman, Jr., who lost his life racing. Young Ruttman's race car went through a guard rail and chain link fence at Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, in May of 1969. He was only 19 years old.

Handsome, personable and gregarious, Troy Ruttman was a natural salesman and built a thriving motorcycle and snowmobile business in Detroit. Later, Troy learned to fly, moved to Venice, Florida, and ran an aircraft brokerage business. More significantly, he quit the fast life that he'd known since he was a teenager. "I'm more proud of giving up drinking and gambling and all that other stuff than I am of winning the 500," he said a few years before he died of lung cancer on May 19, 1997. He was living in Lake Havasu City, Arizona at the time.

Troy’s younger brother Joe (born October 28, 1944) followed his big brother’s car tracks into the world of automobile racing, but that's another blog post!

WILLIAM FREDERICK RITTERSHOUSE, ELDEST SON

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. 2000


The 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".]

UPDATE ON "VOYAGE TO AMERICA" POST

Back in February, I wrote a post on John William Rittershaus' voyage to America. At the time I was researching and writing that post, I e-mailed the Focke-Museum in Bremen, Germany which is the port from which William departed his home country for his new life in America. The Focke-Museum explores the immigrant experience and I had read that this museum had a model of the ship William sailed to America on, the George Washington. Just recently, five months later, I received an e-mail from the museum with a photo of the model attached. Looking at this photograph, you can tell that the George Washington was not a large ship, and it is amazing that this small ship carried 186 passengers plus the crew for the six week journey across the Atlantic ocean. I had thought that the Washington was surely a steamship, but it looks like it was a three-masted sailing ship. I guess that explains why it took six weeks to travel from Bremen to New York City. The museum did not send any information about the ship or its voyages. I'm still hoping to learn more about both of those topics and if I do, I'll post further updates.

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.

ROSINA -- PART 2

I apologize to Rosina and to anybody who is following my blog for my procrastination in continuing Rosina's story. In the process of writing Part 1, I realized, once again, how many questions there are about Rosina's life, and especially about her early life. I became determined to learn something more and spent my time researching her online. I've even written to the Tazewell County (IL) Genealogical Society for help in researching her life in Tazewell County. Alas, I have not learned anything new yet. So, first, here in Part 2, I'm going to list the "facts" I "know" about Rosina and where I learned about them.

1. The first I heard about Rosina was from my Great Aunt Edna. Edna lived with her Grandmother Rosina in 1914 and 1915 when she was a freshman and sophomore in high school (since the little town her family lived in didn't have a school past ninth grade). Aunt Edna did not know (or remember) Rosina's maiden name, but she said that "Rosina. . . came to New York City from Germany when she was 20 yrs. old. She worked as a maid."

2. Next I found the record of the marriage of "Rosa Cramer" to William Rittershouse in Tazewell County, Illinois on October 18, 1857. (Note: No ages were given in the record.)

3. In the 1860 census, William and Rosina are listed as living in Tremont Township, Tazewell County, Illinois. Rosina's age is given as 26 which would mean she was born about 1834.

4. Although I'm sure the Ritterhouses were living in Tazewell County in 1870, I have not been able to find them in the 1870 federal census. So, the next time Rosina appears in the census is 1880. By this time, she is married to Joseph Vandorn. The record of the marriage of "Rosa Ritterhouse" (or maybe Rittenhouse) and Joseph Vandorn is available at the Tazewell County Court Records. They were married on November 13, 1877. The Elm Grove Township, Tazewell County, Illinois, 1880 census lists "Rosina Vandorn" as being 45 years old which would mean she was born about 1835.

5.
In the probate records, Rosina was referred to and signed her name as "Rosa Ritterhouse" (or sometimes Rittershouse). Later, for the court papers after her marriage to Joseph VanDorn, she was referred to as either Rosa Van Dorn or Rosina Van Dorn.

6. Marshall County, Kansas, land records show that "Rosina Van Dorn" bought land in October 1890, and that she sold that land in March 1898.

7. In the 1900 census, Rosina is listed as "Clara Ritterhouse" with her age at 70, her year of birth as 1830 and her place of birth "unknown". Then, in the 1905 Kansas census, she is recorded as "Rosina Van Dorn" at the age of 72. The 1910 census calls her "Racina Ritterhouse". It lists her age at 77 and states that she had 9 children, 8 of whom are still living. The 1915 Kansas census is really confused, calling her "Vandorn Ritterhouse" and listing her age as 78.

8. According to the 1920 federal census, "Rose Riterhouse" [sic] immigrated in 1852 and received her naturalized citizenship in 1860. And the 1925 Kansas census said "Rosina Vandorn" was 92 years old.



9. Her Colorado death certificate states her name as "Rozena Van Dorn" which is also how it appears on her tombstone. Her daughter Anna gave the information that's on the death certificate. Rosina was living with Anna at 1011 N. Corona, Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the time of her death. The house still stands. Her birthdate is given as April 8th, 1931 on the death certificate, but they mean 1831. Her death date is given as January 31st, 1931. And it gives her age as 99 years, 9 months and 23 days. She died of bronchial pneumonia, after a six day illness. Anna gave her birthplace as "Germany". She gave the name of Rosina's father as "______ Cramer" but didn't know the maiden name of her mother. Rosina is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs.

That's the "facts" as I know them. Anyone have anything else to add to the facts or any Rosina stories to tell?

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.)