| LUDWIG &
KATHARINA GRAF RITTEL |
Ludwig Rittel was born was born November 26, 1868,
the sixth child and third son of Johann Karl and
Elisabeth Margaretha Neuffer Rittel. In 1888 he
left his birthplace of Bergdorf, Russia and
emigrated to the United States with other German
colonists. He married Katharina Graf in South
Dakota on October 26, 1888. One source writes that
Katharina (Katherine) was pregnant at the age of
17 when she left her homeland in 1886; I do not
know whether her baby, Lydia, was the daughter of
Ludwig or some other man. The couple lived in
Texas, North Dakota, and Herington, Kansas before
settling near Herington in the German colony of
Marion in 1919. Ludwig and Katharina raised ten
children in Marion and were members of the Emanuel
Baptist Church. Ludwig walked every day into town
to run his blacksmith shop across the street from
the park. On the evening of February 24, 1943, he
died suddenly at his home on South Freeborn
Street. Ludwig Rittel was buried in Highland
Cemetery.
Katherina Graf was born on June 25, 1868 in
Neudorf, Russia, the first daughter and second
child of Johann and Christine Mitleiter Graf. She
emigrated in 1886. At the age of twenty, Katherina
married Ludwig Rittel in South Dakota and
eventually settled with him in Marion, Kansas.
After Ludwig died in 1943, Katherina tended the
family home in Marion but later decided to join
several of her sons in the railroad town of
Herington, Kansas. She moved there in 1947. She
married a second time in Herington to a Mr. Wunsch.
After his death, she moved to the Herington Rest
Home on September 1, 1962, and passed away at the
age of 94 on Friday, April 26, 1963. She was
buried beside her first husband at Highland
Cemetery in Marion.
LYDIA RITTEL & WILHELM GRENTZ (Grenz)
Lydia Rittel was born at Kunk Vine, Logan County,
North Dakota, on August 17, 1886. She was the
oldest daughter of Katharina Graf Rittel. Lydia’s
mother married Ludwig Rittel when she was about
two years old, if my dates are correct. Lydia
married Wilhelm (William) Grentz, also a native of
Southern Russia, in 1902. William and Lydia
(Linda) had ten children, two of whom died as
infants. Lydia appears to have lived most of her
married life away from the rest of the family, in
California. William died in 1946 at Sacramento. A
degree of her distance from the rest of the
family, both physically and emotionally, can be
understood when reading the story of how she
visited her younger brother Art after a separation
of 54 years (see the entry for Arthur Rittel).
Lydia passed away on June 30, 1973 at Sacramento
*Notes:
Wilhelm Died of Coronary Occlusion with infarction -
Buried East Lawn Cemetery, Sacramento CA
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