Heirology

Ancestors

Katherina Ritmiller

1860-1934 · Bessarabia
Born 1860, Neu Elft, Bessarabia
Died 1934
Father: Johann Riethmüller
Mother: Rosina Hillius
Children include Fred

Katherina Ritmiller was born Katharina Riethmüller on 31 December 1860 at Neu Elft, a German Lutheran colony in the Akkerman district of southern Bessarabia, then part of the Russian Empire. She was baptized the next day, New Year's Day 1861. Her parents were Johann Riethmüller and Rosina Hillius, who had married in the Lutheran parish of Fère-Champenoise in November 1856. A brother, Jakob, born in the autumn of 1859, had lived only three months and died that February. Neu Elft was the Radke colony too: Samuel Radke had been born there two years before her.

She married Samuel Radke in the colony, on 1 May 1878 by her own obituary's account, and two weeks later the couple left for America. They landed at New York on 21 June and were at Russell, Kansas on 27 June 1878. They settled on a farm in the Milberger community and she bore eleven children there between 1879 and 1905, nine of whom outlived her.

In 1918 she moved into Hoisington, where Samuel built a house in 1920 and died in 1921. She lived on there thirteen years and died on 16 April 1934, aged 73. The Russell Record counted her 63 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. She is buried beside Samuel in Milberger Cemetery.

Parents

Rosina Hillius b. 1839Johann Riethmüller b. 1838

Children

Fred Radke (1886-1970)

Sources

Find a Grave, memorial 76903465 and 76903375, Milberger Cemetery; photograph by Glenda B., 13 November 2011.
Find a Grave, memorial 76903375, Katherina Ritmiller Radke; photograph by Glenda B., 13 November 2011.
Russell Record, Russell, Kansas, 26 August 1921, transcribed on Find a Grave memorial 76903465.
Russell Record, 19 April 1934, transcribed on Find a Grave memorial 76903375.
New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1920, Passenger Lists of vessels arriving at New York, NARA M237, roll 413, ship Neckar, 1878; FamilySearch ark 1:1:QVSK-8LGY.
Russia, Lutheran Church Book Duplicates, 1833-1885, Neu Elft baptisms 1861, no. 55, FHL film 1884084 item 2, p. 443; FamilySearch ark 61903/1:1:6THK-CN32; Bessarabian Village Birth Records 186x, Odessa3 (odessa3.org/collections/stpete/bess/link/bes186xb.txt).
Russell County, Kansas, District Court, Declarations of Intention, vol. 2, p. 128; extraction by Janet Laubhan Flickinger, Odessa3 (odessa3.org/collections/ships/link/russell2.txt).
Russia, Lutheran Church Book Duplicates, 1833-1885, Neu Elft baptisms 1861, no. 55 (FHL film 1884084 item 2, p. 443; FamilySearch ark 1:1:6THK-CN32), and the Bessarabian village birth, marriage and death extractions for the 1850s and 1860s (Odessa3); Russell Record, 19 April 1934, obituary of Mrs. Catherine Radke (transcribed on Find a Grave memorial 76903375); gravestones. Russell County Declarations of Intention, vol. 2, p. 128 (Samuel Radke, 1916).

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Cite: Heirology, "Katherina Ritmiller (1860-1934)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/katherina-ritmiller-1860-1934-64d7c1.