Ancestors

Samuel Radke

Samuel Radke was born on 21 December 1858 at Neu Elft in the Akkerman district of Bessarabia, a German Lutheran colony on the Black Sea steppe of the Russian Empire, now Novoselivka in the Odesa region of Ukraine. He was the son of August Radke, born in 1825, whose people had come into Bessarabia from Prussian Poland, and Christina Zaiser, born at Neu Elft in 1827 to Wurttemberg settlers who had helped found the colony. He was one of sixteen brothers and sisters, of whom only a few lived to grow up.

He married Katherina Ritmiller, two years younger, in the colony; his obituary gives the date as 22 December 1877, hers as 1 May 1878, two weeks before they left. They sailed from Bremen on the North German Lloyd steamer Neckar and landed at New York on 21 June 1878, Samuel entered on the list as a twenty-year-old Russian, travelling with Samuel Morgenstern Sr. and his son William, and reached Russell, Kansas on 27 June. They took a farm in the Milberger community south of Russell, among other Bessarabian and Volga German families. The Russell Record wrote of him at his death that he "underwent all the hardships incident to the men of the early days in the west. His neighbors, few in number at the time, came and went but he stayed on, laboring faithfully and under difficulties until at last he won and at the time of his death was rated one of the substantial citizens of Russell County."

Eleven children were born to them: Emanuel in 1879, John George in 1881, Fred in 1886, Rudolph in 1888, Samuel in 1890, Salamena in 1893, Ed in 1895, August in 1897, Nathaniel in 1903 and Theodore in 1905, and one who died young. His parents and five of his brothers and sisters followed him a year later, landing at New York on the General Werder on 7 July 1879; his brothers Fred and August both died that year. His father died at Milberger in 1894 and lies under a German stone there, and his widowed mother was living with Samuel's family in Lincoln Township in 1900. In 1920 he gave up the farm and built what the paper called a modern home at Hoisington. He died there on Friday 19 August 1921, after eleven days' illness, aged 62 years, 7 months and 28 days. Two sisters, Mrs. John Kling and Mrs. Samuel Morgenstern, were all that remained of his sixteen brothers and sisters; his wife, his children, 36 grandchildren and one great-grandchild survived him. The funeral was at Hoisington, Rev. Winter preaching in German and Rev. Meyer in English, and six grandsons carried him to Milberger Cemetery on Monday 22 August.

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Cite: Heirology, "Samuel Radke (1858-1921)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/samuel-radke-1858-1921-d6a393.