THE ABRAHAM RITTER FAMILY
ACCORDING TO STANLEY RITTER WEAVER

The following account was written by Stanley Ritter Weaver and dated 9 Nov. 1961. It was part of a Ritter family circular letter and was transcribed and typed from the handwritten original by Enid Ritter. I retyped it in 2005 and added notes and links to pictures more recently. Many of the pictures come from Stanley Ritter Weaver's collection, which is now in possession of his son-in-law, Dean Cronwell. Stanley passed away in October of 1962, and apparently never was able to follow through on his intention to send more information in later letters.

Abraham Ritter married Mariah Hamman.  They lived, at least most of their married life, on the eastern shore of Big Chapman Lake, five or six miles northeast of Warsaw, Kosciukso County, Indiana.   I believe that they were probably married in the county because as a boy I heard much mention of members of both the Ritter families and the Hamman families as being in the vicinity.[1]   Also from the dates on the gravestone of relatives in the Mock Cemetery seem to indicate this.   More of the Mock Cemetery later.

Abraham had a log cabin on the east side of Big Chapman Lake a little nearer the southern end of the lake.   He is said to have, at one time, owned “most of the land around Big Chapman Lake.”[2] Probably the eastern and southerly banks and the farming land adjoining.   I suppose all of their children were born in the log cabin.   I know my mother was – Lydia.   I do not know if Abraham passed away while still living at Big Chapman Lake or not, perhaps later.   He died about January or February, 1901.   I remember my mother telling me that he died about three months after I was born.[3]   I was born Oct. 24, 1900.   My first recollection of the family was of Mariah living in a little house at “Dutch Town” or two or three miles east of Big Chapman Lake.   She passed away in the summer of 1912.   (I remember because she and both my grandparents on the Weaver side passed away within a total span of two months that summer.)   She was also buried in the Mock Cemetery, where they had a family plot.   More of this later.

         Their children were the following: [4]

Catherine A., called Cassie, was the second oldest.   (About 1925 she told me that she thought the A. stood for Ann but she could not remember for certain.)   She married Chester Wilson who deserted her.   A boy, Dean Marion was born.   Catherine was a dressmaker and about 1903, or probably 1904, went to Alhambra, California, where she lived the rest of her life.   I believe they went in 1904 as I remember them leaving.   Dean married Lelia Fields in Alhambra about 1916.   She died there in 1917 or 1918. Dean went to the Army in WWI and never returned to California.   After his discharge he lived in Kansas City, Missouri.   He married again there and left his widow and a son and daughter when he passed away, I believe, in the middle or late thirties.   I tried to locate them when I passed through Kansas City in 1960 but had no success.   All I had to go on was that when Dean passed away they lived on Spitzler Ave.   Catherine passed away in May, 1937 and is buried in a plot which I own in the Episcopalian Church cemetery in San Gabriel, California.   This town is right next to Alhambra.

As to the rest of the children, I am a little uncertain of their order except that Delilah was definitely the youngest.   I believe that William E., of Stanley Wis., was the next in age.   All of you know far more about him than I do, so the only comment I will make is that I remember my mother telling me that I was nine months old when Uncle Will and his family moved to Wisconsin. [5]

I have the feeling that the second son fits in here although I do not know.   I always knew him as Uncle “Durse .”   This is the spelling of what we called him.   He had some disease which disabled him.   I remember his appearance when we – my mother and I – went to visit him one time.   He did not look like a well man, and was confined to a rocking chair.   He passed away several years before 1912.   He lived fairly close to Kuhn’s Landing, about two miles east of Dutch Town.   His widow, Anna, worked for various families on farms around there for a number of years.   She finally remarried, is said to have become insane and died at Type State Insane Hospital at Logansport, Indiana.   Hazel Brown told me this and apparently thought there was some foul play regarding the commitment.[6]   I do not know where Durce was buried.[7]   I saw nothing at the Mock Cemetery although I didn’t have time to cover the entire cemetery either time I was there.   In 1931 I asked Uncle Ed Brown what Durse’s real name was, as I assumed that “ Durse ” was a shortened form of his real name.   Ed said that he thought it was “Dorsey” although he was not certain.   This is about like the “ Durcie ” which was mentioned by someone in the current family letter.   One thing I remember about Uncle Durse is that he had one of the kindest faces I ever saw on a man.   Judging by my recollection of his appearance, I would say that he was in his later thirties that time.   My mother was in her early thirties then.   This was just before we went to spend the winter of 1905-06 in California.

I do not know whether Mary or my mother, Lydia, was the next in age.   Sometimes it seems probable that one was, sometimes the other.   I have always through the years thought of Mary as the next, just before my mother, so will put her here.   Mary married a man by the name of Manier.[8]  Evidently he was a mining man, they lived in the iron mining section of Michigan.   This is a recollection from prior to 1914 but believe it is correct.   They lived in the town of Iron Mountain?   Red Oak?[9]   One child, a daughter named Fay.   Mary passed away while Fay was very young.   I do not know where Mary was buried, but presumably where she lived in Michigan.   Fay was raised by Grandma Mariah and Delilah until 1912, although she lived with us at times.   Fay went to California with my mother and I in 1912.   In 1913 she married a John Biddle Starkey, said to be a black sheep from the Philadelphia Biddle family.   He deserted Fay shortly before her death in Los Angeles in 1913.   The less said about Starkey the better, I suppose, but if I got my hands on him even today, he would regret it.[10]   Fay is buried in the Episcopal Church cemetery in San Gabriel, California.   She is buried directly in front of my mother.   They are buried in the first or older, original part of the cemetery.

Lydia, the next, was born in 1868.   I do not know the date but believe it was in April.[11]   If someone could furnish the date to me, I would greatly appreciate it.   She passed away while I was too young to appreciate the value of precise dates.   She married Benjamin Franklin Weaver at 1301 S. Main St., Elkhart, Indiana, on April 27, 1897.   Long years after both my parents passed on, a cousin on my father’s side told me that she understood that a baby was born either dead or died within a day or two, before I was born.   I, Stanley R. Weaver, was born Oct. 24, 1900.   I had pneumonia a number of times as a boy and the doctor advised that I be brought to California.   So we, with Fay, came to California while my father remained on his job in Elkhart, as he thought that at his age it would be difficult to get as good a job here.   It was thought that I would grow stronger in a couple of years and be able to return to Elkhart.   In May of 1914 my mother died of a stroke.   I have already indicated where she was buried, the cemetery in San Gabriel, just back of Fay.   My mother and I had spent the winter of 1905-06 in Alhambra, visiting Aunt Catherine.   My father lived alone after my mother’s death, and thought it would be better for me to live in California for my health during the winters and live with him in the summer.   Being a railroad man, he easily got free transportation, so I grew up a Californian.   I served overseas in each of three wars and put two terms as a missionary in The Congo, the former Belgian Congo. My oldest and youngest daughters were born in The Congo and the middle one here in Los Angeles.   The oldest daughter is currently serving her second term as a missionary where we were.[12]

There was a Will Ritter who lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan.   I corresponded with his widow, “Aunt” Jennie as I called her, until she passed away in October, 1952.[16]   She was not able to give me any information on the Ritter history, except that some of them were in the Civil War.[17]

[1] They were married 20 Jun 1858 in Kosciusko County. They had both been born in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, but Mariah had moved there in the early 1840's with her parents when still a small child. Abraham probably came after 1855, when his father died in Lake County, Indiana. Two of Abraham's uncles were married to Hamman woman, who were likely aunts of Mariah, so there were already family ties. Eventually all of Abraham's three brothers and three of his five sisters also settled in Kosciusko County, as had his uncle John Ritter married to Elizabeth Hamman.

[2] Actually his brother Elijah owned slightly more land, just north of Abraham's land. Elijah died in 1875 and the land was then held by his widow Charlotte, who remarried Daniel Manier (father of Mary Ritter's husband Emanuel Manier), who had previously been married to Mariah Hamman, the aunt of Abraham's wife Mariah Hamman. In the 1879 plat map, Abraham owned about 53 acres and Elijah 110.

[3] Abraham died 28 Dec 1900 in Kosciusko County.

[4] The correct birth order was Matilda (15 Feb 1861), Catherine (15 Oct 1862), William (11 May 1864), Martha (12 Mar 1866), Lydia (18 Jun 1868), Delilah (9 Sep 1870), Mary (ca. 1873), Dorcey (12 Mar 1877). The order is confirmed from census records, while the dates come from death and other records.

[5] There is some confusion about when William Ritter (my grandfather) moved to Wisconsin. He is supposed to have moved with Dave Hamman, his mother's brother, and they were to have been met by Jacob Manier, a cousin who already lived there. Jacob was said to have been killed by a run-away tean just before they arrived. That would put the date at October 1902, not summer of 1901, which is the date suggested by Stanley's statement. October 1902 also agrees with the length of time in Wisconsin given in both William's and his wife's obituaries and with the year given in David Hamman's obituary ("Mr Hammon came with his family to Wisconsin in 1902"). Perhaps William made an earlier trip to Wisconsin but made the move with his family and uncle a little later.

[6] She remarried after Dorsey died, and had a breakdown when her 2nd husband died soon after. Her sister had her committed, but after she recovered, the sister refused to sign for her release and she was forced to remain in the institution until she died.

[7] Dorsey is buried in the North Webster Cemetery and Anna was buried with him. His full name was Julius Dorsey Ritter. He died 23 Feb 1907.

[8] Emanuel Manier was related to the Hammans (his mother was the half sister of Mariah Hamman's father Peter). He remarried after Mary died and his descendants lived in Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.

[9] Pictures taken of Mary and Emanuel were made in Red Jacket and Laurium, Michigan, in Houghton County. Emanuel was listed as a resident of Laurium in the 1900 census (after Mary had died). There is apparently no record of her death in Houghton County.

[10] John Biddle Starkey had died in 1946 and was buried in Frazer, Pennsylvania, long before Stanley wrote this. In 2001, I was contacted by a grandaughter through a later marriage, who said that her father never had anything good to say about his father, John Starkey. Someone else wrote of him "nothing good was ever said of son Biddle." The picture of him is from 1927 or 1928.

[11] Her death certificate states she was born 18 Jun 1868, which agrees with census records.

[12] Dean Cornwell is the widower of Sarah Weaver, the oldest daughter. In 2006 at age 77 he returned to the former Begium Congo after many years in Southern California to help build a hospital

[13] The census and other records clearly show that she was not the youngest, but was older than both Mary and Dorsey. Perhaps the family maintained a fiction about her being the youngest because she was still single when Mary and Dorsey had married. Since they both died early, perhaps people meant that she was the youngest then living.

[14] In 1997 it was still there but not in such great condition. The neighbors told us that it was for sale and they feared the next owners might want to tear it down to build a fancy house.

[15] I have not found any uncles who were Dunker preachers (German Baptist Brethren or Church of the Brethren), but Mariah's father Peter Hamman was a minister in Kosciusko. Abraham Ritter's father George Ritter was listed as a "Dunkard Preacher" in the 1850 census in Tuscarawas Co., OH. So it appears that two of Lydia's grandparents were Dunker preachers.

[16] William was the son of Abraham's older brother Henry. Henry was living with Abraham at the time of the 1880 census, and is probably the Henry Ritter who died in Marshall County in 1896. It is unclear what happened to Henry's other 5 children (all daughters). William died in 1933 and is buried in Grand Rapids. Their only child, Arthur, married but appears not to have had children.

[17] Like other Brethren, the brothers Abraham, Elijah and John (and likely the other brother Henry) were all exempt from the draft because of their pacifist anabaptist religion. But their uncle Jacob Ritter and cousin John Ritter joined the union army, as did three of their brother-in-laws and other cousins. Adam Mock, husband of Abraham's oldest sister Louise Ritter, died in Mississippi.

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