Anton Rettinger 1808-1870

RETTINGER, HUTTERER, BRANDT, RUDLOFF, DENKOFF, DUNKEL, PLATHE, KERN

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 10/14/2015 at 23:21:39

Anton Rettinger, 1808-1870, came from Bavaria, Germany in 1846 with his wife and 2 children. At Chicago they took passage on a railroad train that terminated somewhere in Illinois, and thence walked to East Dubuque. The railroad ended in a cornfield. There were no houses or towns in sight and the weather was cold. A negro happened to appear and built them a fire and provided them turnips for food. They carried their belonging on there backs and finally made it to East Dubuque. Here they joined the groups of Bavarian and made it to New Wine township.

They settled on a one-hundred and sixty acre farm, north of Dyersville., the present Elmer Maiers farm. From the exposure Mrs. Rettinger suffered from walking from East Dubuque, she and the youngest child contracted pneumonia and died two months after arrival here. Thus Anton and Mike were left alone.

Later Anton married Susanna Hutterer. They had three children, Theodore, Margaret and Joseph. Mike married Bernadine Brandt. Theodore married Magdalene Rudloff. Margaret married Theodore Denkoff, Joseph married Rose Dunkel.

After Mr. Rettinger died Susanna married Herman Plathe and retired to Dyersville where they lived near the church, the site of the Ben Kern residence.

Taken from the History of Dyersville