Maria (Schwemberger) Ritzenthaler

Maria [Gutman] Schwemberger Ritzenthaler was born on 8 August 1839, in Hartheim am Rhein, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.  Her father, Conrad Gutman, was 24, and her mother, Maria Pfrengle, was 25. By the year 1845, Maria's mother had divorced Maria's father and married Ferdinand Schwemberger.

The New York passenger manifest shows the Schwemberger family (Ferdinand, Maria, Maria, Martina and Erastus) arrived in America on 16 September 1854 on the ship named Southampton. The manifest also shows that each family member carried one box with all their belongings with them to make a new home in America. Maria took her step-father's surname on the immigration log and did so the remainder of her life.

At the age of seventeen years old, Maria married Franz Joseph Ritzenthaler on 26 May 1857, in Sandusky, Erie, Ohio. They had eight children (seven boys, one girl). Franz died two months before his youngest son, Albert, was born.

Granddaughter, Madeline (Ritzenthaler) Freitas spoke fondly of her grandmother, remembering a time when she stayed with her while her sister, Esther, had diphtheria. Madeline described her as a great cook and "a dear one, a Saint!"

Maria was seventy-one years old when she died of a stroke on 16 October 1910, in Sandusky, Erie, Ohio, and was buried at St. Mary's cemetery.