Reinking Family

Conrad Wilhelm Georg Reinking was born in Hã vern Landkreis Minden, Prussia (now in the state of Westfalen, Germany) on July 8, 1796, and baptised in the Evangelical Lutheran

Church in Windheim on July 12. Marie Luise Twachtmann was born in nearby Estorf, Hannover (not part of Prussia) on December 28, 1800, daughter of the master blacksmith Christian Twacthmann and his wife Dorothea.

On June 27, 1821, the marriage bans for Conrad W.G. Reinking and Marie L. Twachtman were announced in the church in Estorf by Pastor Backhaus, and on June 29, 1821 they were married at the church in Ovenstadt. They had 10 children, including Conrad Ferclnand Dietrick (born January 8, 1827), Auguste Dorothea Mathilde (born September 13, 1833), and Christian Conrad Wilhelm (born July 22, 1839).

The family home at the time was I-hi vern Residence No. 27. On January 23, 1844, Conrad W.G. Reinking sold the home for 13,400 Thalers to Her Waltking in Havern No. 5. He brought his family to the U.S.A., settling in Illinois, then moving to St. Louis, and then in 1848 settled in Preble Township, Adams County, Indiana. His wife, Marie Luise, died in May, 1850, after an illness of eight days, probably of cholera.

Conrad Ferdinand Dietrick Reinking, who later used the name Ferdinand Conrad, married Maria Louise Lenore Bleeke on December 26, 1853. After they were married they settled in Union Township, Adams County, and his widowed father, Wilhelm, moved in with them.

Maria Bleeke's parents were Johann Heinrich Philipp Bleeke (born in Leteln, Landkreis Minden, Prussia) and Christina Schwer Bleeke. Her oldest brother was Christian Friedrich, born May 7, 1821; another brother, Karl Heinrich, died at age two; a third brother, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm, was born in 1826. Her sisters were Christine Maria, Christine Sophie Lenore, and Emilie (who died at about one year of age). Maria was born November 15, 1833 in Prussia.

Johann H.P. Bleeke emigrated to the U.S.A. in the fall of 1834, and his wife and six children followed in 1835. They settled first near Wheeling, West Virginia, until 1837, and then at Cincinnati. In 1838 he made a trip to Adams County, Indiana, to establish a new home, and bought the northwest quarter of Section 21 (in what was later Union Township). He returned to

Cincinnati, and late in 1840 brought his family to their new location in a covered wagon, arriving November 27, 1840. They lived in a tent made from their wagon cover while they built a rough log home, which they moved into on December 24. In 1852 they built the house that was still there a century later.

The Bleekes were devout Lutherans, and for the first years in their new home traveled by foot to Root Township to attend church. In 1849 Pastor Fritze began holding services in the Bleeke house, and Johann Bleeke was very active in establishing the Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Church in Union Township, Adams County.

After Ferdinand Reinking and Maria Bleeke were married in 1853, he was one of the ten men (including his father-in-law, Johann Bleeke and his sons) who were charter members of this church. On December 14, 1858, these ten men signed the new constitution of this new church.

Ferdinand and Maria had 13 children, all of whom grew to adulthood and married, excepting one child who died in infancy. The oldest child was Louisa, born in 1854, and the second was William Christian, born February 18, 1856. In 1883, William married Mary E. Bienz in Schumm, Ohio.

Mary Bienz's parents were Jacob Bienz (who had come to the U.S.A. with his parents about 1828) and Elizabeth Phlueger Bienz. Mary was one of seven children, all born in Willshire Township, Van Wert County, near Schumm, Ohio. William Reinking and Mary Bienz were married on April 5, 1883 by Rev. G.F.C. Seemeyer in the Lutheran Church in Schumm.

William and his wife Mary lived on his farm in Union Township, Adams County, Indiana. Their ten children were Hugo (who died at birth); Julius (born in 1884); Margaret (born in 1887, married Edward Funkhouser, and now lives in Napoleon); Eleonora (born in 1889, married Edward Funkhouser's brother, Simon, in Wauseon, Ohio); Elizabeth (born in 1890); Ferdinand (born September 1, 1892, married Josephine Fraas in Napoleon); Hedwig (born in 1895, married Fred Walters of Napoleon); Frederick (died in infancy); Tecla; and William.

The family moved to a new farm home in Union Township in 1902, but in 1903 father William died of cancer.

Mary remained on the farm with her family for ten years, but in 1913 she sold the farm and moved the family to Decatur for six months, and then to Ft. Wayne.

On June 27, 1915, Ferdinand and Josephine Fraas were married in Napoleon by Rev. F. J. Lankenau. The remainder of the story of the Reinking family in Henry County is told in Henry County, Ohio, Volume One.

Submitted by: Frank Reinking