BIOGRAPHY:
Daughter of John Michael5 Lehmann & Mary Catherine Mills |
REGINA "Jean" CECILIA LEHMANN was the sixth child of John Michael Lehmann and Mary Catherine Mills. Jean, as she was familiarly known, was born at home in Piqua, Miami County, Ohio on 12 July 1902. Her baptismal record at St. Boniface Catholic Church indicates she was born 11 July 1902. Her name is recorded in that record as Regina Cecilia.
Jean's sister, Gertrude, recalled in Apr 1994 that the family had an old rooster who frequently chased and attacked family members. One day it attacked Jean who had just been given a beautiful new scarf from her godmother, Aunt Rachel Lehmann. The scarf was ruined. Her father, John, got mad and killed the rooster for Sunday dinner. Gertrude recalled how the children of the family cried at the dinner table and didn't want to eat that rooster.
ca 1904
Back Row: Leo and Albert
Front Row: Heine and Jean
Parents Sitting: John & Mary
Children in Front: Martin, Jean, and Heine (Henrietta)
Rita, Jean's sister, said, "I don't recall much of Jean's early life. I remember that once Jean lost her bloomers while she was out playing croquet. Many of the girls' boyfriends were present. How embarrassed she was!"
"Another time I remember that Jean and Mart were fighting over a banana, so Jean stuffed all of the banana in her mouth. Mart came up and hit her on the back, and it flew out landing all over the table. This made Dad angry, but all he said was, 'No more actin' up at the table any more.'"
Rita continued, "I do know that she didn't like school, but like the others did graduate from the eighth grade. During those years most children did not go on to high school, but instead went to work." So, according to standards of the day, Jean went to work at the local Orr Felt and Blanket Company.
The girls worked in the hotel for their aunt and uncle during the summers.
There at the Orr Felt and Blanket Company Jean met Bob Rittenhouse. Bob had been married and divorced. However, the two fell in love. Jean was just nineteen when they eloped to Covington, Kenton County, Kentucky on 13 June 1921. This struck a serious blow to the staunch Catholic family in which Jean had been reared, as the teachings of the Church forbade marriage to a divorcee. For a time the family was very upset, particularly her brother, Mart. He and Jean had been very close, so when he heard about the elopement he was outraged. Of course, as time passed, fences were mended and the family accepted Bob into the family. According to Rita and Gert, Jean couldn't have had a better husband than Bob who the family lovingly nicknamed 'Tubby.'
Thanksgiving, 1945
Rita added, "I remember this story. Bob, Jr. was born in the three room apartment where they then lived. According to the lady who took over after the doctor left, Bobbie was crying a lot, and Bob, Sr. was going to feed him crackers. (The apartment was part of a nice home that was torn down and later the Bennet Junior High was built in that area.) I was nine years old."
Continuing Rita said, "Jean was often her own person and sort of the rebellious type and unpredictable. Through the years picnics were often planned, and we'd have no reason to think she wasn't going. We'd all go to pick them up, and it was, 'I'm not going.' Nothing was prepared, and we never knew why the change overnight. At other times, she'd be ready with so much food, as if she had been up all night cooking, and possibly she had been up a good portion of the night. She was a very, very good cook. Her pies were scrumptious with very flaky crusts. I remember her shoo-fly pie. Recipes that she had given me never came out anywhere as good as hers."
|
Margaret (Rankin) Rittenhouse said, "...she cooked by "feel" and she didn't measure as we might - she just added things until they felt right. She made a wonderful chicken and noodle soup - actually it was thick like a stew but it was so very good. Those noodles, by the way, were home-made. Thick and so very good. She used to send some back to Springfield for me the year I was in the apartment while teaching at the college, and Bob was finishing up his senior year." Margaret recalled that after Jean's death that she made "a search of the kitchen looking for a recipe book - really wanted the recipe for her Christmas cookies and the icing. There was not a scrap of paper anywhere. She must have kept all of those recipes in her head."
|
Wanda Jean said this about her mother's cooking. "My mother was a very good cook as you probably know. Her pimento cheese spread was great." At times during family gatherings, Jean would bring her pimento cheese and crackers, which everyone looked forward to tasting again and again."
|
Wanda Jean continued, "So were her donuts and popcorn balls. I didn't get any of her recipes except for her star cookies which I tried to make, but they didn't taste the same."
|
Rita continued, "Jean was lots of fun. She and Bob would come down home in the winter, and often Gert and I would be allowed to walk part way home with them. All of a sudden we'd look around, Jean would have stopped, be lying in the snow making 'snow angels' and throwing snowballs at us." Wanda Jean recalled the same. "When my parents were young, they would make angels in the snow and laugh a lot." Margaret (Rankin) Rittenhouse recalled that "His [Bob, Jr.] parents were fun-loving people when they were young. He used to tell about Jean and Bob making snow angels out in the snow when there was a boulevard on Roosevelt Avenue. They would play like children."
Gert and Rita delighted in saying, "Many times we'd pass her house on the way home from school, she'd call out, 'Stop in on your way home.' When we'd arrive, she'd have a big pan of popcorn for us or maybe cookies or some other special treat."
|
Rita continued, "I also recall how nice and clean Jean always kept Wanda Jean. To me she always kept her dressed like a doll with cute little dresses, bows of all colors to match the dresses, white leather above the ankle shoes, white galoshes and long white stockings. If Wanda Jean came home from school at noontime with a little dirty spot on her stockings from a rain splash, etc., she'd have her put on a clean pair of stockings. Jean must have had a dozen or more pairs of stockings that fit at a time. Shirley Temple things were in then. Jean had all kinds of Shirley Temple things for Wanda Jean.
Wanda Jean wrote, "My dad was a good musician and played in a dance band for years on the weekends. He had a very nice voice. He played the guitar and banjo. When I was about ten, Dad and I walked to the music store and got a piano ordered. We watched for the music truck the next morning and Mom wondered what was going on. We didn't tell her what we did. That's how and when my music playing started." Bob also played at Cedar Point, Ohio during the summer. This was the Big Band era.
"Jean always kept her home just as immaculate, and if there were things she no longer wanted, rather than clutter her home with them, she disposed of them." [Rita]
"I remember at the time when women began cutting their hair Dad (John Lehmann) disapproved. No daughter of his was going to cut her hair! Jean did, and for four to about six months, when she came down home she always wore a dust cap, so that Dad wouldn't know." [Rita]
"I also recall when Dad (John) died that we were all gathered around his bed. Jean was so upset and distraught that she ran out in the hall foyer crying and screaming very loudly. Some of the others went out, and told her to be quiet and said, 'Don't call him back.'" John had suffered so, and the family wanted his suffering to end, even if that meant he was taken from them.
Wanda Jean wrote, "Every Sunday we went to grandmother's [Mary Catherine (Mills) Lehmann]. The cousins played together and always had a good time. I remember that one Sunday we threw water out the upstairs windows and had a ball!" ("a ball" = Had a great time doing that.)
Margaret (Rankin) Rittenhouse recalled, "My first introduction to the family was at one of those Sunday gatherings. I felt as if I were being inspected from top to toe. As time went on, all were very nice to me." Margaret continued, "I believe they all looked forward to the Sundays at Grandmother Lehmann's. Such gabbing on the part of the women and the men played cards, I believe. The older grandchildren played together and formed a really tight bond. The goodbye's took at least an hour - while Uncle Jack [Quinlisk] paced back and forth on the sidewalk."
This writer recalls that Jean and Bob lived on Clark Avenue for a time. According to Margaret, "Bob's family lived in a house which was up on a hill as I recall. Another time, they lived near the Orr Felt and, of course, they also lived for a while in the upstairs of Grandmother Lehmann's home." Rita remembered that when she, Dale, Sandra, & Audrey were in Texas, Jean wrote telling her that their (the Rittenhouses') house rent was being raised, and that they were planning to move into Rita and Dale's vacant apartment (duplex above Grandma Lehmann's) for a short time. This writer recalls that Wanda Jean's piano sat in the foyer of the lower level.
Wanda Jean continued, "My brother would fry eggs and make a lot of sandwiches and on Saturday nights, he would set on a chair and listen to music while he ate." Margaret (Rankin) Rittenhouse recalled the same about her husband, "Often on Saturday nights, Bob, Sr., Wanda and her mother would go shopping in downtown Piqua. This didn't appeal to Bob, Jr. so he would fry some eggs, make them into sandwiches, get some Pepsi, and then spend the evening listening to classical music on the radio - conducting as if he had the score in front of him."
Wanda Jean wrote in another e-mail to this writer on 28 September 2002, "My parents lived on Main Street when they were first married then they moved to South Street and that is where my brother [Robert, Jr.] was born. We then moved to Garnsey Street where we lived for about twelve years. After that, we moved to Summit Street for about five years. Then to Main Street for about four years. After that we moved to 524 Gordon Street for about four or five years."
As time passed and the children grew to adulthood, left home, and married. Bob Rittenhouse suffered from heart disease and suffered much until his death. In March of 1959 he succumbed to the disease at 524 Gordon Street, Piqua according to Wanda Jean. He was laid to rest at Forest Hill Cemetery, Piqua, Miami County, Ohio.
A year later, on 9 April 1960 Jean married Rex Denman, a widower, who lived next door to the Rittenhouses on Gordon Street. This marriage lasted six years. They moved to Clark Avenue and lived about four houses from her brother's [Leo's] home. Rex and Jean then went to Miami Street where Jean was taken ill. Like others in her family, Jean suffered from high blood pressure and strokes. Then on 23 May 1966 Jean died at Piqua Memorial Hospital of a cerebral hemorrhage. At the time of her death, both Bob Jr. and Wanda Jean signed over their mother's interest in the house to Rex. They made no claim on any of the furniture or other things in the house, yet lots had come from Jean and Bob's home. Part of the payment on the home which Rex and Jean had purchased together had come from the Rittenhouse's house on Gordon Street for which both Bob and Wanda Jean had helped make payments. Margaret (Rankin) Rittenhouse said, "I recall visiting once after Jean's death and the furniture was still in place." Things apparently stayed in the house until Rex died and disappeared after his death. Nothing was returned to her children.
ca 1965
Prior to 1966
Left to Right: Sisters: Rita Shields, Jean Rittenhouse-Denman, Heine Quinlisk, Gert Beihl, & Jennie Zimmer
Left photo: Sisters: Rita, Jean, Heine (center/front), Gert, Jennie
Right Photo: Sisters: Rita, Jean, Heine (center/front), Jennie, & Gert
1. (Dr.) Robert "Bob" "Bobby" Rittenhouse, Ph.D. married Margaret Rankin
2. Wanda Jean Rittenhouse married Joseph Saul
|
Story/Photo Contributors:
|