Harvey J. Rickenbrode, BiographyPorter County biographical sketches . . . .
Transcribed biography of Harvey J. Rickenbrode
HARVEY J. RICKENERODE.
Harvey J. Rickenbrode was born in Clarion county, Pennsylvania, August 8, 1856. His father, Adam Rickenbrode, was born in Berks county, and his mother, Susannah Masters, in Clarion county, Pennsylvania. Adam Rickenbrode died in 1863, having been a farmer near Fryberg, Pennsylvania. His wife married John Daum, a cabinet-maker, who owned five acres of land, on which was his shop. In 1865 the family moved to Lake county, Indiana, and bought a farm, on which they lived until the death of John Daum in 1883. His wife, who was a Methodist, died in 1897, aged sixty-three years. Her children, by her first marriage, were as follow: Jurilla, who was married to William King; Harvey J., the subject of this review; Agnes, wife of John King, of Turon, Kansas. To her second marriage there were born eight children.
Harvey J. Rickenbrode was seven years old when he moved to Indiana, and received his early education in the schools of Lake county, Indiana. Later he was a student in the Northern Indiana Normal School at Valparaiso, Indiana. At the age of seventeen he began teaching and had pupils larger than himself. In 1878 he bought and operated a threshing machine outfit at Ellsworth, Kansas. He afterward worked in the Ellsworth post-office for six months, clerked for one and one-half years in a grocery for I. W. Phelps, clerked eight months in a dry goods store, then worked as a bookkeeper for two years, and was manager and bookkeeper for the H. F. Hoseman Hardware and Implement Company for twelve years. From 1896 until 1901 he rented and operated a dairy farm in Porter county, Indiana. He then bought the general store of J. J. Harrison, at Medora, Kansas, was elected postmaster and has held this office since. He has enlarged the store and carries an entire farm supply stock. He helped organize the Farmers' Mutual Telephone Company, and has since held the office of treasurer of that company.
Mr. Rickenbrode is a Republican in politics, and is a member of the Knights of Pythias and of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, both of Hutchinson. He owns and rents a quarter section in Ness county, and owns his residence in Hutchinson.
Mr. Rickenbrode was married on November 14, 1881, in Ellsworth, Kansas, to Mattie L. Holmes, a native of New York, and the daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Holmes. Charles Holmes was a farmer near Ellsworth, Kansas, but later was engaged in the hotel business at Geneseo, Kansas. His death occurred in 1878. To Mr. and Mrs. Rickenbrode have been born the following children: James Earl, an operator of Neodesha, Kansas, married Maggie Folk; Celia P., wife of J. E. Trent, manager of the Kansas Lumber Company, of Medora; Cyril Guy, who married May Egy, is ticket agent for the Rock Island railway at McFarland; Howard Reed, stenographer for the Interstate Commerce Commission, at Washington, D. C, and Clifford Dwight, who is employed in his father's store.
Source: Ploughe, Sheldon. 1917. History of Reno County, Kansas: Its People, Industries and Institutions. Volume II. Indianapolis, Indiana: B. F. Bowen & Company, Inc. 371 p.
Page(s) in Source: 460-461
This biography has been transcribed exactly as it was originally published in the source. Please note that we do not provide photocopies or digital scans of biographies appearing on this website.
Biography transcribed by Steven R. Shook