Ellen Virginia Kauffman Rickard, left a widow with 5 children, left Luray Virginia to join her brother Mac (Enoch Van Buren Kauffman) and his family and help out with running the hotel he established in Bern Kansas. The cemetery pictures were from a 1907-1910 photo album prepared by Susie Rebecca Kauffman daughter of Mac which she sent to her aunt Sue Kauffman back in Luray Va. The roadside graveyard looks like what I remembered from a visit to Kansas as a child.
Newspaper ObituaryRickard: Ellen Virginia Kauffman was born in 1842 in Page County,Virginia, where she grew to womanhood. In 1862 she was joined in holy wedlock with Isaac N. Rickard with whom she shared life's joys and sorrows for only ten short years, for in 1872, her husband died leaving to mourn his demise, the subject of this sketch with five small children to care for. Bravely she resumed the responsibilities, and was permitted under the blessings of God, to see all five - two girls and three boys - grow to womanhood and manhood; al the children were present at the funeral save one, who, on account of physical indisposition, was prevented from attending his mother's funeral.
Mrs. Rickard moved with her family to Nemaha County, Kansas, in 1883, where she has since resided. The last given years of her life she had lived with her daughter, Mrs. Fred Minger, where she departed from this life on Monday morning, August 28, 1905, nealy 63 years old.
For about 18 months Mrs. Rickard had been a constant sufferer. Her last days were given much to prayer to the God in whom she had reposed her faith when in the prime of life, at which time she also united with the Old School Baptist Church.
She left her testimony a few days before her departure, that she was ready for the summons of her Maker.
She leaves to mourn her demise, three brothers, one sister, three sons, two daughters, and seven grandchildren: besides many friends in the community in which she has resided for the past twenty-two years.
May God comfort the bereft and grant all a happy reunion in the world above.
Funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock from the Presbyterian Church, conducted by Rev. H. E. Bower, of the E. A. Church, and the remains were placed to rest in the Bern cemetery.
Isaac Newton Rickard 11 November 1828 - 26 December 1862
NOTE: The following information was sent to me by my cousin Dorfie L. Kauffman who received it from Cousin Mrs. Minnie (Strickler) Lucas shortly before her death. [Dorfie was my grandmother Sudie Rickard's first cousin]
My (Mrs. Minnie Lucas) grandfather Abram Rickard and your great-grandfather came from Germany and settled at Keyzeltown,Rockingham County, Virginia.
I don't know what year but later he and his brother, Asher Rickard, came to Page County, Asher settled in the Kimball neighborhood and Abram on the Shenandoah River near Ruffner's Ford.
He had three sisters: Natalie married Sam Judd, near Pumpkin Hill. She had only one child; Mary Belle who married Louis Kibler, who was the mother of Fannie Batman, Bergie Batman's wife. David Kibler married one sister for his first wife aand she had three children; Pendleton Kibler, Frank Kibler and one daughter who married Phil Ruffner, my grandfather married Betsy Beasley, she had four sisters; Rebecca who married Broy, Sperryville, Va. Mother of Jimmie Broy who married Belle Hite, Spring Farm, Va.
Johnnie, Sarah and Mezzie never married; Martha married Doctor Joe Grove, a brother of John Pendleton Grove. She had two daughters: Mary and Mamie.
Mary married Taylor and lived in D. C.; Mamie married a Mr. Porter and went West; Mary was raised by Cousin Nancy Romines another daughter of Rebecca Broy. Grandmother had three other sisters all lived in Augusta County. One married a Mr. Blair; one a Spitler and the other Nancy Virginia, for whom my mother was named, married John Redman.
Grandfather Rickard had 12 children; 6 boys and 6 girls.
The oldest, Albert, your (Dorfie Kauffman's) grandfather married Barbara Foltz.
John married Kibler; Isaac marred Ellen Kauffman, he died and she moved with her family to Kansas, Asher married Ella Bradley.Sonnie married Julia (Duck) Kauffman, sister of Aunt Ellen, she died young; Charles married Lila Fielding.
The girls, my Mother's sisters:
Ellen married a Mr. Moorman; Rebecca married John Holmes; Phoebe married Thomas Holmes; all three went to Illinois and died there. Aunt Ellen and Aunt Rebecca moved there in covered wagons; I am not sure about Aunt Phoebe as she was younger.
Lizzie married Louis Kauffman, he died leaving one son I. N. Kauffman, she then married Thomas Stover, he died and left a daughter Blanch Stover who died at the age of 17 years. Sarah never married.
Nancy Virginia married Thompson C. Strickler, she was the youngest child and lived the longest of any of them, 87 years.
Albert (Rickard) had 7 children - Joannah, Jennie, Bettie, Lee, Nellie, Trent and Edgar.
(Minnie Strickler Lucas was born 8 Jan 1871, married 3 March 1897 to Edwin Luther Lucas, and died 13 April 1952.)