A postcard from Kate Schenk Andries to her son, George Schenk. The back of the postcard shows a postmark date of May 29, 1909. Kate lived in Neihart, Montana.
Author: Lark
Mary’s mother, Eva Frances Specht
Eva Frances Specht was born November 9, 1851, in St. Anns, Indiana. Her parents, Blasius Specht and Frances Effa Gueringer, were immigrants from Germany and Alsace-Lorraine, respectively. Frances died in 1853, when Eva was about 2 years old.
When she was 23 years old, Eva married John Henry Rumping in 1875 in St. Louis, Missouri. (How Eva came to be in St. Louis and met John Rumping is unknown. According to the U.S. census, she was still living with her family in Indiana in 1870.)
In 1879, Eva and her one-year-old daughter made a 3-month boat trip from St. Louis, Missouri to Fort Benton, Montana Territory, followed by another 160-mile road trip from Fort Benton to Belmont, near present-day Marysville – in order to join John who had arrived there in 1878 (see 1879: From Missouri to Montana for Mary’s account of this trip). John and Eva went on to have three more children, two boys and a girl. All three were born in Montana.
Sadly, Eva and John’s marriage was not a happy one. And in 1893, Eva filed for divorce, which seems to me an amazing thing to do given the time period. The case was soon dropped, as I suspect Eva had to face the hard realization that she had no way to support herself and her children. However, according to testimony contained in lengthy court records (which I’m in the process of reviewing for a future post), Eva and John never lived together again.
In late 1906 or early 1907, while living in Billings, Montana, John filed for divorce against Eva – accusing her of abandonment – and was granted a divorce on March 23, 1907. John remarried in May of 1907, finally a free man. Or so he thought. It turns out that Mary’s lawyer noticed a technical problem with John’s divorce complaint, having to do with jurisdiction, and appealed the court’s decision. Several months after John remarried, the Montana Supreme Court reversed the divorce granted by the lower court, based on that technicality. And in January 1908, John found himself under “nominal arrest” on a charge of living in adultery. After another lawsuit was filed (John against his lawyer), and a third divorce proceeding was filed (John against Eva), the couple was finally granted a divorce in March 1909.
Eva continued to live in Marysville and died there on July 20, 1912. She is buried in Resurrection Cemetery in Helena.
Mary’s father, John Henry Rumping
Mary’s father was born August 24, 1854, in Hanover, Germany. His parents were Johann Carl Philip Zum Dresch and Anna Maria Gertrud Reumpfing. He arrived in the United States at age 16 and married Eva Frances Specht in 1875 at St. Louis, Missouri. John arrived in Montana Territory in 1878 and was joined by Eva and his one-year-old daughter Mary in 1879. John and Eva had three more children, two boys and a girl. All three were born in Montana.
In 1893, Eva filed for divorce against John. The case was soon dropped but according to court records, Eva and John lived separately after that time.
In late 1906 or early 1907, John filed for divorce against Eva and was ultimately granted a divorce on March 23, 1907. In May of 1907, he married Freda Molitor in Des Moines, Iowa. Unfortunately for John, the Montana Supreme Court reversed the divorce granted by the lower court several months later, based on a technicality. In January 1908, John was under “nominal arrest” on a charge of living in adultery. He was ultimately granted a divorce from Eva in March 1909 but by 1912, he and Freda were divorced and John was on his way to Bisbee, Arizona.
Based on Mary’s journal and other documents, it appears she and her father were estranged at the time of his death in Bisbee in 1921.
The back of the photo above reads: “Mr. Jno. H. Rumping. He was the first engineer in Col. Thos. Cruse’s five stamp mill in Marysville in about 1881. He came to Belmont, Deer Lodge Co. Mont. in 1878 from St. Louis Mo.” The note was probably written by Mary.
Eugene Riordan, Mary’s 3rd husband
Eugene “Gene” Riordan was born October 31, 1874 in North Vernon, Indiana, the son of Mary Jane Melvin and Bartholomew Riordan. He married Jennie Meldrum in Marion County, Kansas on January 22, 1913. Jennie died in 1925.
Mary and Gene were married February 1945 and Gene died just four months later, on June 25, 1945 in Cimarron, Kansas. Although the couple were living in Kansas at the time of his death, Mary had Gene’s body brought back to Montana and he is buried at Resurrection Cemetery in Helena, next to Mary.
One interesting note: Since Mary’s mother was also from North Vernon, Indiana, I’m investigating the possibility that either Mary and Gene may have known each other for many years before they married, or perhaps they met later in life when Mary visited her mother’s family in North Vernon in the late 1930s or early 1940s.