Bio: Ketterhagen, Elizabeth (100th Birthday – 1974)

Transcriber: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Ketterhagen, Peterson, Bosch

----Source: THORP COURIER (Thorp, Clark County, Wis.) 07 Nov 1974

Many relatives and friends attended the “Open House” held at St. Bernard-Hedwig Church Hall on Sunday, October 27, 1974 to observed the 100th birthday of Mrs. Elizabeth Ketterhagen.

Mrs. Ketterhagen was born October 20, 1874 in Burlington, Wisconsin. She makes her home at present with her daughter and son-in-law, Mrs. and Mrs. Willard Peterson, Chippewa Falls.

She remembers Wisconsin without cars, electricity, telephones, farms without modern machinery, and walking miles to go anywhere.

Her father came directly from Germany before the Civil War. The war ended only nine years before the former Elizabeth was born and she remembers people talking about it.

Mrs. Ketterhagen walked five miles to school. She went through the sixth grade. There weren’t any high schools near Burlington at that time.

She married John Ketterhagen in 1893. They lived on a farm near Burlington until moving to Thorp about 1920. After moving to Thorp she was busy nursing her husband, who was ill for twenty years before he died, and doing housework, farm work and running a boarding home for men who worked at the ice company in Thorp during the winter. Mrs. Ketterhagen had three sisters and seven brothers, of whom all except her sisters, Laura and Kate, are deceased. She raised seven of her own children and the two remaining sons, Ray and Herbert Ketterhagen, still live in Stanley, and a daughter, Alvina, of Chippewa Falls. Other descendants are 17 grandchildren, 48 great-grandchildren, and 3 great-great-grandchildren.

Mrs. Ketterhagen spend much of her time now crocheting, reading newspapers and writing letters. She says she meant to write a book about every 25 years, and she might. I remember every day of it.