Riekena's Wedded Sixty-One Years

RIEKENA

Posted By: Tammy (email)
Date: 2/1/2020 at 09:43:20

Wellsburg Couple Have Been Wedded Sixty-One Years

These Pioneers Saw the First Building Erected in Wellsburg--a School House

Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Riekena observed their sixty-first wedding anniversary at their home in Wellsburg Wednesday.

Mr. and Mrs. Riekena have experienced many joys and griefs, good times and hard times, in their sixty-one years of married life. They have seen their children grow to manhood and womanhood, had the pleasure of seeing their grand-children grow up and visit them. They now have three great-grand-children to come and see them. But amid all of these joys, they saw one of their children grow to stalwart manhood, and then suddenly saw him snatched away. They have seen their parents, brothers and sisters called, one by one, only three remaining. They have had their friends and neighbors grow old with them and then pass on before.

These days when a person hears so much about depression and low prices, remind Mrs. Riekena of the time when she got twelve cents for a dozen of eggs and a pound of butter--a nickel for the eggs and seven cents of the butter. In those days there were no creameries and all the cream had to be churned by hand. But there was no electric or water bills to be paid, but water had to be hauled a half mile. As kerosene was ninety cents a gallon, candles were used, which they made themselves. Hogs in those days were worth $1.90 a hundred.

In the early days, before Wellsburg was a town, Mr. and Mrs. Riekena did all their trading at Steamboat Rock. They saw the first building go up in Wellsburg, which was a school house. This school house was located where Ben Neessen's store now is.

Mr. and Mrs. Riekena often speak of when the railroad was first laid, how one of their neighbors treated his grand-children on a Fourth of July by taking them down to see the railroad.

Mr. and Mrs. Riekena are the two oldest living members of their church. ? living in Wellsburg.

They count it a great blessing to spend their declining years in ease and comfort, but the greatest blessing of them all, is to be mentally and physically able to help themselves.
--Contributed

--Wellsburg Herald (Wellsburg, Iowa), 23 March 1932, pg 1