The setting for today’s story will be in Illinois from beginning to end. It begins with birth of a baby boy on January 16, 1895. That was that birthday of Rudolph George Arbeiter, who would be 130 years old if he was still alive today. Rudolph was the son of Ernst Wilhelm and Engel (Bellmann) Arbeiter. He was baptized at Christ Lutheran Church in Jacob, Illinois. We can view his baptism record here.

Rudolph is found in the 1900 census at the age of 5. His father was a farmer in the Fountain Bluff Township. Included in this household were Rudolph’s maternal grandparents, John and Margaret Bellmann.

Next, we find Rudolph in the 1910 census when he was 15 years old. His family had moved to the Somerset Township near Murphysboro in 1906. He was one of 7 Arbeiter children in his family. His grandmother, who was now a widow, still lived in the Arbeiter household.

The plat map shown below from the Somerset Township in Jackson County, Illinois shows where the Arbeiter farm was located in 1907.

This photo of the new William Arbeiter home in Murphysboro includes a bunch of children shown in front.

Rudolph had his World War I draft registration completed in 1917. It gives him a Murphysboro address.

The 1920 census was the last entry in which we find Rudolph as an unmarried man. His father had died in 1918, so Rudolph is the farmer in the family. Two widows were in the household, Rudolph’s mother and his grandmother.

Now, we will take a look at the woman who would become Rudolph’s bride. Her name was Katherine Elizabeth Kluge, who was born on February 23, 1897 in Belleville, Illinois. Katherine was the daughter of Martin and Elizabeth (Jones) Kluge. A biography of Katherine that is found in an Arbeiter Family Binder we have in our research library says that Katherine was a member of the Evangelical and Reformed Church in Belleville, but I do not know whether that was where she was baptized. Katherine is found in the 1900 census at the age of 3. Her father was a coal miner in Belleville.

In the 1910 census, we see that Katherine was still a coal miner’s daughter. She was the oldest child in her family at the age of 13.

The 1920 census is the final entry in which we find Katherine unmarried. She was working at a shoe factory in Belleville.

The biography for Katherine in the Arbeiter binder says she moved to Murphysboro to work at the Brown Shoe Company. That must have been how she became acquainted with Rudolph. Rudolph Arbeiter married Katherine Kluge on November 15, 1921 at Katherine’s church in Belleville. An article was printed in a local newspaper pertaining to this wedding.

Part of Katherine’s bio gives some insight to her wedding.

This Arbeiter couple had 8 children. I am guessing that if we had access to the church books of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Murphysboro, we may find the baptism records for these children. In the 1930 census, we find 3 daughters in the Arbeiter family. Rudolph was still farming in the Somerset Township.

The only photo I located for Katherine is this one showing her holding a child. The caption asks which child is it, and someone has written next to it, “Ellen”, who was their firstborn child.

The 1940 census lists 7 children in the Arbeiter household. Only one child was a boy, and he was one of a set of boy/girl twins born in 1937.

Katherine Arbeiter died in 1941 at the age of 44. Her obituary shown here says that she died of stomach cancer.

A portion of Rudolph’s bio is pictured here that describes his situation after his wife’s death. It includes a rather funny story about Rudolph’s lack of cooking skills that made me laugh out loud.

The 1950 census shows Rudolph as a widower who had 4 unmarried children in his household, along with his daughter, Ellen, who had married Vernon Mueller. Vernon had ancestors back in Perry County, Missouri. Rudolph was still farming. Vernon was working at a refrigerator manufacturing company. I hope I am right about this, but Vernon and Ellen’s son, Gary Mueller, was a classmate of mine at Lutheran High School North in St. Louis. I know Gary has told me that he has plenty of family from Jackson County, Illinois.

Rudolph Arbeiter died in 1984 at the age of 89. We can read his obituary below.

Rudolph and Katherine Arbeiter are buried in the Pleasant Grove Memorial Park in Murphysboro, but Findagrave.com has no gravestone photos for them.

I am going to close this article by displaying quite a few photos I found in the Arbeiter Family Binder that include Rudolph. I discovered by looking at them that Rudolph can almost always be identified as the tallest of the Arbeiter’s. Many of the photos have captions that will help you understand who is in the picture and when they were taken. The thumbnails are clickable.