Fendig families (the ultimate post of a series)

The previous post in this series is here.

The third Fendig who settled in Rensselaer was Ralph Fendig (1836-1907). He married Frederica Rubel (1882-1909), the sister of Amalia Rubel the wife of Nathan Fendig, so the children of these two couples were double cousins. According to the article in the Jasper County Democrat after his death, he came to the United States in 1854 and lived in several places—New York, Connecticut, Alabama, Georgia and Chicago—before moving to Rensselaer in 1870. He was living in Chicago when the 1870 census was taken. In Rensselaer he initially worked for Abraham Leopold but soon started his own dry-goods business. He advertised a lot in the local newspapers. Below is an example from the 1890s.

When Ralph died, the Masons had an elaborate funeral for him and called off a special event that they had planned for the following week.

Ralph and Frederica had six children, only two of whom remained in Rensselaer when they reached adulthood. Their eldest daughter Matilda (1867-1946) married Samuel Borchardt (1859-1941) and moved to Tampa. Their third child, Albert (1870-1926) also married a Borchardt, Rosalie (1879-1928), and moved to Glynn County, Georgia. There are many descendants of this pair still living there. The Borchardt and Fendigs had previously intermarried, which explains how people from Rensselaer would come to marry people from Georgia/Florida. Louis Fendig (1877-1947) moved to Jacksonville, Florida where he had a career in real estate. He had two daughters. A final son, Arthur (1879-1879) lived only ten days and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Lafayette.

The oldest son, Benjamin, stayed in Rensselaer and after becoming a pharmacist, opened the Fendig drug store.  I found the clip below on the Hoosier State Chronicles.

Benjamin married Ella Watson (1882-1956) and they had three children: Ralph Watson (1908-1997), Frederick (1911-2001), and Phillip (1923-1980).  Ralph also became a pharmacist and continued the Fendig drug store. During the Second World War he served in Europe and met Lillian Bossom (1913-1985), a talented artist, while there. She had a son from a previous marriage but decided to leave London for Rensselaer.

Frederick left Rensselaer to become a banker in Chicago, but then in the late 1940s or early 1950s he purchased the Circle Z Ranch near Patagonia, Arizona. It was mostly a guest or dude ranch. He sold it in the early 1970s when he retired. (A recent book about the ranch includes pictures of Fred.) He died in Arizona but is buried in Weston Cemetery. Phillip Fendig (1923-1980) was valedictorian of the Rensselaer High School class of 1940. He worked for the State Department in Washington DC and was posted to a number of foreign countries. He had two daughters and three sons.

Samuel Fendig (1873-1947) married a much younger Bertha May Kepner (1892-1980). He seems to have taken up the dry goods store that his father owned; he is listed as a merchant or owner of a dry goods store in the censuses from 1910 to 1940. He was a director of the State Bank of Rensselaer from 1936 to 1947.

Samuel and Bertha had one daughter, Elizabeth (1925-2013), who married and moved to Montana. She had three children.

(I once thought that the word "penultimate" was the most unnecessary word in the English language. But then I encountered the word "antepenultimate". Thankfully "postpenultimate" is not a word, at least not yet. But "preantepenultimate" apparently is and now I have to find a way to use it.)