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The Farm at Nockamixon, 1913 to 1969

The Blacksmith’s Shop and the Farm

When Nicholas registered for the draft on 12 September 1918 he was a blacksmith at Bucksville, a naturalized citizen of 37, tall and slender, with gray eyes and brown hair, and he named Margaret as his nearest relative. By January 1920 the family owned a farm in Nockamixon Township free of mortgage, and Nicholas ran a blacksmith shop of his own there. Margaret, 31, had come in 1914 and, by the census, was naturalized that year. The census taker wrote the family “Ritter” and listed the children as Nicholas, 15, Anna, 12, Eva, 9, Elizabeth, 6, and Katie, 3.

On the farm, on Route 412 in Upper Bucks County, Nicholas raised chickens and pigs and grew corn, and he sold eggs and feed through what the family called the Eastern States Feed Co-op. This was the Eastern States Farmers’ Exchange, a farmers’ cooperative that merged with the Grange League Federation in 1964 to form Agway. Over the years the blacksmith became a farmer, as the family remembers: the census calls him a farmer in 1930 and 1940, and he gave the same work on his draft card of 1942.

The neighbors were German-speaking families from Hungary too. In 1920 the next house was Joseph Lang’s, with his wife, Theresa, and three children, and the Langs were still nearby in 1930. Frank and Eva Hupfl lived next door in 1930 and 1940, and Joseph Schmidt and the Balbirers were near in 1940. Frank Hupfl, 40 in 1930, was a machinist at a mill, and his wife, Eva, was 42. Both were born in Hungary to German-speaking parents and had come over in 1905 and 1904. In 1942 Frank worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Highways at Doylestown.

The family worshipped at St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church in Haycock Township, which they called Bucksville. The church was built in 1798 on land given by the McCarty family, Irish Catholic settlers, and a local history column calls it the first Catholic church in Bucks County, with burials from the 1740s. A descendant of those McCartys, Vincent McCarty, would marry Nicholas’s daughter Catherine in 1939.

Eva, the daughter whose asthma had brought the family to the country, died of cardiac asthma in February 1924 and was buried at St. John’s, Haycock, on the 19th. In 1930 the farmhouse was worth $3,500 and had a radio, and only Katherine, 14, was still at home.

At some point in these years Nicholas lost three fingers. His niece, Hellen Reitter Miller, told the family how it happened: he went out to free a jammed farm machine without waiting for Margaret to help him, and the machine took the middle fingers of his left hand. His 1918 draft card leaves the question about missing fingers blank, and in April 1942 the registrar wrote “3 middle fingers off left hand,” so the accident came between those years. The memoir’s account runs straight on into the story of a woman killed when her dress caught in the wheel of a horse-drawn buggy as she hurried to fetch a doctor. The family has confirmed that the two stories are separate and unrelated.

Margaret died at Bucksville on 20 March 1940 of cancer of the stomach. Her daughter, Catherine McCarty, gave the information, and she was buried at Haycock on 25 March. A month later the census found Nicholas, 59, a widower, farming his own land, valued at $2,400; he had gone to school through the sixth grade. Boarding with him were his son’s in-laws, George Washington Wesemann, 64, Mary, 55, and Emma, 16, who were also counted that April at their home in Philadelphia (see George and Fredericka's Family, 1860 to 1907). George had worked twenty-six weeks in 1939 as a hat finisher and earned $800, and all three had lived in Philadelphia in 1935. Frank and Eva Hupfl were on the same page, along the road the census taker called “412 Highway”.

In 1942 Nicholas, 61, lived on Durham Road, Nockamixon Township, with the telephone Ferndale 6R4. He named his daughter, Catherine McCarty of Bucksville, as the person who would always know his address. The registrar’s description, on a report that is probably his, adds that he stood 5 feet 9 inches and weighed 180 pounds, with gray eyes, gray hair and a light complexion.

A Third Marriage

Frank Hupfl died in 1943. In 1944 Nicholas married Eva Hupfl in Philadelphia, under license no. 780764. The bride was probably Frank’s widow: her name, the neighboring farms of 1930 and 1940, and the 1950 census, which finds an Eva Reitter, 62, born in Austria, in Nicholas’s house, all point to her. Eva was born in June 1887 and came from Hungary in 1904. The family’s descendant report gives her maiden name as Nothaf, and her death certificate names her father as “Nothoff [?]”. No children of the marriage are recorded.

In April 1950 Nicholas, 69, a poultry farmer, and Eva, 62, both naturalized, were living in the same Nockamixon house. Eva died at Bucksville on 5 May 1951 of coronary thrombosis. Nicholas gave the information, and she was buried at Haycock on 10 May. A stone in the Front Section, Row 17b, possibly marks her grave beside her first husband. It reads HUPFL / FRANK J. 1890–1943 / EVA M. 1887–1951 / HUSBAND / WIFE.

Nicholas Reitter, Sr. died on 8 June 1969 in Buckingham Township, of a heart attack (myocardial infarction). He was a widower, and his trade was still given as blacksmith. His last home was at Revere, Bucks County. His daughter, Mrs. Vincent McCarty of Revere, gave the information, and he was buried on 12 June at St. John the Baptist Cemetery, Haycock. A stone in the Front Section, Row 4, possibly marks the family’s graves. It reads REITTER / 1881 NICHOLAS 1969 / 1883 ELIZABETH 1913 / 1889 MARGARET 1940 / 1910 EVA 1924. It names his first two wives and his daughter Eva; his third wife lies in the same cemetery with her first husband.

References

  • World War I draft registration card, Nikolas Reitter, Bucksville, Bucks County, Local Board Division No. 3, serial 464, order 996, 12 September 1918. “United States, World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918,” FamilySearch, 1:1:WMKW-2CW2; image 3:1:33SQ-G1JQ-93LM. Transcript: Read the record
  • 1920 U.S. census, Nockamixon Township, Bucks County, SD 3, ED 42, sheet 4A, dwelling 77, family 84, enumerated January 1920, “Nicklos Ritter” household. “United States, Census, 1920,” FamilySearch, 1:1:MFBF-ZD3; image 3:1:33S7-9RTB-B8H. Transcript: Read the record
  • Genealogy-software descendant report, Nicholas Reitter, Sr., page 1, supplied to the archive 8 August 2026, family archive scan.
  • Genealogy-software descendant report, Nicholas Reitter, Sr., page 2, supplied to the archive 8 August 2026, family archive scan.
  • Genealogy-software descendant report, Nicholas Reitter, Sr., page 3, supplied to the archive 8 August 2026, family archive scan.
  • “Banat.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, britannica.com/place/Banat (Austrian acquisition in 1718; colonists from the Rhineland, Lorraine and Luxembourg; attached to Hungary for most of 1779–1920; divided by the Treaty of Trianon, 4 June 1920, among Romania, Yugoslavia and Hungary). Accessed 30 September 2026. Borovszky, Samu, ed. Magyarország vármegyéi és városai: Torontál vármegye ([c. 1911]), chapter “Torontál vármegye népe,” section on the Germans by István Kaufmann, p. 155 (“Ha itt nem boldogulnak, Amerikába is áthajóznak”), mek.oszk.hu/09500/09536/html/0024/7.html. Accessed 30 September 2026. Anderson, Bruce L., and Brian M. Henehan. “Bankruptcy of a Supply Cooperative: The Case of Agway, Inc.” Paper presented at the AAEA meetings, Montreal, 28 July 2003, p. 3 (Agway formed in 1964 by the merger of the Grange League Federation and the Eastern States Farmers’ Exchange). AgEcon Search, doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.54173. Accessed 30 September 2026. Secondary; context only.
  • 1930 U.S. census, Nockamixon Township, Bucks County, ED 9-48, dwellings 44-45 (Hupfl, Reiter), enumerated April 1930. “United States, Census, 1930,” FamilySearch, 1:1:XH8Z-6G6 and 1:1:XH8Z-6G8; image 3:1:33SQ-GRZC-49J. Transcript: Read the record
  • 1940 U.S. census, Nockamixon Township, Bucks County, ED 9-60, sheet 1B, lines 53-54 (Hupfl) and 74-77 (Reitter, with Wessermann boarders), enumerated 24-25 April 1940. “United States, Census, 1940,” FamilySearch, 1:1:KQXR-XV5; image 3:1:3QS7-L9MT-23N5. Transcript:
  • World War II draft registration card (fourth registration), Nickolas Reitter, Durham Rd., Nockamixon Township, serial U-361, 1942. “United States, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942,” FamilySearch, 1:1:VQNW-4XG; image 3:1:S3HT-63BW-4WH (NARA M1951). The reverse printed on this image belongs to another registrant; Reitter’s own reverse is on the next image [27]. Transcript: Read the record
  • World War II draft registration card, Frank Joe Hupfl, Revere, Nockamixon Township, serial U-1983, 1942. “United States, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942,” FamilySearch, 1:1:VQFR-8QQ; image 3:1:S3HT-DTGQ-7HX. Transcript: Read the record
  • Clark, Kathryn Finegan. “By the Way: Searching for Ancestors, St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church, Haycock Township.” Bucks County Herald, buckscountyherald.com. Accessed 30 September 2026. Secondary; context only.
  • Bucks County Index to Marriage License Applications: Vincent McCarty and Catherine Reitter, 8 June 1939, book 152, page 112; Elizabeth Reitter and James Lee Pearman, Jr., 31 March 1936, book 130; index entries for Marian Reitter and Nicholas Onkow, 16 December 1938 (1:1:Q28B-57N4) and Theresa Reitter and Ernest Svites, 14 October 1940 (1:1:Q28B-5VZ3). “Pennsylvania, County Marriages, 1775-1991,” FamilySearch. Read the record Read the record
  • “Pennsylvania, U.S., Death Certificates, 1906-1972,” Ancestry, collection 5164: Elizabeth Reiter (file 93544, 1913), Eva Reitter (file 19153, 1924), Margaret Reitter (file 27086, 1940), Eva Reitter (file 41726, 1951) and Nicholas Reitter (file 056578-69, 1969). Read on the images.
  • Nick Reitter, Jr. and Ruth Wesemann Reitter, a family memoir written by their four children (Ruth, Gladys, Doris, and Nickie), 2018–2019, transcribed 8 August 2026; family archive transcript dated 2019.
  • World War II draft registration card, reverse (registrar’s report), Local Board No. 4, Bucks County, Quakertown, 27 April 1942. “United States, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942,” FamilySearch, image 3:1:S3HT-631J-SW (film 004128633, image 1557; the front, [44], is image 1556). Transcript: Read the record
  • Family confirmation, 21 August 2026, that the memoir’s two accounts (Nicholas Reitter, Sr.’s lost fingers and the woman killed by a buggy wheel) are two separate, unrelated incidents. Informant not named.
  • Find a Grave, memorials 191460480, Eva M. Hupfl (1887-1951), and 191460472, Frank J. Hupfl (1890-1943), St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Cemetery, Haycock Township, Front Section, Row 17b; stone photographed. findagrave.com. Accessed 30 September 2026. User-contributed. Photograph viewed; no copy is filed in Source Documents (it can be saved from findagrave.com/memorial/191460480).
  • Philadelphia marriage license index, 1944, “Reitter (Hupel), Nickolas,” license no. 780764; bride’s entry Eva Hupfl. “Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Marriage Indexes, 1885-1951,” FamilySearch, 1:1:JV72-KQ5 and 1:1:JVQ4-Z6J; image 3:1:S3HT-6QL3-JFR. Transcript: Read the record
  • 1950 U.S. census, Nockamixon Township, Bucks County, ED 9-107, sheet 4, lines 22-23, enumerated 12 April 1950, Nicholas and Eva “Ritter.” “United States, Census, 1950,” FamilySearch, 1:1:6XBL-77ZW; image 3:1:3QHN-PQHW-X95C-3. Transcript:
  • “United States, Social Security Death Index,” FamilySearch, 1:1:VS2L-MMP, Nicholas Reitter, born 5 March 1881, died June 1969, last residence Revere, Bucks County. Index only.
  • Find a Grave, memorial 191778572, Nicholas Reitter (1881-1969), St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Cemetery, Haycock Township, Bucks County, Front Section, Row 4; photograph by Tom Myers; family links to Elizabeth, Margaret Jacoby Reitter, Eva, and Catherine McCarty. findagrave.com. Accessed 30 September 2026. User-contributed. Transcript: Read the record