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File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project
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Source: The Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Fulton County
Munsell Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908

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The Biography of Adam KETTENRING 

[Surnames: KETTENRING, SCHAFER, ZUMSTEIN] 

KETTENRING, ADAM

    
Wherever he has elected to cast his fortunes on this side of the water, the transplanted German of the solid middle class has proved a factor of worth and importance. To such a class belongs Adam Kettenring, a resident of Deerfield Twp. since his arrival from the fatherland in 1884, and the owner of 240 acres of improved land on Sections 9 and 16. 
    
Born July 31, 1851, Mr. Kettenring was educated in the common schools in Germany, and received that practical home training which falls to all children of Teutonic birth. For many generations, his people have been farmers and his parents, Valentine and Katherine (Schafer) Kettenring, were no exception to this rule. Mr. Kettenring assisted his father with work around the home place and in time was called upon for the prescribed three years of military duty. 
    
Nov. 20, 1879, he married Elizabeth Zumstein, who was born in Germany on Oct. 22, 1855, and of this union there have been six children: Ida, Hugo, Mary, Anna, Flora and Linda. His family accompanied Mr. Kettenring to America in 1884, and he first purchased eighty acres in Deerfield Twp., adding 160 acres thirteen years later. He has built, rebuilt, plowed and sown, reaped, stored and sold with excellent results. 
    
He has taken a commendable interest in politics and as a stanch Republican has served as School Director for several years. A man of deep religious convictions, he lives up to the teachings of the German Lutheran Church, in which he has been an elder for many years and to the support of which he is a generous contributor.