My Genealogy Hound

HENRY RUETER is the senior member of the Rueter Furniture Company, manufacturers of parlor furniture in Allentown. The plant, which was established in this city in 1885, is situated on North Front Street, where the firm carries on a thriving business and turns out fine grades of furniture. The superiority of the product is universally recognized, and the business is on a solid financial basis.

In West Farland, Prussia, the subject of this sketch was born in 1827. He received a good education in Germany and taught school for some time prior to coming to America. In July, 1854, he crossed the Atlantic, landing in New York City. Thence he came to Pennsylvania, and for a year and a-half was engaged in teaching school in Easton, Northampton County. Later he opened a confectionery store in Bethlehem, where he had removed, and was thus engaged until 1856, when he obtained permission to carry on a restaurant and lunch counter in the Lehigh Valley depot at Allentown. In 1890, however, he abandoned this enterprise and engaged in the manufacture of furniture, which occupation he has found to be very profitable. He is a business man in the broadest sense of the term, and his success in life is proved by the fact that, although he started without money, he is now recognized as one of the well-to-do citizens of Allentown.

June 19, 1852, Henry Rueter and Miss Catherine Jumperz were united in marriage. Mrs. Rueter was born iu Germany and there received a good education, her knowledge of books being acquired under the tutelage of her uncle, Franz Jumperz, who was a talented man and a minister of the German Catholic Church. She is an accomplished lady, and has always been a great lover of books, keeping herself posted on all the leading questions of the age. Her parents, Peter J. and Theresa (Hemmersbach) Jumperz, are deceased. The father of our subject is still living in Germany at the advanced age of ninety-seven years.

To our subject and his estimable wife have been born six sons and three daughters, viz.: Josephine, who is the wife of Samuel Brobst, of Allentown; John, residing in New York City; Edward, who is engaged in business with his father; Sophia, Mrs. James Rudolph, of this city; Henry A., also located in Allentown; Mary, the wife of Thomas J. Fretz; Charlie, residing in Bethlehem; William, who is shipping clerk for the Iron Barb Wire Company; and George, who is in the employ of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company.

Our subject is a strong advocate of public schools and has done much to promote the standard of scholarship in his neighborhood, having been a member of the board for twenty-one years. In 1871 he organized the German Benevolent Society, of which he was President for twenty-four years. He has always taken a prominent part in local affairs and never fails to cast a Republican vote at every election. He and his wife occupy a pleasant home at No. 131 Linden Street, and enjoy the esteem and confidence of their many friends.