Meet Adelheid Rickmeyer
Adelheid Rickmeyer was a young woman in her late teens living in Blumenthal, near Hannover, in Germany. She was employed as a governess, but she was also a writer and a poet, publishing her work under the pen name Frau Erica, a reference to the heather (Erikablüte) that grew in her beloved meadows.
She had become engaged to a young man named Wilhelm Ernst Paul Mueller, eldest son of the man who owned the Bosenbüttel estate near Midlum. Before they could marry, however, Wilhelm's father sold his estate and moved his family to America. That was in the late summer of 1865.
She traveled alone to New York in 1867, boarded a train for the Midwest and married Wilhelm on November 28, 1867, despite his reduced circumstances. The rest, as they say, is history.
About these archives
FrauErica.org is built around the Mueller family tree, beginning with Georg and Gertrude Mueller in Napoleonic times. The photographs, documents, information and text come from various family archives.
Who has access?
We are sorry, but many of these pages are not open to the general public. Some things are best kept within the family circle. We hope you understand.
If you believe you are living on a branch of the Mueller family tree
Send e-mail to the archivist. Describe how and through whom you plug in to the family tree. Include your full name and salient information about your Mueller forebears. If you are on a branch somewhere in this particular Mueller family, you will receive a user ID and password.
If you have your user ID and password, start here