Family at Alto Pass marks 250th year in America

ALTO PASS, Ill. -- Randleman, Rendleman or Rintelman -- no matter how you spell the family name, you're welcome to the reunion.

The 106th consecutive Randleman-Rendleman-Rintelman Reunion is scheduled for today at the park shelter in Alto Pass.

Family members say this year's reunion is special.

It marks the 250th year since the family's oldest-known ancestor, Christoph Rintelman, brought his family to America from Germany in 1754 on board a ship called the Neptune. They settled in North Carolina.

"It's with a measure of pride that we can say that our family was a part of America before it became the United States," Rendleman said.

John S. Rendleman of Carbondale, Ill., president of the reunion committee, said family members really don't know why Rintelman moved to America.

Moved to North Carolina

Historians say many of the Germans who moved to North Carolina in the 1750s were members of the Moravian Church who were encouraged to settle new lands by one of their supporters in Germany, Count Nicholas Zinzendorf. The Moravians were among the first European settlers of the Winston-Salem area.

In 1817, one of Rintelman's descendants, Jacob Rendleman, moved his family from North Carolina to Union County, Ill. Family members believe he did so because Illinois, which became a state in the following year, may have been recruiting settlers with the promise of free land.

"The farmland is more fertile in the central part of the state and Jacob was a farmer," said John S. Rendleman. "But we think he stayed in Southern Illinois because of the accessibility of water and timber."

Later, Jacob's brothers, John and Martin, also moved to Union County. Some of their descendants migrated to Johnson, Williamson and Jackson counties.

"We now have concentrations of our family in Oregon, southern Missouri, North Carolina and Southern Illinois," John S. Rendleman said. "On Sunday, we'll all get to catch up on the latest family news and probably see a number of new faces. The reunion is something we look forward to every year."