Mrs. Elizabeth Windholz Dreiling was the daughter of Andrew and Catherine Windholz. She was born at Herzog, Russia, April 22, 1877. When still a child her parents emigrated to America and came to Victoria, Kans. Soon after their arrival from the old country, her father homesteaded a place approximately seven miles north of Victoria and removed his family to this place. Here, amid pioneer rural surroundings the deceased grew into womanhood.
In 1894 she left the paternal hearth to be united in marriage to P.A.M. Dreiling, also of Victoria. As so many others of the early settlers, they experienced many of the anxieties and privations of those early pioneer days. Canada was a bit of their pioneering as did Western Kansas. Several years after their marriage, however, they settled on a farm eight miles north and one mile east of Herzog. Here they lived happily for several years, but in order to be nearer to the church they removed their home from the farm into the little town of Emmeram.
Having been brought up as a good and devout Catholic, she ever lived up to that truly Christian motto: Ora et Labora - pray and work. Although not always enjoying the best of health, she nevertheless took upon herself the task of seeing to the bodily needs of the pastor during his few days weekly stay at Emmeram and these duties as also her duties as a mother she performed in an admirable manner at the expense of many a personal sacrifice known only to her immediate family. She would never tire when at all possible to offer her services for the church.
Until this last winter the deceased seemed to have enjoyed fairly good health. but a severe attack of influenza, during the winter from which she seemingly never fully recovered slowly, but persistently sapped her system of its resisting power, with a possible complication of former ailments as a result of which she finally succumbed in the afternoon of April 13, on Holy Thursday, having been fortified with the last sacraments of the church. Her remains were laid to rest on Easter Sunday, April 16, in the cemetery at Emmeram. the very large crowd attending the funeral would seem to give testimony to the high esteem in which she was held by neighbors, fellow parishioners and the people of Ellis county.
A number of Sisters from different communities attended the funeral, being mostly relatives: The Sisters present included: M. Frederica, M. Leonard, M. Theresa Vincent, R. Roberta, M. Virginita, M. Antonia, M. Huberta, M. Norbertine of the Sisters of St. Joseph; Sisters M. Marietta and M. Consolata of the sisters of Saint Agnes.
The deceased is survived by her husband, P.A.M. Dreiling and the following children: Mrs. Anna Maria Roholder, Alex Dreiling, Mrs. Melesina Dreiling, Sister Roberta and Sister Huberta, and by fifteen grandchildren. The following brothers and sisters also survive her: John A. Windholz, Joe. A. Windholz, Mrs. A. B. Brungardt, Mrs. J. Denning, Mrs. Henry Schueler, Mrs. Paul Meis, Mrs. Jos. P. Goetz, Mrs. Adam Geist. A brother, Andrew, preceded her in death, having been killed in a car accident in 1917.