Quilter, Granger, Grandma, Matriarch

About the Book

Reiss Family Books

Quilter, Granger, Grandma, Matriarch is the first of four books about the extended Reiss and Basler families who settled on a small farm in St. Clair County, Illinois in 1834 and 1839, respectively.  This first book is the daily diary of third generation Katie Reiss covering 1949 through 1953.  It is published first to give the reader a feel for life on the Reiss Family Farm in the German heritage of southern Illinois.  Katie and husband George Reiss doubled the original Reiss/Basler farm to its current 360 acres.  Relatives gathered in June 2009 to celebrate 175 years of the Reiss Family Farm.

The second book, It Takes A Matriarch, includes 780 letters saved by first generation Margaret Basler Reiss Ebert from 1852 to 1888.  Some letters were phonetic English but most had to be translated from “old” German.  Authors were Margaret’s siblings and spouses, her children and spouses, her grandchildren, and two friends.  They mention serving in the Civil War, a friendship with John Wilkes Booth, life in St. Louis and Sacramento and Davenport, and the lost family fortune.

The third book, The Reiss Dairy, is a history of the Reiss Dairy in Sikeston, Missouri which was founded in 1935 by third generation John Reiss.  They are famous for milk bottles featuring poems created by Sikeston citizens to promote Reiss Dairy products.  The best bottles sell on eBay for over $200.

The fourth book, Family, Farming, and Freedom, is 55 years of professional and personal writings by fourth generation Irv Reiss from 1949 to 2004.  His favorite subjects were family fun and travel, restoring strip mined coal lands to productive farms, promoting individual freedoms and responsibilities.   He was my dad.

About the Author

Stephen W. Reiss was born in California in 1944 while his dad Irwin was serving in World War II in Burma with the US Army.  His family moved to Sullivan, Indiana in 1948 and visited the Reiss Family Farm near Belleville, Illinois dozens of times over the next 50 years.  Steve joined Caterpillar Inc. in Peoria, Illinois in 1966 and recently retired after 40 years.  He married his wife Diane in 1971.  They have two sons, Adam (and wife Heather) in Springfield and Grant (and wife Hani) who live in Chicago.