Ehrhardt, Edward, 1887-1956.

Chicago-area German-American family.

Louis Carl Ehrhardt was born in 1851 in Germany and arrived in Chicago in 1871. In 1872, Ehrhardt married his wife, Caroline Erbs, a German immigrant, and paid for his parents and siblings to join them in Chicago. His parents, Frederich and Joana, bought a home and land for a nursery for violets in Park Ridge, Illinois. Louis bought land nearby, and the area was then called Ehrhardt's Grove for several decades thereafter. Louis and Caroline had 11 children: Ernst (1873-1883), Alma (1875-1961), Ida (1876-1956), Hertha (1878-1957), Lydia (1881-1964), Otto (1886-1887), Edward (1887-1956), Elsie (1889-1988), Erna (1893-1977), Herbert (1896-1951), and Luella (1899-1900). Three of the Ehrhardt children preceded their parents in death: Luella and Helena in infancy and Ernst in a streetcar accident. The Ehrhardt children continued to speak and write in German, with Edward also studying the language briefly in Vienna, Austria. Louis died in 1913 and Caroline died in 1935.