Richard & Olivia Lutz A Life Rooted in Amherst From the Lutz Family of Portage County, Wisconsin
Origins in Eckartsweier
The story of Richard Elmer Lutz begins generations before his birth, in the village of Eckartsweier in the Duchy of Baden, Germany. His great-grandfather, Michael Lütz, was born there on 17 February 1824, the son of Andreas Lütz, Sr. and Anna Maria Lütz. In June 1874, Michael—then fifty years old—boarded the ship Denmark at Le Havre, France, with his family and his younger brother David, bound for New York. Among the children aboard was eleven-year-old Johann “John” Lütz, who would become Richard’s grandfather.
Michael purchased one hundred sixty acres in Amherst Township, Portage County, Wisconsin, for three thousand dollars, and over the next nine years expanded his holdings to three hundred sixty acres. The family had found its footing in the New World.
John and Eliza
Johann “John” Lütz was born on 12 August 1862 in Eckartsweier. He grew up on his father’s Amherst Township farm, working the land and attending local schools. On 17 June 1885, at twenty-two years of age, he married Eliza Augusta Margaretta Bickel at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Town of Amherst. Eliza was born on 17 March 1865 in Amherst Township, the daughter of German immigrant parents George Bickel and Bertha Helena Märtens.
Together John and Eliza had eleven children. Ten survived to adulthood, and eight lived into their eighties and nineties—a testament to the sturdy constitution of the line. Among those children was Leo August Lutz, born 11 November 1901 on the family farm, who would become Richard’s father.
John and Eliza owned their farm free and clear. When each child married, John gave them a loan to purchase their own farm—and his will stated that all such loans would be forgiven at the time of his and Eliza’s death. John Lutz died on 8 October 1930 in Amherst at the age of sixty-eight. Eliza followed on 25 June 1940, at seventy-five.
Leo and Florence
Leo Lutz, ninth of eleven children, was born on the family farm and never strayed far from it. He completed his education through the eighth grade and began working the land full-time. On 3 April 1929, at twenty-seven years of age, Leo married Florence Meta Pohl at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Amherst. Florence was twenty-four, a trained schoolteacher who had graduated from the Stevens Point Normal School in 1923 and taught in one-room schoolhouses across Waupaca and Portage Counties.
Leo and Florence operated a general dairy farm with about thirty milk cows, barnyard chickens, pigs, and four work horses. They grew hay, alfalfa, clover, oats, Indian corn, and Irish potatoes. Leo estimated he worked eighty-four hours per week, fifty-two weeks per year. Four children were born during their marriage: Margery (1931), Alvin Leo (1935), Richard Elmer (1937), and Gerald David (1941).
Richard Elmer Lutz
Richard Elmer Lutz was born on 14 August 1937 in Amherst Township, the third of four children born to Florence and Leo Lutz. He grew up in the rhythms of the dairy farm—cutting hay, milking cows, and working the fields alongside his parents and siblings. In the 1940 census, Richard was listed at two years old on the family farm on Old Highway 18. By 1950, at 12, he was helping with daily chores while his older brother Alvin, then 14, was earning some independent income beyond farm work.
Richard attended Amherst area schools and grew into a quiet, dependable man shaped by the land.
Olivia Eleanor Wolkenhauer
Olivia Eleanor Wolkenhauer was born on 12 August 1939 in Langdon, North Dakota, to the Reverend Alfred Wolkenhauer and Florence Garbisch Wolkenhauer. Her father was a Lutheran pastor—a man whose calling would eventually bring the family to Wisconsin and, through that move, connect Olivia’s life to the Lutz family of Portage County.
Marriage and Early Years
On 16 May 1959, Richard Elmer Lutz, twenty-one years old, married Olivia Wolkenhauer at the Zion Lutheran Church in Burnett, Dodge County, Wisconsin. The ceremony was officiated by Olivia’s father, the Rev. Alfred Wolkenhauer, who had formerly served as pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Amherst—the same church where Richard’s parents and grandparents had worshipped and married. After the ceremony, the couple traveled to Michigan for their honeymoon.
They settled in Amherst, Portage County, where Richard would spend the rest of his life.
Life on the Farm
Richard was a dairy farmer in the Amherst area, carrying forward the agricultural legacy his great-grandfather, Michael, had planted in Portage County soil more than a century earlier. When his father Leo decided to retire from active farm work in 1970, at the age of sixty-nine, Richard purchased the family farm. Leo and Florence continued living in the original farmhouse, while Richard and Olivia built a new home on the property. Leo kept busy helping Richard with smaller chores—a farmer never truly retires.
Richard enjoyed hunting and experiencing the outdoors, especially when sharing those pursuits with friends, family, children, and grandchildren. The farm was not merely a livelihood but a gathering place—a center of gravity for the extended Lutz family.
Richard served as treasurer for Amherst Township and held many positions within St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Amherst, the congregation that had anchored the Lutz family’s spiritual life since John and Eliza’s time.
Olivia’s Life in Amherst
Olivia became deeply woven into the fabric of the Amherst community. At St. Paul’s Lutheran Church she served as choir director and organist for many years, filling the sanctuary with music for weddings, funerals, Sunday services, and holy days. She worked at the Security State Bank in Amherst Junction and also served as the secretary and treasurer for the local branch of the Aid Association for Lutherans Insurance Company.
Together, Richard and Olivia raised three children: Karen Lutz (Wally) Shulfer of Amherst, Rhonda Lutz (Darin) Hurt of Chippewa Falls, and Wayne (Becky) Lutz.
The Passing of Richard
Richard Elmer Lutz died of renal cancer at his home in Amherst Township on 9 March 2012, at the age of seventy-four. His funeral service was officiated by Rev. John Schmidt at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church—the church where he had been married, where he had served, and where generations of his family had gathered. Richard was buried at the Bickel Cemetery in the Town of Amherst.
At the time of Richard’s death, his son Wayne purchased the farm. Wayne and his son Jeffrey now operate The Lutz Family Farms, LLC, at 8524 Lutz Lane in Amherst Junction, Wisconsin, raising Angus cattle and pasture-fed steers. The land that Michael Lütz first purchased in 1874 remains in Lutz's hands—a continuous thread spanning more than a century and a half.
Olivia’s Final Years
After Richard’s passing, Olivia continued to live in Amherst, surrounded by the community she had served for decades. Olivia Eleanor Wolkenhauer Lutz died unexpectedly on 19 February 2022 at the age of eighty-two. A funeral service was held on 25 February 2022 at the Jungers-Holly Funeral Home in Amherst, officiated by Rev. Chris Schwanz. Olivia was buried next to her husband at the Bickel Cemetery in the Town of Amherst.
Legacy
Richard and Olivia Lutz lived lives that were, by outward measure, quiet—rooted in a single township, devoted to a single church, bound to a single stretch of Portage County farmland. But within that constancy was a deep inheritance: the discipline of a dairy farm, the warmth of a church choir, the steadiness of public service, and the fierce loyalty of a family that stayed close to the land and to each other.
Their story is inseparable from the larger Lutz narrative—a family that crossed the Atlantic from Eckartsweier, Baden, put down roots in the glacial soil of central Wisconsin, and never left. Richard and Olivia were not the founders of that legacy. They were its faithful stewards. And through their children and grandchildren, the story continues.
Sources & Notes
This narrative was adapted from “The Lutz Family of Portage County, Wisconsin: Story of Our Farm, Part 2,” a comprehensive genealogical history documenting the Lutz family from Martin Lütz (b. ca. 1630, Strasbourg, Alsace) through the present generation.
Primary sources include: Baden and Hesse Germany Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials (1502–1985); U.S. Census records (1860–1950); New York Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (1820–1957); Stevens Point Journal obituaries and marriage announcements; Portage County Register of Deeds archives; and oral histories provided by Margery Lutz Stone.
Key records for Richard and Olivia: Marriage of Richard E. Lutz and Olivia E. Wolkenhauer, Stevens Point Journal, 16 May 1959; Obituary of Richard Elmer Lutz, Amherst Junction, 9 March 2012, buried Bickel Cemetery; Obituary of Olivia E. Lutz, Stevens Point Journal, 23 February 2022.
