Ralph and Drendel Coletta

Ralph L. Drendel was born on July 4, 1892 in the big white house on East Chicago Avenue in Naperville. He married Coletta Wehrli on May 23, 1917 in SS Peter and Paul Church. They started their married life on his father’s farm on South Washington Street. Here they had dairy cows and raised the usual grain crops common to maintain a dairy herd. Vincent, their first child, was born on April 4, 1918 and Helen was born the following year on December 31. When the Drendel farm was sold in 1920, the family moved to and rented the Wehrli farm farther south on Washington Street. This farm was owned by Coletta’s parents, Andrew and Eva Wehrli, who lived in town on Center Street. They farmed here until Vincent, recently home from World War II, joined his father in a farming partnership. Ralph, his sons and a succession of hired hands worked the farm which had dairy cows, pigs and sheep. They raised corn, oats and soybeans. Another son, Martin, and three more daughters, Rosemary, Peggy and Shirley were born on the farm. Like many families, they weathered the depression, but in 1939 the Wehrli farm was sold to H.W Rurnsfeld. Ralph and Coletta continued to farm there until 1950, when they built a new house on land where the original Hobson School stood. Vincent and Esther (Molitor) lived in the farmhouse until 1960, when the farm was again sold and is now Maplebrook I. Ralph and his sons were active in the Lisle Opportunity 4-H club and he managed their baseball team which went downstate in 1936 and placed second in the state. Coletta and her girls were very active in both the Snappy Stitchers 4-H club and the Lisle Opportunity club.