nee Kentenich, 7 August 1844 – 10 January 1909
Shortly after the marriage of Matthias Kentenich and Anna Maria Blatzheim their first child was born and was given her grandmother’s name at baptism. It was by no means rare at that time for a girl to fall pregnant before the wedding, and it seems to have been generally accepted. The Kentenich family was no exception. If the parents married before the birth of their child, everything was in order. What was not accepted was if the parents did not marry, and a single mother and her child did not have an easy life. We are told that Sibilla’s husband, Peter Joseph Peters (10 May 1836 – 27 August 1898) had to protect Matthias Koep, not because Katharina had become pregnant, but because he never married her. Katharina herself was not upset because she had become pregnant, but because the father of her child refused to marry her.
Sibilla Kentenich and Peter Joseph Peters married on 28 February 1867. We are told that Sibilla had 24 children, although most died in infancy.
Peter Joseph was the manager of the castle of the Lords of Gymnich in Nörvenich to start with. After the agricultural farm of the family Pelzer was destroyed by fire in 1880 and they sold the parcel Burgstraße 1, he opened a pub close to the castle, the "Wirtschaft Peters". This passed to his eldest daughter, Sophia, who had married Matthias Pesch, and was re-named “Wirschaft Pesch”. Later it was known as the “Wirtschaft zum Burghof”, or pub at the castle. After 1929 it was leased to different business people and later sold.
The Peters family lived in the pub, and Katharina Kentenich also lived there while she was expected her child until she moved back to Gymnich. The centre of the Kentenich family was transferred there particularly after Joseph’s grandmother moved there in 1906. Joseph Kentenich often visited his aunt and uncle, and when he was a student he spent his holidays there.
Sibilla Peters died on 10 January 1909 after falling on black ice. On 29 January 1909 her mother, Anna Maria, also died.
(Thanks to Mr. Hans-Dieter Pütz for his information about the castle and the property of family Pelzer.)