Editing Conrad Richter (section)

==Early life==
Conrad Michael Richter was born in 1890 in [[Pine Grove, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania|Pine Grove, Pennsylvania]], near [[Pottsville, Pennsylvania|Pottsville]], to John Absalom Richter, a Lutheran minister, and Charlotte Esther (née Henry) Richter. Coming from a long line of [[Pennsylvania Dutch]] ancestors,<ref>{{cite book |last=Richter |first=Conrad Michael |title=The Free Man |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |year=2013 |orig-date=First published 1943 |isbn=978-0-8041-5098-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bVf1AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT7 |quote=The author wishes to acknowledge his own Pennsylvania Dutch origins of mingled German, English, French, Scots-Irish and other blood that has been in America from 100 to 250 years. |access-date=2024-01-27}}</ref> his grandfather, uncle and great-uncle were also [[Lutheran]] ministers, and descended from German colonial immigrants. As a child, Richter lived with his family in several small central Pennsylvania mining towns, where he encountered descendants of pioneers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who shared family stories. These inspired him later to write historical fiction set in changing American frontiers. Attending local public schools, Richter finished his formal education when he graduated high school at age fifteen.<ref name="ohioana">[http://www.ohioana-authors.org/richter/index.php Conrad Richter] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170201224320/http://www.ohioana-authors.org/richter/index.php |date=2017-02-01 }}. Ohioana Authors</ref>