Authors: Ed and Don Guenther with consultant Ron Guenther Written: July, 2014
Research: Don Guenther 

Part I

Delsman 

(Most of the photos in this story are in the Guenther Collection)

Delsman Name Origin

It turns out, according to Otto Delsman, that there are three main branches of the Delsmans, one in Germany,one in the US and one in The Netherlands. The Delsmans in The Netherlands stem from a fellow who emigrated to The Netherlands about a generation before our own ancestors came to this country. Otto originally thought that the name was Dutch and it was only after delving deeply into the past that he came up with the result that the Delsmans were originally German. He had asked a Dutch etymologist at that time about the origin of the name Delsman and that one said the Del was a short form of Elisabeth and so Delsman meant the man or husband of Elisabeth. The word, Del, in Low German could mean, valley, though, and the original ending ING would then mean, the family of the valley or the family of the Dell. Now Otto has looked further into this but his findings are uncertain at this time. The Dutch branch  all became members of the Dutch Reformed Church and now seem to profess nothing as far as religion is concerned. Both Joe Delsman and Lois Laughlin have looked into the American branch and possess many myths about our background that may be enjoyed if anyone is so inclined.

Delsman, Heitkemper, Eimers Ancestry

Delsman, Heitkemper, Eimers Migrations

Aschberg Farm

The Aschberg Farm, photo 1990

Johannes Bernardus Delsman(1778-1856)

Johannes Bernardus Delsman married Catharina Elisabeth Willerman(1781-1809) about 1820. They had Johann Bernardus(Bernard) on November 26, 1822, in Aschberg, Coesfeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He was born on the family farm.

Johann Bernardus Delsman(1822-1894)

Johann “Bernard” Delsman(1822 – 1894) or his brother Theodore might have inherited the family farm which still exists today, but America was calling. These were adventuresome young men. Bernard was 25 years old when he sailed the Atlantic in 1847. His brother Theodore followed him in 1848. America was the land of opportunity! The Delsman brothers seized on the idea.

The farm eventually went to a daughter who married a Holsen and so the farm stayed in the family but the name changed.  

Actually, Theodore should have inherited the farm, but the mother had a favorite son and she muscled Theodore out, so the story goes. That may have been one of the reasons why the boys never again had any contact with the Delsmans in Ascheberg. That is an interesting story all by itself. The family mythology was that this woman was the wicked stepmother, but that is not true, she was the real mother and loved the son who got the farm in the end. Likely, the boys were just adventuresome and wanted out of Germany, a new start.

Nineteenth Century Germany

Nineteenth century Germany was something of a coalition of individual states, Germany itself not being a unified nation. In the 1800s each community in Germany had its own style of doing things, even dress. For free thinkers they were oppressed in every area of life, including freedom of religion. There were violent clashes between Catholics and Protestants. Many Germans wanted out.

The German exodus boomed in the 19th century. Ninety per cent of them were opting out of Germany and coming to America. Once established in their new home, these settlers wrote to family and friends in Europe describing the opportunities available in the U.S. These letters were circulated in German newspapers and books, prompting “chain migrations.” By 1832, more than 10,000 immigrants had arrived in the U.S. from Germany. By 1854, that number had jumped to nearly 200,000 immigrants. Thousands became millions. One such traveler was Johann Bernard.

In 1847  Bernard left Germany and headed for a new life in America. Reports from other Germans living in America gave him hope for something better in his future, other than scraping out a living on the family farm. He did not view himself as a German because nationalist Germany as a country did not exist. He identified himself by language, regimented lifestyle and religion. He was a devout Catholic. Being lower middle class he was able to pay for his passage from Bremen to New York. The cost was about 6 months’ wage for a common laborer. For a person never having been out of his village of Aschberg the Bremen Sea port with all its ships must have impressed him. Once on the masked ship the excitement grew. Farm life had been difficult living in a one room house with cold winters and animals in the attached shed. No sanitation or running water and an open fire pit made the house smell of a barn. But then, life has always been difficult. Bernard had little money but being shrewd, he had a plan. He no doubt saw a flyer for the Wisconsin area as they were circulating about among Germans, or likely he knew people there. He felt somewhat confident that he’d be welcome there and could get a job with the Germans who had gone before. Jobs in Achsberg had been scarce. What there was available tended toward the new wave of industrial jobs. No kind of job for a farmer! 

The Crossing

The great sailing ship set out from a German sea port. The sea sickness and poor food followed by boredom left Bernard depleted and lethargic. Night singing and meeting new friends helped. They were all in this boat together! Germans seeking a new start. Then after about 8 weeks land was sighted, America at last! Scammers and leeches pounced on them on the docks of Hudson Bay, seeking easy prey, but Bernard was no fool.

Steamer on the Hudson River

Bernard took a steam boat up the Hudson River to Albany. From there it was a boat on the Erie Canal to Buffalo. He caught a sail boat to the port of Milwaukee. There he was well received by Catholic Germans. He may have left Germany but in America he was still a German, surrounded by Germans. In Milwaukee he made friends and learned of the opportunities in Wisconsin. He moved up to Manitovoc and wrote to his brother Theo about his plans to get land. Theo trusted Bernard’s first hand account.

Bernard Purchases Land

Bernard worked at various places in Manitovac for 4 years until he bought his 80 acre farm in Francis Creek, originally called French Creek, in 1851. On the original title plate John V. Suydam was shown to own the land. His land had not been cleared. Hardwood forests made clearing difficult, but Bernard did not lack firewood. His brother Theo followed him over in 1848 and homesteaded 160 acres of wild land, abandoned with only 2 cleared acres.

Between 1836 and 1850, Wisconsin’s population increased from a mere 11,000 to over 305,000. The native Indian population was being pushed out. The Indian lifestyle of vast open and wild hunting lands, and farming, did not go well together.

Bernard Seeks a Wife

Having made friends through the Catholic Church Bernard inquired about a possible wife. In 1851, with land and a small farmhouse, Bernard proposed to Bernardina Eimers. She had come to America with her family in 1848. This fetching young beauty crossed the great waters of the Atlantic at age 18! Even her great energy undoubtedly was subdued by the ominous crossing. The rats on board were especially annoying with the horrible sanitation in the very tight, closed quarters. A new land, new people. America. This hope, and their faith in God, propelled them forward.

These Germans were coming to America, but they were bringing Germany with them. Change would be slow and they persisted in using the German language, and resisted the American culture.

A Husband for Dina

The German form for her name was Bernhardine Franziska Eimers, the English form was Bernadine Frances, and the Latin form was Bernardina Franciska. She went by Dina. It is thought that Dina did not wait long to make her decision about Johann, but still, he was a giant of a man. 

Women would work the farm like a laborer unless she was not strong enough. There would be a vegetable garden, many children, cooking over fires, endless laundry washed by hand, and the general risks of child rearing. But German women were made for these challenges, and Bernard was handsome and intelligent. And big and strong. If anyone could make a go at farming Bernard could. What a man for a girl like Dina!

Ronald Bernard Guenther remembers stories about Bernard when he was a child: “Johann Bernard was a powerful, giant of a man. When I was growing up, we referred to him simply as ‘The Giant’. Stories circulated about how, when his wagon got stuck and the horses could not pull it out, he put his shoulder to the wagon and pushed it out of the mud himself. He did buy his farm in the end and some of his descendants still live and work the farm.”  

Bernard Marries Dina

Dina’s parents were happy to see her marry a Catholic, but this was expected and Dina probably never considered anything else. The ceremony was held in German. Having secured his living, Bernard married Bernardina Francisca Eimers (1830 – 1915) in that glorious year of 1851 in newly built St. Mary’s Church. It was June 24, 1851, and a glorious day in Milwaukee, Wisconsin!

Bernard Builds a House

They originally lived in the log cabin probably built by Suydam, but Bernard would build his wife a mansion on the farm with a well 10 feet from the house! The barn was large and, unlike Germany, separate from the house. 

He did not build like the German farmhouses he knew growing up, with the barn an extension of the house to keep the animals warm. Their Wisconsin house would be modern, and Johann was paying attention to the changing times while still adhering strictly to the German language.

Bernard’s and Dina’s Children

Dina bore 11 children with Bernard, 7 reached adulthood. This was considered a success. Their firstborn was Johann Bernard(1852-1904), then Gertrude(1854-1940), Anna Maria(1856-1892), Frederick William(1858-1939), Elizabeth(1860-1873), Louis William Ludwig(1863-1953), Rose(1867-1867),Heinrich(1868-1868), Albert(1869-1869), Frank Xavier(1871-1952), and Anna(1874-1973).   

Gertrude married married William Scheidemantel(1855-1943) in 1877 and they had 12 children.  Their daughter Celia Ann(1893-2001) lived to be 108 years old.        

Anna Maria married Hubert Braun(1859-1948)  in 1879 and they had 10 children.

Frederick William Delsman married Anna Barbara Augustine in 1883, had 11 children, and they moved to Oregon in the late 19th century. He died in Hillsboro, Oregon, in 1939. Their daughter Elizabeth, at age 13, probably died of the 1873 cholera epidemic. She was born and died in Francis Creek, Wisconsin.

Louis married Anna Sophia Baumann(1867-1953) in 1857. They had 10 children. Louis remained in Wisconsin, a farmer to the end. Their son, Quirin Charles(1901-2001) lived to age 100.

Rose(1867- ), Heinrich(1868- ), and Albert((1869- ) all died in their first year of life, perhaps in childbirth.

Frank Xavier married Margaret Andres(1874-1960) in 1895 and they had 10 children. They lived and died in Francis Creek, Wisconsin.

Anna married Anton Stadler(1863-1936) in 1895 in Manitowoc. They settled in Two Rivers and had 10 children.

German Farming Success

The wilderness was disappearing. The German community was innovative and had foresight, leading the way in production of key crops such as wheat and corn, and cheese making and crafts. They brought grass roots skills with them from the old country. One thing the Germans did was to fertilize the land. Others simply played out the ground, but Germans were real stewards. They also thought long term about their children living on the land after them. 

One thing the Germans have always been famous for is their beer gardens. They brought that with them too. Nothing like a cold beer after church.

Cheese Factory

In 1881 Bernard’s son Frank ran a cheese factory on his own land. Cheese, being a bi-product of milk, allowed longer storage and gave them a product that could be shipped great distances.

Bernard’s Brother Theo

Theodore Delsman(1816-1898), Bernard’s brother, purchased two oxen and set about clearing the land he had purchased. At first the plantings were for self-survival, later with more cleared land, wheat and corn and other crops generated income. Theodore Delsmann was unmarried at that time and lived alone and took care of his domestic affairs for a while, there being a little shanty on his place which had been erected by the previous owner; about a half acre of land had been cleared before he became discouraged and disposed of his property to Theo. Theodore Delsmann(1816-1898), however, was not a man to be easily disheartened by hard work or pioneer hardships. After securing his land he bought an ox team and with this necessary help began the clearing of his land and was permitted to live long enough to see fertile fields in the place of the forest he had found. 

About the time of his marriage to Clara Braun(1813-1884) he built a double log house, thirty by thirty-two feet in dimension, and here his four children were  born: Bernard, Carrie, Dena and Joe. In later years Theodore Delsmann built a handsome stone residence. When he was prepared to erect his barn with dimensions of forty-four by thirty-two feet, he cleared off two acres of his land in order to secure proper logs for this substantial structure. He was a fine man in every relation of life, a faithful Catholic and a staunch member of the democratic party in this section. He lived to an advanced age, his death occurring in 1898, when he was over eighty-one years old. His wife died in 1884.

Delsman Brothers Come Home to America

Bernard and Theo had come home in America. President Millard Fillmore in 1851 was signing land grants. The boys got theirs. Luck was with Bernard, but so was the hand of God. Bernard’s faith ran deep, carrying him over the waters. So here he was, owner of a farm in the dreamscape of America! And Bernardine was thrown into the mix. Johann and Theo had found their niche.

In 19th century Francis Creek, Wisconsin, they spoke mostly German. Even their newspapers were in German and many of their gravestones also. They were building their own little community, not unlike what they had left behind in Germany. Self governed, self sufficient. Public education came to the area around 1850, but these Germans took on their own brand of schooling, starting in private homes. They would not see their children polluted with American ways of the world. They would keep their German identity. This was in spite of the unpopularity of being German up until past World War I. Germans were not altogether trusted. Hitler verified that, but over time Germans showed their ability to enhance the growth of America and many became famous and outstanding at one thing or another. Most Germans stopped wearing mustaches!

Bernard’s stained glass window in St. Anne’s church in Francis Creek is still there today. The church was built in 1872. St. Anne’s Church replaced St. Mary’s Church, a log structure they started building in 1848 and had their first mass in 1851. These people were avid Catholics. Their faith ran deep.

Great Great Gramma Bernardina bore 11 children and at the time of her death at age 85 she had 60 grandchildren and 40 great grandchildren. “A big family is a happy family” runs deep in the Delsman line. The happy marriage ensprossen eleven children, but Rose, Heinrich, and Albert all died at birth and Elisabeth died at age 13. Anna died at age 36. There were lots of risks in raising children in those days. Disease, infections, accidents, famine, unsterilized medical procedures, and all manner of life’s difficulties without electricity, communications, medical science, and good transportation.

The Catholic Church in Wisconsin was founded by Father Joseph Brunner. He is also the one responsible for founding the order of nuns, originally run by his mother from Switzerland, that grew into two separate orders, the one order being the Sisters of Saint Mary of Oregon. That is the order that runs Valley Catholic School in Portland, where Ron Guenther’s grandson Miguel goes to school and it was the order that ran the Catholic school in Tillamook where Aunt Mamie went to school. It also runs the school of St. Francis where Uncle Ron’s granddaughter Isabel goes to school and it ran the boarding school where Grandma Wilda and Aunt Dora went to school. When Miguel registered to go there, they asked if there were any relatives that had gone there and he put down that his GG Grandma Wilda Wiley went to school there!

The Delsman farm in Wisconsin is still owned and operated by the Delsman family.

Bernard’s and Dina’s Death

Both Bernard and Bernardina are buried in Calvary Cemetery, Mantowac County, Wisconsin. They had gone back to the soil that they had farmed in. Their first born son was John Bernard Delsman, or J.B. Their tracks began in Germany and ended in Wisconsin. Big tracks.

Both Bernard’s and Dina’s obituaries were written in German. They were German to the end.

Johann(John) Bernard Delsman(1852-1904)

JB, or Barney, was the oldest of Bernard’s and Dina’s 11 children. Likely, he was educated in a Catholic school of some sort at the church or at home, but probably not in public school of any sort. He was raised German, not American; nonetheless, he learned English. His dad had built a monster of a brick home. Nothing like the house-barns in Germany. JB would hear the rough stories of what life was like in Germany. Smelly, living side by side with your animals, no sanitation or running water. Not even an outhouse. None of Bernard’s family ever went back. In Germany family and church were everything. The church took care of you if things went bad. The church served more of a purpose than worship. The church was your extended family. To leave a church meant starting over. The church kept your family’s records. When JB’s dad came to America he tried to bring what he considered good with him. The church he considered something his family needed. Farming left him with little time for his family. Bernard most likely never learned to speak English.

JB Learns Retail Business in Festina, Iowa

JB Delsman left the farm in Wisconsin in 1870 at the age of 18. He had become an American. Perhaps his parents were disappointed that he left so much of his German heritage behind. Many immigrants have come to America not realizing that their children will want to fit in with the American culture, abandoning the thinking and ways of the old country. The older people came but oftentimes did not change, even going to extremes to keep their children in the old culture. 

JB was educated, intelligent, hardworking and a Catholic. He didn’t want to farm like his dad.The oldest son who didn’t stay on the farm like a good German of the past was probably a disappointment to his parents, but Bernard had done something similar when he left Germany. Bernard may have felt rejection. However, as JB’s parents aged even they moved into a city, Manitovoc, where life was much easier. When his dad died in 1894 his mom didn’t move back to the farm but up to Two Rivers to live with JB’s sister. Farming was a hard life. There was no time for anything but work. America had opened the Delsmans’ eyes to a life outside of survival.

He went down to work for his mom’s brother, his Uncle Fred Eimers in Festina,  Winneshiek County, Iowa. This is where he learned the retail business. It was a wonderful opportunity and J.B. appreciated what he was getting. He was carving out a place for himself in America.

JB Apprentices 

Family was important to the Delsman clan. They helped each other. One of JB’s Uncles, William(Wilhelm) Eimers(1834-1917), dealer in general merchandise, lumber and grain, was born in Prussia on October 4, 1834. He came to America in 1849 with his parents, settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He remained there two years and then went to Winneshiek County, Iowa, where he engaged in the mercantile business. He was married there, October 9, 1855, to Miss Elizabeth Unger. They had nine children. 

For a number of years he was land agent of the Union Pacific Railroad, and in 1875, he came to Nebraska and purchased a large tract of land in Stearns Precinct, Platte County, and became active in getting settlers to come to the state and locate in that precinct. He there built St. Mary’s (Catholic) Church, of which he was a prominent member. In 1878 he relocated to Columbus, Nebraska, where he engaged in merchandising for about a year. He then moved to Humphrey and opened a mercantile store. He also began dealing in lumber and grain. His entire business grossed $100,000 per year. He also operated his farm, consisting of a full section, of which 250 acres are in cultivation. It was at J.B.’s Uncle William’s mercantile store in Festina where J.B. began learning the mercantile business.

It was also in Festina, Winneshiek County, Iowa, where JB met Clara Heitkemper, wonderful Clara. She had come across the Atlantic in 1858 by ship at age 4!

In 1874 J.B. took a job as a salesman for J.C. Morrissey in Columbus, Nebraska,  in a mercantile store. This was just a stepping stone for J.B. He had saved his money and had his eyes set on opening his own store. He was 22 now and thinking of marriage. In 1875, J.B. invested his entire savings of $300 and purchased groceries for his store opening on 11th street in Columbus. He sent for Clara as soon as he was established.

Part II 

Heitkempers

Johann Gerhard Heitkemper(1780-1846)

Johann Gerhard was born in Wehr bei Legden, Westfalen, Germany, on August 24, 1780. He married Anna Maria Feldkamp(1781-1849) on November 15, 1808, in Legden. They had 8 children: Anna Maria Christina(1809-1870), Gerhard Henrich Herman(1810-1859), Johann Bernard Joseph(1813-1815), Maria Catharina(1816- ), Johann Gerhard(1816-1893), Anna Katherina(1819-1870), Anna Maria Gertrude(1822-1849), and Anna Maria Clara(1826-1891).

Gerhard Herman Heitkemper(1810-1859)

Gerhard Herman Heitkemper, called Herman, was born in Legden, Wehr, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. He was the son of Johann Gerhard Heitkemper(1780 – 1859)  and Anna Maria Feldkamp(1786- ). In Germany they spelled their name Heidkemper.

Many Germans had immigrated to America and letters were coming back and being published about the great opportunities in the U.S. The whole Heikemper family got the bug. The family home business of weaving and processing cloth and farming and milling only squeaked out a living for them, and they began to have dreams of prosperity and a future for their children. It seemed that everyone was going to America!

Prussian Rule

The German state of Prussia began as a typically small German state, centered near Berlin. But Prussia grew little by little under the direction of the infamous Chancellor Bismarck, who conquered the smaller German states and unified them under Prussian rule. Prussia included parts of present-day Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Denmark, Belgium and the Czech Republic. Prussia was becoming the dominant power in central Europe. They were controlled by Protestants,The Catholic West German states suffered more and more under his government, the issue of persecution poking its ugly head. The Heitkempers were Catholics. By 1875 Catholics would be heavily persecuted. The Heitkempers probably saw it coming. Pressure of Prussian rule actually was the German unification process which would be accomplished moving into the 20th century under the Kaiser. Then would come WW I. Catholics were not welcome in Prussia. Then there was Prussia’s mandatory drafting into their military. Many religious people opposed this. The Heitkempers were probably not supportive. The small self governed states were becoming history in favor of the more powerful national government. Then came Hitler in WW II. The direction of Germany was not healthy. They became a warmongering people. All this was precipitated by a failing economy. Many Germans wanted out. The Heitkemper family emigrated from Germany during the 1840’s and 1850’s. Their faith ran deep. Faith trumped politics.

In the 19th century almost 6 million Germans got out, most coming to America. They were coming to America! Many of them thought they could make a new Germany in America. They were stubborn to learn English. They grouped together, but with the advent of WW I, Germans were not so popular, they were not trusted and thought to be spies by many. Then Germans sought ways to be un-German. The next generation was born in America, and they wanted to be American.

Legden, Germany

In Germany, the Heitkempers lived in the town of Legden which is in the Westfalen region. They were “kotters” or small farmers and they also worked at a local grist mill. They had a 99 year lease on the grist mill, which was located at the castle Egelborg. The name “Heitkemper” means land owner. Most rented but our ancestors actually owned their land, about 80 acres, probably having been passed down in the family for several hundred years. They hand threshed their own grain, then milled it.

Grist mills at this time used water power to propel great blades, turning the stones by way of gears. This is how they ground flour. This was on the Dinkel River, which only runs for 93 meters, winds into the Netherlands, and then feeds into the Vecht River.

Life in Germany, Early 19th Century

Diary of Herman Heitkemper

Life in Germany at this time is best told in this revealing Heitkemper diary entry, written in America, by Clara Heitkemper’s brother Herman(1844-1918):

“At the age of eleven years I learnt cotton weaving, which callt Schnellweben in German. The Material was furnisht by an English cindicate. We were payd by the yard. We had two looms going. My brother and I done the work. As long as I went to School I had to weave after School hours, when there was no more School then all day. In the morning- we had to our thrashing like everybody els for that was the costum in our whole country, from two to three beds were put on thrashing floor or callt Tenne(Mrn) in succeshion. 

“The work was don with a flail Each of us had his own flail. When Mother was well she would help at the first or the second. then she would make breakfast. Father, Henry and I would finish. 7 O’klock we would eat and then go to our days work. Thrashing is not easy as you might think. The performer must keep time, in order so he brings his stroke down at right interval like in music. I sopose that that is the reason that Germans are good musicians becaus the learnt thrashing. Of cours this has all changed by this time. At that time the claping of the flail could be heard at any time after 4-5 O’klock in the morning.                                                                       

“In Westfalia or Munster land, the farmhouses arebuild pecurialy. Imagine a barnlike building, all size of the farm. Farmers live on there farms like here in the U. S. I say this because in som parts of Germany Farmers live in Villages and not on there land. The Westfallen farm house of which one third is used fore dwelling and two thirds or so for the farm animals. This two thirds in length has an aisl(Tenne) or a stone floor like in a barn, which is used for Thrashing. The Door on the end of this is big enough to admit a load of hay or grain for four horses. The stabling for Cows or horses is on both sides of the aisl, the animals facing the aisl so the can be fedfrom this aisl. The dung is trown out of the back or the stalls.The fodder is housed in the garrit above. Also all the grain in straw it holds. Most of the farmers have a barn besides but not for cattle but for the grain which the house dont hold. The dwelling part for the people is separated  by a partition with a commen door leadingon the aisl or vis vercey in the big Kitchen or center Room of the dwelling. Generaly this  main room has at two sides joining rooms for all purpos of living. Our hous was of very ancient Styl. There was but one more like it in the whole Country.

“The dwelling part was not seperated by a solit partition for it had no chimny. Therefor the smoke from the Kitchen fire had to have chance to get out. On both sids of the Kitchen were dweling rooms which we occupied in the winter and heated by a stove. The fire place or hearth, was well protected so that no fire could do any damage.

“It was a sight -to see the beautiful Coloring inside of the house. Where for hundreds of years the smoke had blackent it. The woodwork was so shing black. No painter could have don such glosy and fine polishing. Also the carving or scalluping which was on the sharp edging of the wood work. Everything glasing black. Now days the think that no body could live in such a house. But my ansasters lived happy and healty in that house, even 350 three hundred and fifty years. The smok must have kept all diseases away from them.

“History The Heitkemper family emigrated from Germany during the 1840’s and 1850’s. In Germany, the Heitkempers lived in the town of Legden which is in the Westfalen region. In Germany they were “kotters” or small farmers and they also worked in the local grist mill.” 

Gerhard Herman Marries Anna Blanke 

Herman married Anna Catherina Blanke(1811-1902) on May 15, 1838 at St. Brigida Catholic Church in Legden. Anna was an orphan, but to Gerhard she was a woman! Anna’s parents died when she was five. She had two brothers and two sisters. Her foster parents did not treat her well, in particular, she did not get enough to eat, and so at night, she would steal out into the garden and eat carrots to fill up on. She married and things started to look up.

Her husband Herman died after she came to America and she married his brother. She outlived him as well and eventually came to live with Clara and John Bernard in Tillamook, Oregon. But as the time for her death came closer, she started to worry and fret. ” Oh”, she would say to her daughter, Clara, “What will papa say when he finds out that I did not wait for him?” 

Herman and Anna’s Children

Herman and Anna’s firstborn came in July of 1838, Bernard.  In all they would have 8 children, Clara being the youngest, born in 1855. There was at least one other child, who died as an infant.                                                                                              

Clara’s brother Gerhard became a jeweler and worked his way west to Portland, Oregon. All 4 of her brothers were successful in Portland. Immigration to America had paid off!

The Heitkemper Farm

The Heitkemper farm was within walking distance of the famous castle Wasserschlooss Haus Egelberg, owned by the powerful von Orr family, where many of the locals were able to acquire a good piece of their income. The Heitkempers would have sold farm produce to the castle, using the back entrance, the servants entrance to the kitchen area. Servants and peasants were to be inconspicuous. Clara’s family did not socialize with the von Orr family, although if Clara had stayed in Legden, her beauty surely would have fetched the eye of one of the von Orr boys to be certain. But she was gone at age 4. Gone to America.

Hard Times in Legden

Times were hard in Legden. You were rich or you were poor. The little guy was being pushed aside for progress, always progress. Bigger farms and the processing factories of the Industrial Revolution were taking their toll, Mostly, there were the peasants. No middle class really. Farm harvests had been poor with the crops of potatoes and rye suffering blight, uncontrollable blight. The potatoes wilted early and a fungus turned the rye kernels yellow. As if life wasn’t tough enough. The two main choices for a man were to immigrate or marry “up”, finding a ‘piggenbrut’. A piggenbrut was a farm run by women, needing a man.The Piggen is not the same as the English word, pig, either. It is pronounced more like picken or even pikhen where the kh is like the Scottish ch in Loch. The word brut means bride or fiancee. So the Piggenbrut refers to a farm being run by a woman, or a woman who is about to inherit the farm where there is no male heir. If you look back over the Delsman genealogy, you will find a couple of Piggenbruts. You recall that the name ‘Delsman’ stayed with the farm so the Delsman name persisted.

Herman married a beautiful but poor orphan, so his choices were narrowed down a mite. Herman wasn’t exactly a catch himself. Anna had nothing. Herman had next to nothing.

The Duck Hunting Story, as told by Jim Heitkemper, goes something like this:

The names can be very confusing because they used the same ones generation after generation and sometimes even in the same generation. The duck hunter’s name was Henry Heitkemper,  born 4/09/1840 in Legden. Henry was the son of Gerhard Heinrich Heitkemper and Anna Catherina Blanke. Henry was also the brother of Clara Heitkemper. The Heitkempers lived in Legden, Germany, near the castle Wasserschlo0ss Haus Egelberg, owned by the powerful von Orr family.

One day Henry went duck hunting on the castle grounds and shot a couple of ducks. On his way home he was stopped by Graf(Count) Orr who said the ducks were shot on his land and that they were his. The Graf told Henry Heitkemper to hand the ducks over to him. Henry got upset and slugged the Graf. As a result Henry Heitkemper had to flee the country. He left Germany in 1859 with his family. Henry died in Oak Grove, Clackamas County, Oregon.                                                                             

Mass Migration

From the small town of Legden 290 men and 205 women were heading for the new world, the place of dream makers. Herman and Anna were headed in that direction, looking for a new start. Herman’s parents, Johann and Anna(Feldcamp), came across in 1846. Herman and Anna Blanke would not make it until 1859. Times were hard in Germany, politically and economically, and religious freedoms were being threatened, especially against Catholics.. Likely, the Heitkempers were mainly motivated by their poor financial condition. They were kotters, dwellers in a cottage, peasants.

The farm could only support one family, that of the eldest son, Herman and his wife Anna Blanke. Johann and Anna Feldcamp would try to get their other children established in America. The children were not good marriage prospects in Legden, as they had no money. They would send two of their daughters in 1844, their son in 1845, and their oldest daughter came with them in 1846. Herman and Anna Blanke would not abandon the family farm until 1859. In the end, the whole generation parented by Johann and Anna Blanke would come to America.

It was the custom for the first-born sons to inherit the homestead, but with it came the responsibility of opening the home to all siblings for as long as they needed it, mainly until they got married or found jobs elsewhere. At marriage the firstborn became the “Buur” of the family, buur meaning farmer. They also had to dole out money to their siblings as they got married. Plus, they had to take care of the parents until they died. The farm inheritance came with strings attached, long strings.

First Heitkemper Immigration 1844

The Atlantic crossing usually happened during the spring to summer to fall time, avoiding winter’s treacherous storms. Johann and Anna Feldcamp’s daughters Anna Maria Gertrud Heidkemper(1822-1849), and Anna Maria Clara Heitkemper (1826-1891) immigrated in the summer of 1844 to North America. They were headed to Cincinnati, Ohio. There may have been a relative there or at least a friend, for many from Germany had come over in the first wave of immigration of the 19th century. The Heitkempers were part of the second wave, up to about 6 million Germans coming over in that century. Gertrud, 22 years old, was the primary immigrant on the ship’s manifest, 18 year old Anna Maria Clara was with her. They would face the crossing together.    

Two young women, girls really, in Heitkempers steerage, third deck down. In a storm candles were not allowed and the hatches were closed. There were many storms.

Second Heikemper Immigration 1845

Johann and Anna Feldcamp’s son Johann Gerhard Heidkemper(1816-1893), or just Gerhard, listed on the manifest as a weaver and farm laborer, immigrated from Legden on April 1, 1845. He was 29 years old and unmarried. He had no prospects in Germany. How could he get a wife? He was not the oldest son, Herman was, ourGG Grampa. Herman would get the  farm, for          

better or worse. Maybe worse, they were all bailing out of the farm. Herman would bail in 1859. Gerhard was going to Cincinnati, Ohio, but Herman would go to Iowa. Gerhard would find a wife in Ohio and he married in 1848.

Gerhard Marries Herman’s Wife

After Herman died shortly after the crossing in 1859, Gerhard, whose wife had died, would marry Herman’s wife Anna Blanke in 1866. All in the family. At age 29 Gerhard was a tough young man, but nobody bargained for the sea sickness of the voyage. It turned even a young man inside out. But Gerhard only had himself to think about on the voyage.

Third Heitkemper Immigration 1846

Johann Gerhard Heidkemper, age 66, and his wife Anna Feldkamp, age 60. along with 37 year old daughter Anna Maria Christina(1809 – 1870) emigrated on August 29, 1846. They were headed to Cincinnati, Ohio, where their son and 2 daughters had gone. They would land in New Orleans, go up the Mississippi, switch to the Ohio river and on up. Only Anna and Christina would make it.

The Port of Rotterdam, Netherlands

The harbor was a dazzling sight, and very busy. After going through a medical exam they boarded the Henry Shelton under Captain Cornelious B. Long. They set sail from Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It would be nearly a 6,000 mile trip, arriving October 26, close to a 2 month voyage. Two months in steerage, the third deck down. Conditions were horrendous. Eventually regulations would be enacted to protect passengers, but not in 1846.

Death of Johann Gerhard Heitkemper

Deaths on this voyage are listed on the ship’s manifest, and they were numerous. One such death was Johann Gerhard Heitkemper. The crossing was brutal and ultimately fatal for 66 year old Johann, Clara’s Grampa. The story is told in the family that Johann asked to be brought up on deck to see if he could see the promised land before he died, for he knew his end had come. The nightmarish voyage had done him in. Living in the dark, bleak hold of the ship for weeks had proved too much for him. Diseases on these voyages were common. Having carried Johann up on deck, there was no land to be spotted. He died at sea on October 20, 1846. Still, he had dreamed for his children and his children’s children. That dream still lived. Johann was buried at sea in the Gulf of Mexico. Countless numbers were buried at sea on the crossing in the 19th century. At least 5 died on this ship. The conditions were unspeakable.

They landed in New Orleans, 6 days after Johann was tossed into the Gulf of Mexico.

Port of New Orleans

Anna and Christiana felt empty and scared as they stepped onto the dock in New Orleans, but there was only one way to go, forward, past the blood sucking scammers on the docks, some of them even being Germans trying to rob their own kind. 

From here it would be a relatively easy trip up the Mississippi River by  steamboat, being the preferred mode of travel on the Mississippi River.  It was the age of the steamboat. They could travel and sleep right on the boat. 

The Mississippi River, Age of the Steamboat 

The Mississippi is one of the world’s great rivers. It spans 3,860 miles. The river boats were steam boats, some called paddle boats. They could navigate shallow waters and the steam generated enough power to surge against the strong currents. Barges were encountered all along the river, carrying coal and grain and all manner of goods. The steamboat captains apprenticed for years to be able to understand this mighty river with all of its oddities. A steamboat pilot needed a vast knowledge of the ever-changing river to be able to stop at any of the hundreds of ports and wood-lots along the river banks.

It is unlikely that Anna and Christiana had a cabin. They had to fend for themselves on the open deck, where sanitation was horrendous at best, disease rampant. Nobody was giving handouts on the Mississippi River of 1846. It was the wild west, attracting every scoundrel around. There were some good people mixed into the lot, but travelers had to be mighty cautious.

The golden age of riverboats was in full swing on the river. It did have its hazards, however, and up until about 1850 there were over 4000 fatalities due to boiler room explosions, the explosions also causing 500 wrecked boats. Passengers were on their own. Things began to improve in 1852 when boiler inspections were required. The boats featured outrageous gambling. The famous gambler J. J. Bryant lost a small fortune to Italian gambler Charles Cora. Cora won $85000 in six months and was banned from gambling, so good was he. Cora was hanged in 1856 in San Francisco for killing a Marshall. J. J. was shot to death in New Orleans by Judge Tate over a bad check. These were wild times for sure, the wild west. There were sharks on board these Mississippi  boats, fleecing the unsuspecting travelers. Anna and Christian were not tempted by these well dressed criminals. They knew where their money was going. The only way to accumulate money was by hard work! If they had learned nothing else in Germany, they had learned this. On land, city ordinances would not tolerate these dubious gamblers, but there were essentially no laws on the river.

There was also gambling with the racing of boats up the river. Bets were made on a favorite vessel. Pushing the boilers hard in races would also cause fires to break out on the wooden deck structures. But undoubtedly the most popular gambling game in the West was faro, which drew its name from the Egyptian pharaohs depicted on the back of the cards.

Another popular gambling game was a bluffing game that evolved into present day poker. The west was wide open. There were gamblers, farmers, gunslingers, gold miners, trappers, loggers, drinkers, killers, preachers, you name it. The river was full of sharks. Everything was seemingly legal in the lawless west, unless there was a good man to stop it. The Heitkempers were not shocked by it all. They had seen what Prussia was doing in Germany. This grasping and conniving of human nature was to be expected. Besides, they had been warned in letters sent back to Germany. They had come prepared. This is just the way it was. So this is the way they operate in America.

When the Mississippi River came to the Ohio fork, they took it. The German settlement city of Cincinnati was their destination.

Anna  Dies in Cincinnati 1849

Three years later, in 1849, Anna Feldcamp died in Cincinnati, Ohio. She and her daughter Anna Maria Gertrud both died in 1849, the year of the cholera epidemic. Gertrud had only been married for three years. It is thought that they may have succumbed to the dreaded disease. At least 5,969 people died of cholera that year in Cincinnati, which was about 7% of the population. St. Louis and Detroit also had major outbreaks. It was usually spread in the drinking water, a bacteria that leads to diarrhea and dehydration. The world was still ignorant of microscopic contamination. Sanitation was primitive, even were doctors unaware of the death they spread from one patient to another. Simple things like washing of hands and changing of dirty bed sheets was not practiced, and when it was considered many scoffed at the idea of unseen enemies which came in the form of viruses and bacteria.

Fourth Heitkemper Immigration 1859

Herman and Anna(Blanke) Heitkemper had tried their hand at making the little farm go in Legden, but by 1859 they too opted for America. They sold the farm and would use the money for an American farm. Word from America had it that there was a better life there. Most of their family was in America.

Clara was born in 1855 in Legden, Borken, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Her destiny was to be found on the other side of the world, in America. She would be American. All American. Her children would be born in America. Clara was the youngest of 8 children, though 3 of them had not survived childhood. Child birth was life and death in those days for both mother and child. Many died in childbirth. Lacking knowledge of microscopic germs and bacteria, people just learned to accept the death of their children as an inevitable feature of life. Anna was a strong woman to be sure. She would see her children across the Atlantic, and even after the death of Herman in their first year in America, she would make a place for them in the new country. The USA.

Departure from Antwerp Harbor, 1859

Going to the harbor was magnificent, the Port of Antwerp, all those ships from different countries getting ready to sail. Many of these people had never been more than 10 or 20 miles from their homes, now they were getting ready to embark on the journey of a lifetime.

The family of seven emigrated on March 28, 1859, sailing from Antwerp Harbor. They probably walked to get there, a journey of about a week on foot.  Heini Sander says he walked when he came. There was Herman and his wife Anna Blanke;  Gerhard Heinrich, age 19; Hermann, age 15; Bernard Hermann, age 13; Hermann Anton, age 9; Anna Maria Clara or just Clara, age 4. They were headed to Festina, Iowa, passing through Cincinnati, Ohio, North America. Family would be expecting them in Cincinnati. Festina was a German settlement in America.

Clara Crosses The Atlantic at Age Four

Clara was only 4 years old when she crossed. Many children did not survive that trip. Thankfully for us, Clara did.

They would travel as steerage passengers, below decks with no cabin. Cheapest. They sailed for 6 long weeks in the crossing. Clara’s mother Anna watched over little Clara as best she could, she herself being in intense misery from the sea sickness and darkness. The boys would have to fend for themselves mostly. The hold would be crammed full of passengers and if there was any space left, it would be used for more cargo. The people themselves were the main cargo, with 200-300 human beings or more stuffed into small spaces like firewood. Little, if any, light reached this cave like region. Candles were permissible in good weather.

Anna was well aware of the diseases that stalked these ships. The rats feasted on the crumbs and would even eat a human body if given the opportunity. The lice were unbearable. Each family was given a chamber pot and was expected to take care of it. Once or twice a day or so it would be dumped overboard.  Food was the poor fair that a sailor might expect, not too picky. But then, this trip was only a means to an end. The end was America. Herman and Anna were giving their children a fresh start in a land of opportunity. A person growing deep roots could make something of themselves in the USA.

Hygiene was an issue and bad weather would force them to stay closed up below decks, which was below the water line. ‘Batten-down the hatches’ meant passengers on the lowest deck were confined without ventilation or light in conditions that were ideal for the spread of disease. Candles were limited and sometimes not allowed at all, for fear of fire. Many things below decks were flammable: straw mattresses, clothing, tar for caulking, and the timber of the boat itself. A disaster at sea or shipwreck on the coast left little hope for rescue—few sailors or passengers could swim, and there were rarely enough life-boats for the numbers on board. 

Although average crossing in the early nineteenth century took about six weeks, adverse winds and bad weather could extend the duration of the trip to up to 14 weeks. If provisions ran short captains would sometimes charge extra for provisions. Immigrants had little recourse.

Perils at Sea

Many ships went down at sea in the 19th century. Many thousands lost their lives in the crossing. Back home, when word finally reached them months later that a particular ship was lost at sea, the family would grieve and hope, mostly grieve. The chances of living through a wreck at sea were almost zero. Mothers went down with their children, their dreams dashed. The weeks spent at sea became a small lifetime of its own, with births, deaths, marriages, bonded friendships struck, miseries and celebrations all wrapped up in the little microcosm of a world.

Boredom and Sea Sickness

The children lived in a stupor. Sometimes the men would try to rally some entertainment to keep the spirits up and all would join in to the effort.  Passengers knew the risks involved. There was no yesterday, no tomorrow, just the endless tedium of the now. Boredom was unbearable for these hard working travelers. The creaking of the ship, the lapping of the sea, the wind howling, sails flapping, people moaning. Sometimes laughter. The sea sickness was unbearable, sometimes deadly. 

The surprising thing that presented itself to these travelers in time was the boredom. Shear boredom. They were doers, not sitters. And this was no Sunday picnic, no cruise boat. The trip was simply a necessary means to an end. They would endure. They tried to keep their spirits up with any kind of entertainment they could think of. It became a world in itself. The edge of the world was the ship’s rail. Time stopped. A day was endless. Boredom.

Anna could see that little Clara was alive, there on the contrived mat, for she was breathing, barely it seemed… Anna tried not to inhale too deeply herself, for the air was foul. The voyage would prove too much for GG Grampa Herman. He would die within a couple of months of arriving in America.

By Team

Their journey continued by team to Calmar, Winneshiek County. They were home. A new home. Herman saw it but did not get to enjoy it. He died in Festina on July 28, 1859, just weeks after arriving in America. His dream would have to be carried on by Anna and the children. Anna had a couple of older sons who could help her carry the load. This is what families do.

Festina, Iowa, 1859

Festina was at this time still a raw boundary city. There was a brewery and the Catholic church. By 1849 the last of the Winnebago Indians had been removed. The church had tried to rehabilitate them but their progress did not please the politicians of the day so the Indians were put on a reservation in Minnesota. Small farm plots were carved out. The population in Festina was maybe a couple of hundred people. The railroad never came through so it stayed small, and children born in Festina usually looked elsewhere for a future. Festina could not hold them all. 

Little Clara grew up on the farm in Festina. She was a flower in the desert.

Anna Blanke Remarries

Within two years of Anna arriving in Festina, Herman’s brother’s wife died of TB. Well now. When a suitable amount of time had passed Anna married her brother-in-law, 

Johann, and the two families were combined. They were married August 31, 1866. Clara was 11 when her mom remarried and probably never viewed her uncle Johann as a father. But Johann did provide. 

One of Johann’s boys was dumped out of a toy wagon and broke his back. He grew to become something of a dwarfed hunchback, but Johann, his father, diligently trained him in bookkeeping and put him through college so that he found work and eventually got married. These people were committed to family. They did not easily give up on anyone. They pulled together in hard times.                                                         

Part III 

1875, Clara Heitkemper(1855-1925) Marries JB Delsman(1876-1904)

Clara grew into a fine young woman. She was kind and generous, but the little girl in her was never far away. She knew what hard times were. There was nothing spoiled about Clara. She was a farm girl. About 1870 Clara met a Johann Bernard Delsman(1852-1904), called simply JB, it is supposed at the Catholic church where they attended, Our Lady of Seven Dolors. Clara had caught JB’s eye. Her family was American. They spoke English. But she was not tied to the earth or church like JB’s family. 

J.B.’s Apprenticeship

JB was the one all right for Clara. JB had been in Iowa since 1867, when at age 16 he came to be apprenticed in the mercantile business with his uncle on the Eimers’ side. By 1873 JB was in Columbus, Nebraska, getting set up with his own mercantile business.

Life didn’t get any better than this. The world was before them. Was there anything that they could not accomplish? Clara waited patiently until, in 1875, JB sent for her. She was ready. She was packed and on that train before you could say giddy-up. With high hopes and a wedding dress in tow, excitement was in the air. Her time had come. This was Clara’s glory. What a striking man JB was, and Clara a young beautiful woman. They met in Omaha, Nebraska, where they were married at the Omaha Catholic Church by Father Greenbaum on December 2,1975.

JB cherished his beautiful bride, then and always. They honeymooned right there in Omaha! Clara was not a little girl anymore, she was a married woman.

It was a good marriage for both of them. She was Catholic too. When JB wanted to get married Bernard and Bernadina were no doubt thrilled that JB had at least found a Catholic, even if she was what they considered very liberal with her Americanized lifestyle.  JB had no problem with it, he was moving on. 

After a brief visit with his family in Wisconsin and informing them of his intentions, JB met Clara Heitkemper(1855-1925) in Omaha where they got married by a Catholic priest in 1875.  J.B.’s dream was coming true. They made their first home in Columbus where JB had opened his mercantile store.  

JB’s Mercantile Store in Columbus, Nebraska

Johann Gerhard Heitkemper, Clara’s uncle, ran a jewelry store in Columbus, Nebraska. This was a connection for Clara and J.B.

In 1874 J.B. took a job as a salesman for J.C. Morrissey in Columbus, Nebraska,  in a mercantile store. This was just a stepping stone for J.B. He had saved his money and had his eyes set on opening his own store. He was 22 now and thinking of marriage. In 1875, J.B. invested his entire savings of $300 and purchased groceries for his store opening on 11th street in Columbus. He sent for Clara as soon as he was established.

 J.B.’s Mercantile, The Columbus Democrat, November 3, 1883

The Great Platte River Road

The Great Platte River Road was the principal route of westward expansion, and Columbus, Nebraska was right on it. J.B. had chosen his locale for a business shrewdly. Nebraska became a state in 1867. It was a fast growing farmer’s community. What better place for a young man to set up a mercantile! The west was wide open!

Transcontinental Railroad 

Columbus was also on the route of the  transcontinental railway. The town boasted a sawmill, grist mill, and a brewery.The “choice location” not only placed Columbus on the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad, but later as a hub for branch lines. Columbus was becoming a thriving metropolis! Little did J.B. know that he would be using this railroad to go further west.

Death of Their Firstborn

In 1876 their first child was born, a son named John, who died at less than 4 weeks. One private source says it was a case of diphtheria, but it may have been small pox or some other malady. Many children died early in that time. Clara suffered.

Prosperity

Clara gave birth to Clara in 1878, Federick Wilhelm in 1879, Gerahrd Henry in 1880, Clarence in 1881, and Anna Rosalia in 1883.

Business boomed for JB through the 1880’s, catering to travelers and local farmers, and Clara had her dream house, a $35,000 mansion! Clara could have almost anything she wanted, but she wanted little. She grew up with the hard knocks of life and success was relative, nothing to be counted on. She only asked that her children make a place for themselves in America. By 1884 Clara had borne 5 children. Then disaster struck.

Diphtheria Epidemic 1883-84

In 1883-84 a diphtheria epidemic ravaged Columbus. No one knew the cause of the disease and no cure was known at that time. The disease was awful, causing pain, swelling of the neck and lymph nodes, and eventually suffocation and death. Tracheostomies were common, but were fatal in nearly a quarter of all cases where it was performed. Tubes were inserted down the throat. Many children died in the West from this killer. 

A story passed to Ronald B. Guenther has it that one of the boys had a dog. The boy and the dog were inseparable. The dog stayed at his bedside throughout the sickness and when he died, the little dog gave a yelp, ran out the door into the prairie, and was never seen again. This likely was Freddie who died in May of 1883 at age 4.

Clara worked with her whole heart to save her children, but 2 succumbed to the dreaded disease.  Some made it, some did not. Many did not. For each one that would die, Clara would have to remind herself that there were still some living. There was no time to properly mourn for these little people.

There are 2 graves in Columbus, Nebraska, that tell the tragedy of 1884. Three year old Clemence, and little Anna, 3 months old. A third grave is there for little John who died at age 2 months in 1877, and a fourth grave for Freddie. 

Clara was devastated with each child, but she did not give up. She had 4 living children and 4 yet to be born. Still, almost half of her family was wiped out. There must have been many endless nights. It must have felt like a death watch every day and every night. Could she even remember a time during these nights when she felt rested? Could she remember her own name? By 1894 a vaccine for Diphtheria was breaking through, but too late for Clara’s children.

J.B. Expands

The store flourished and J.B. extended his line of merchandise to include dry goods, boots, shoes, hats, and caps to go along with his grocery line. It was your typical western mercantile store. From about 1877 the store was co-owned, but in 1882 J.B. bought out the entire interest, worth $9000! It was now the J.B. Delsman Mercantile Store with 100% of the stock owned by J.B. and Clara. They employed 3 men.

In the rural areas farmers and ranchers depended on general stores that had a limited stock and slow turnover; store owners had to sell at high prices to stay in business, oftentimes negotiating prices with customers rather than marking individual items. Most of the shopping was done by the men since it was mainly based on credit. When the crop came in, the store got paid. If the grasshoppers ate the crop or there was a drought, the store did not get paid. JB made good profits but it was a high risk business as he would come to fine out.

1883, Buffalo Bill Show

Buffalo Bill Cody(1846-1917) often visited Columbus. There he would have shopped at J.B.’s store. Buffalo Bill so enjoyed Columbus, home for the famous fighting North brothers, that it is no wonder that it was the site Bill chose for the first full dress rehearsal of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. The wild west extravaganza formally opened in Omaha after appearing in Columbus. 

This was 1883 and Wild Bill Hickcock was with the show as were other famous people including Annie Oakley, and Calamity Jane. From 1885, the show included Sioux war Chief Sitting Bull. The Wild West shows took a glamorous glimpse at the fading American frontier, never to be seen again. Only the ancestors of these western traveling people remain today.

By the late 1880’s JB’s store had $11,000 dollars in merchandise. Sales were up 40% from the previous year, and they had purchased a home worth $35,000. J.B. and Clara were rich! It is said that men like J.B. helped build up the West, but women like Clara were the West! The very best of the western frontier could be found right here with the Delsmans in Columbus, Nebraska, in the 1880’s. They were pushing west. Little did they know that the west would be pushing them! Pushing them further west, toward the other ocean, to the edge of the Pacific.

In 1882 J.B. was elected City Treasurer. He was known as Barney. In 1885 he was the state delegate to the meeting of the supreme council in New York. Barney was a Democrat.

Clara continued to have children. Agnes May was born in 1885, Joseph Bernard in 1887, Frances Theresa in 1889, Bernard(Ben) Ludwig in 1891, Mary(Mamie) Rose in 1893, All born In Columbus, and then Charles Herman was born in Tillamook in 1896.

Columbus, Nebraska of 1890

Social affairs were a big thing for the frontier towns of the American West. They liked  noise. Guns blasted. Fireworks spouted on the 4th. There was Fullerton’s ladies’ cornet band, and it seems that the boys in the Columbus band called often on their fair friends to help them out on community celebrations.

Parades usually started along Thirteenth Street somewhere and were in full swing when they reached Eleventh Street by Great Grampa’s store. He likely took the opportunity to advertise. The Grand Pacific Hotel housed the city’s chief guests. The merrymakers known as the Calithumpians usually donated a funny side.

The Fourth of July parade of 1890, for instance, had floats from the following wide-awake merchants of that day. Some of them are still with us: Hugh Hughes, lumber; Friedhof and Company, dry goods; George Lehman, cigars; Grand Pacific Hotel; Emil Pohl, Henry Ragatz and Company and J. B. Delsman, all grocers; Sam Gass, furniture; A. Dussell, plumbing; Maurice A. Meyers, clothier; J. A. Barber, dry goods; S. C. and C. C. Gray, hardware; J. H. Galley, dry goods, and the Abts Saloon, the latter featuring, as the newspaper account of that day reads, “a display of original packages.”

There were horse races between different units of the Columbus and Schuyler Fire Departments, in which the Bissells of this city nosed out a victory; foot races, greased pig races and wheelbarrow races. Fireworks were set off in lavish style, and a big banquet was served by the merchants of the city to the travelling men making it to Columbus. Tom McTaggert, then manager of the street car lines in the city, had just finished straightening out the car tracks and did an immense business with his horse-drawn vehicles. Everyone appeared happy, worked hard and enjoyed himself in the height of fashion. It was “The Good Old Days” in full swing. And there was a little drink.  Grampa liked a little drink all right. It was a good time.

Bankrupcy 1893

JB’s mercantile continued to thrive, banking on the farmer’s crops to come in to pay off their credit in the store, for much of the business was done on credit with the assurance in the crops. Grasshoppers invaded Nebraskan farmers in the 80s, followed by depression years and drought. But in 1893 drought and hot winds wiped the crops out. Panic of 1893 was the beginning of a serious depression in the United States that lasted for years.  It was marked by the overbuilding and shaky financing of railroads, resulting in a series of bank failures.There was a run on the gold supply. The Panic of ’93 was the worst economic depression the United States had ever experienced up to that time.

JB’s mercantile was finished. They were broke. Clara listened to JB’s new ideas of Oregon and a dairy. Why not? They had done well in Columbus, why not Oregon? Some say JB never recouped financially, but others say he persevered and built a solid retirement for Clara. The latter appears to be the case.

He went home to Wisconsin hat in hand around 1894. His father had died earlier that year so it was only his mom, Dina. He may have asked for his inheritance early, but it appears he got nothing.

Tillamook, Oregon, 1894

The story of Tillamook County begins on August 14, 1788 when Captain Robert Gray, an American sailing the American sloop “Lady Washington”, anchored in Tillamook Bay thinking he had found the “great river of the West”. This was the first landing on the Oregon coast and it was not until four years later that Gray found the mouth of the Columbia. The first public building was the jail built in 1873; the courthouse and city hall in the early 1890′s. The region was still pretty open when JB came. It was a young town springing into life. JB could help them with city politics.

The rich grasslands and mild climate were ideal for dairy herds. The pioneers of Tillamook produced the finest butter in the country and had a ready market in Portland. However, with transportation so uncertain, it became necessary to find a dairy product which could be stored long periods of time without losing its quality. In 1894, Peter McIntosh arrived from Canada, with knowledge of the art of cheesemaking. 

The dairymen banded together and built small cheese factories around the county. Through the years the name Tillamook Cheese has become world famous because of the high standards of quality set by these early pioneers. When one thinks of Tillamook cheese, the name JB Delsman surely comes to mind!

According to Ronald B. Guenther, Uncle Heini Sander gave this account of JB moving to Tillamook:

“The first property that they had in Tillamook County had no house on it, nor for that matter a place for an office. It is not known about outbuildings such as a barn, but at any rate, he needed a place to start up his dairy business. The land he purchased had been logged off, but there were some very large stumps still there.  There was such a stump on the property, a huge stump, and Grandpa JB made an office under the stump, and conducted his business from there initially. After the house was built, of course, he moved inside, but apparently, that stump office was still kept as a hide-away, a sort of den where he could retreat and be away from the hubbub of what generally went on in a big family.”

In Tillamook, Clara watched as JB persisted in hard work despite his failing health. The dairy, thanks to the development of a somewhat non-perishable product, cheese, did well. Their children were growing up now and Clara took great pleasure in their successes in life. Their children were productive citizens and their progeny to this day continue to be so. Tillamook’s 88 inches of rain per year and cloud cover 70% of the time was especially hard on JB. The good thing about the weather was the mild winters. Less firewood. But that rain…

By 1896 Clara had borne 12 children, 8 still living. 12 children in 19 years. This was the Catholic way. Big families. JB was busy paying the bills, but Clara had her hands full with all the kids. The children learned to work at an early age, helping to level out the teenage hormones. The dairy prospered until JB could no longer carry the heavy load. Clara’s grandmother Anna Feldcamp, who had come to Tillamook to be near Clara, died in 1902 in Tillamook and is buried in Odd Fellows Cemetery there. Anna had 4 sons living in Portland and yet she chose to live near her daughter in Tillamook. After she died Clara and JB moved out of Tillamook to Farmington, near Hillsboro.

JB and Clara’s 12 Children

John Bernard(1876-1877) died at 4 weeks of age.

Clara(1878-1966): Clara was born In Columbus, Nebarska, married Joseph Sander in 1905, and died in Mt. Shasta, California. They had 4 children.

Frederick Wilhelm(1879-1888): Death at age 9 in Columbus, Nebraska.

Gerhard(Henn) Henry(1880-1972): Born in Columbus, Nebraska, Gerhard married Elisabeth(Lizzie) Overoeder(1888-1971) in Hillsboro, Oregon in 1907. They had 4 children, including Gertrude(1908-1996). Their daughter Florence Francis(1916-2005) became a nun.

Clemence H.(1881-1884), Anna Rosalia(1883-1884),both died within a few months of each other in the 1884 cholera epidemic.

Agnes May(1885-1984): May was born in Columbus, Nebraska, and married William Gerhard Sander(1880-1973) in HIllsboro, Oregon. They had 8 children. May died in Ashland, Oregon at age 99.

Agnes and Family

Joseph Bernard(1887-1940)

Frances Theresa(1889-1982): Francis was born in Columbus, Nebraska. In 1906 she married Philip Charles Schneider(1881-1935) and they had 8 children. Frances died in Portland, Oregon, at the age of 95.

Bernard(Ben) Ludwig(1891-1973): Bernard was born in Columbus, Nebraska. He married Anna Elizabeth Bailey(1894-1974) in about 1916. They had 8 children. Ben died in Vallejo, California.

Mary(Mamie) Rose(1893-1972): Mamie was born in Columbus, Nebraska. She married Henry Bernard(Heini) Sander(1884-1974) in May of 1914. Mamie died in Coos Bay, Oregon. They were unable to have children, but their nieces and nephews reported that they were a wonderful Aunt and Uncle. Mamie would make divinity candy every Thanksgiving and bring it to the Geraldine Delsman Guenther gathering. Heini lived with Geraldine after Mamie Died. One day, at age 89, he showed up at the family swimming pool with his trunks on. Going into the water, Heini immediately sank. He was saved from drowning in the swimming pool by his grand nephew Edward F. Guenther.

Mamie, Ben, Heini

Charles Herman(1896-1966): Charles was born in Tillamook, Oregon. He served in the U.S. Army from 1912-1918 and 1943-1945 in defense of the Columbia Harbor; National Guard 1929-1930. He served in both WW I and WW II. He married Anna Genevieve Kelly(1900-1969) in 1919 in Clackamas, Oregon. They had 8 children. Charlie died in Ashland, Oregon.(See The Honor Wall)

(Photos compliments of Otto Delsman)

Farmington, Oregon, 1903

In 1903 JB moved to Farmington where he purchased a large ranch. After he died in 1904 Clara sold the ranch and went back to Wisconsin to pay off the Wisconsin debts. The Catholics in Wisconsin were anti-Lutherans and the Lutheran’s anti-Catholic. One Democrat and the other Republican. They never voted for the same political candidate until 1890 when in the previous year the Republican Governor passed a law mandating all schools teach in English. Then both sides voted for a new Democrat governor. Clara encouraged them to start getting Americanized, start speaking English! These people were hard core Germans living in America. They still lived partly in Germany. They spoke German, were tied to the German church and lived to work on the farm. She couldn’t control herself and told them it wasn’t a healthy lifestyle and to move on. Clara let them have it with both barrels! Why even come to America if you are going to hang on to the old ways? Think of your children. Think of the future. If you want Germany, go back to Germany! The Delsmans in Wisconsin still appreciate what Clara tried to do, to this day. What a woman!

After 110 years the Delsmans in Wisconsin still remember Clara’s admonitions to the family. Clara was thinking of the children, of the future generations, of you and me. She had a vision for her progeny, and it would withstand the tides of time. Their descendants would be true Americans, building the country and fighting in its wars. The women would bear American children.

Clara Heitkemper was a woman to ride the river with! She lived all right. She surely did.                             

1904, JB’s Death 

J.B. died of acute tuberculosis. He fought with every breath in his last years to keep his family afloat and he was prosperous once again in Tillamook.  Aunt Mamie said J.B. had severe headaches.  The death certificate said he died of TB, but it is thought he may have died of Glioblastoma, brain cancer. His father, J.B, died  in 1904 at age 52.  Later Joe died of brain cancer at age 52 and more recently, Joe’s grandson John H. Guenther died of  brain cancer at age 52. It may have been an inherited disease.  Clara wrote J.B.’s obituary in German and immediately after that, the family spoke only English. That was Clara’s wish. 

JB’s and Clara’s tracks continued the ancestral journey, bringing us to Oregon. Germany to Oregon with a few stops in between. These days some are trekking back in the other direction and north and south, as there is no more western frontier.

JB Buried Twice

JB was buried in Hillsboro, but then was moved to Mount Calvary Cemetery in Portland. He was buried twice! J.B.’s obituary was the last in this line to be in German! 

Clara was alone with 3 young children still. Life was never easy, except maybe for a few years back in the 1880’s when the mercantile business had boomed, back when they had a hold on the world. The older children had their own lives to live now. Clara had seen her own mother make it alone. She would make it too. Selling the ranch and going back to Wisconsin to pay off the farm debt, the Delsmans in Wisconsin to this day appreciate her generosity. The farm was upside down in the mortgage and at risk of going under. That was our Gramma all right.

Ashland, Oregon, 1911

In 1911 Clara moved to Ashland, Oregon, with 3 of her children, Ben, Mamie, and Charles. Clearer skies. Charles joined the army in WW I and upon returning home, Clara, wonderful Clara, saluted her boy. Lt. Col. Charles Delsman is listed on the family Honor Wall. Clara lived out her days in Ashland and died in 1925.  She is buried by JB in Mount Calvary Cemetery, Portland, Oregon.

                                J.B. and Clara Side by Side, Mount Calvary Cemetery in Portland

Joseph Bernard Delsman(1887-1949)

Joseph Bernard Delsman was born in Columbus, Nebraska.  His mother, as you know, was originally from Legden, Germany, and his grandparents were from Ascheberg, Germany, towns in Westfalen, so they spoke Low German.  That was the language Joe grew up with.  After the family lost their business in Nebraska, they moved out to Hillsboro or more precisely to the little town of Farmington which is close to Hillsboro and the Catholic Church they attended was in Hillsboro.  Clara’s mother came with them and they were later followed by Clara’s  brothers, the Heitkempers.  The priest in Hillsboro said there was a new territory opening up in Tillamook and the family should consider moving out there.  So, they moved out to Tillamook and got a place right next to the Sander family.  The Sander family was also from Tillamook and so also spoke the same Low German that Heini Sander always called Dutch.  They seemed to have done quite well, the father got a farm in Farmington as well.  

World Fair, Portland, 1905

In 1905, the World’s Fair took place in Portland celebrating the time the Lewis and Clark expedition had arrived in Oregon.  It was there that 18 year old Joe Delsman and one of the cousins cut off the cue of a Chinese fellow and then had to run like crazy.  There was a Chinese society called the Tongs that looked out after the welfare of Chinese labourers and without the cue, they could not return to China. It seems that teenagers of every generation tend to assert themselves, and Joe was off to a bang! In his later years Joe was known for his gentleness.

Tillamook

Joe started up a construction business with his brother Bernard.  They partnered with the Dolan brothers and this was called the Delsman and Dolan brothers construction company.  They got the first contract to pave the streets of Tillamook. He poured many of the concrete sidewalks in the Tillamook of the 1920’s.  The father in the meantime was ailing.  

At any rate, Joe kept up his connections with Hillsboro, and JB’s brother Gerhard and family moved out to Tillamook and then the Hillsboro area as well and got a farm in North Plains, not far from Hillsboro. 

Joe Meets Wilda Wiley

One of the times Joe was in Hillsboro, he met up with a pretty girl, Wilda Wiley, who was living with her Aunt Girthy.  They married on November 24,1910 and went back to Tillamook. When the business failed, Wilda left Joe for six months, Joe filing for divorce. This was the first time Wilda left.

Portland, Oregon, 1917

When war broke out in Europe, 1914-1918, there was a need for workers in the shipyards in Portland and somewhere around 1917, they moved to Portland.  Grandpa there got a job making a princely salary of $2 / day ($1 / day was considered an excellent wage in those days). Wilda had filed for divorce in 1917, so a move to Portland was probably Joe trying to save his marriage.

By this time Joe and Wilda had 3 children: Louise, born in 1913; Geraldine, born in 1916; and Richard, born in 1917.

They were living in Portland when the great flu pandemic of 1918 broke out.  It was worldwide.  Wilda said she could remember seeing the horse drawn hearses going by, hour after hour. It is thought that almost 700,000 people died in the United State and over 50 million worldwide. The epidemic hit hard on young children and on healthy 20-40 year olds, not to mention the elderly. There were no vaccines or antibiotics to combat it.

Back to Tillamook, 1919

After the war, the shipyards closed and Joe and his family of three children and a wife moved back to Tillamook.  He thought about restarting his construction company, but his brother Ben had moved on, built a few houses in what was then Marshfield around Mingus Park and then moved on to California.

In the meantime, three Delsman girls had married three Sander boys and Joe’s sister Mamie and  Heini Sander had a farm up the Coos River, just outside Coos Bay, Oregon.  Joe decided to explore whether there was a place down in Coos County where he could maybe get a farm or work and so he went down there.  Mail in those years was slow.  He had left a tidy sum of money so that Wilda and the children could live until he got back, but she got excited, took all the money out of the bank and headed down to Marshfield, as Coos Bay was called.  There was no more money.  

Joe Broke in Coos Bay, Oregon, 1919

Joe couldn’t believe it!  They could not even get back to Tillamook.  So, he looked around and found a job as a farm labourer near Arago.  He worked on the farm there for about a year, saving his money. 

Arago Farm

The Arago Farm, 1920

Joe then leased a farm in Arago on Hall’s Creek.  It was there that Geraldine spent her early years. Geraldine said they collected small gold nuggets from the chicken’s craws. They had a jar ful,l but it was stolen from their home. She said they should not have showed them off! The Mother Lode was never found, but Gramma said the nuggets were well rounded, being washed a ways in the creek. To this day it is believed that there is a natural gold cache somewhere in the hills upstream from where Hall’s Creek used to run. Joe didn’t go looking, he was doing cows. So Gramma left her progeny with this verbal treasure map. The only problem is that Hall’s Creek is no longer there. Could be a Lost Dutchman’s Mine. Could be.

In 1920 Oregon enacted its first driver licensing law, but that was mainly in Portland. Getting a license required five day’s driving experience and a 25 cent fee. The license was valid for life. But in rural Oregon of the 20’s nobody paid much attention to trivial things like that. They had a life to live. Farming kids needed to drive.

The farm grew and pretty soon, Joe, having spent much of his youth on his father’s dairy in Tillamook, was milking more cows than anyone else in the area.  A dairy farm is hard work with gruelling hours, and so he decided to raise fruits and vegetables. He sold his herd and started a truck farm.  In those years, every area was more or less self sufficient. 

Wilda was originally happy with this arrangement, she liked getting together with the other women and selling fruits and vegetables at roadside stands.  But her dream was to get back to Portland. Initially, she realised that was impossible, as they had no money, but she never gave up that dream.

The truck farm wasn’t all it was cracked up to be either.  As the various vegetables were harvested, grandpa had to load them into his truck and head out and sell them to the various grocery stores and grandma would sell them in the fruit and vegetable stands.  After two years, grandpa decided to go back to dairy farming. He mowed his own hay. The kids mowed hay.

In the evenings, the family would often sing alongs.  Wilda had learned to play the piano at the boarding school in Portland from the nuns at the time and so as soon as they could manage, Wilda got a piano.  Later the piano would follow them to Coos River and after Wilda moved to Portland permanently, the piano came to  the Guenthers.   They  would sing all the old songs, folk songs like the Stephen Foster songs, another favourite was The Wreck on the Southern Old 97.  Joe loved to sing. In fact, it was in the church choir in Hillsboro that Joe met Wilda.

Death of Louise Delsman, 1927

In 1927, there was another epidemic, this time it was polio. Polio was a crippling oftentimes deadly virus that started occurring frequently in America starting in 1910. It would not be controlled by vaccines until the 1950s. Louise was feeling sick and stayed home from school. Within a few days she was asking for a priest and then she was gone. She is buried in the Coquille cemetery. Wilda said that Louise had dreamed of muddy waters and therefore her death was certain. More superstition.

Wilda Leaves Family

Wilda could not face the death of her daughter. She could not talk about the death, it was forbidden. Aunt Girthy Landess came down and helped to get rid of Louise’s things. Geraldine, at age 11, managed to save a little book of hers, The Lovely Garden, but basically, all of Louise’s things disappeared, and Wilda went back to Portland and lived with her mother.  It is thought that Wilda stayed there about 7 months. Ronald B. Guenther says that even in 1959, 32 years after Louise’s death, Wilda still could not talk about it. 

During that time, Joe had to hold the house together, Geraldine doing house chores as much as she could. In her 11 year old mind Geraldine remembered doing all of it! Joe got sick himself at one point and went to the doctor, old Doc Horsfall, and asked about why he was getting sick.  So, they talked a bit and finally old Doc Horsfall discovered that Joe was eating a pile of eggs for breakfast, milked the cows with the hired hand and then came back and took care of household duties, then had a quick lunch, again a pile of eggs.  In the afternoon, after taking care of inside and outside and milking he would come in, have a quick supper and get things ready for the children and his supper consisted of a pile of eggs.  Well, that went on for about a week or a week and a half and he started to have symptoms of gout which is why he was consulting Doc Horsfall.  Dr, Horsfall told him to change his diet, no more eggs.  Well, that cured him right there.  

Wilda Returns

Wilda came home and things were on an even keel, but she talked incessantly about all of them moving back to Portland.  Grandpa would sit down and talk to her by the hour and they would plan the move, but it never happened and he never had any intention of moving.  Things were starting to modernise then, too.  They had gotten a car. Wilda loved that car and was a wild driver.  She had been a wild driver when she had a team of horses.  She was always proud of the fact that with a team of horses she drove from the farm to downtown Myrtle Point two minutes faster than with the new car.

One summer day they were driving into town, roads being too muddy in winter, and Joe marveling over his horseless carriage. As they sailed along they eclipsed the 25 mph marker on the odometer, at which point Joe said to his daughter Gerladine, “A man would never want to travel any faster then this!” Indeed, no!

There was the rise of the KKK at this time.  That was big on the Oregon coast.  They were opposed to all foreigners, folks of colour (blacks, Asians, Indians), and Catholics.  During that time, Joe’s family hid everything that looked Catholic.  Geraldine remembered one man who opposed the KKK and once took a hike into the woods around Myrtlepoint and was never seen again.  About a year before she died, some old bones were found and she wondered if that wasn’t the man.  They burned crosses up at the top of ninth street hill in Marshfield.  They decided to close the Catholic Church in Marshfield and a gang of them marched to the church and were met by Father Sheridan and a number of parishioners.  Mr. Megale had a job in the post office and they constantly sabotaged his route.  He had nightmares about that right up until the day he died.  At that time in the Southern part of Coos County there were no Catholic Churches and Geroldine remembered one of the priests that came around on horseback.  He would stay overnight at the place and say mass. Grandpa would bake some unleavened bread for communion wafers, and flatten them out with an iron.

It was there that they first got an electric washing machine, before that washing was done on a washboard.  Prohibition was in full swing and grandpa made a plum wine that he was proud of, and Uncle Heini Sander made beer that he thought was better than Budweiser beer.

During haying season, the farmers from the various farms would get together and harvest the hay and whichever farm they were on would provide meals.  Wilda did not know how to cook when they married, Joe had to teach her, but she got to be quite a good cook.

Coos River Dairy

Around 1925 Joe got  a lease with an option to buy on a prime 80 acres of dairy land on the Coos River where Ketching Slough empties into it around 1925.  Joe had gone back to dairy farming.  He ran somewhere around 200-300 dairy cows and employed several men.That is what he could do best.  He continued to enlarge his farm and his herd. Most of the milk that was produced went to the local cheese factory.  

In the morning they could be seen driving the cows, after milking, to the green pasture on the other side of Catching Slough. Then at night they would drive them back for the evening milking.  All milking was done by hand. The milk would be loaded onto the milk wagon and taken to  a barge on the river where it was taken to the creamery in Coos Bay. Growing up on the farm, the children began driving by age 12 or sooner, no license needed in those days. Although Oregon enacted a driver licensing law, that was mainly in Portland. But in the Coos River of the 20’s and 30’s nobody paid much attention to it. Farming kids needed to drive.

During the Great Depression they never turned away a wandering man who was hungry. They fed them all, Geraldine recalled.

A Sick cow

At one point when either his wife or daughter had gotten sick, a medical doctor came out – they all did house calls in those days – and grandpa said he had a cow that was bloated.  The doctor told Joe to keep it secret, then he took his scalpel out of his doctor’s bag and made an incision behind a couple of the ribs.  The air came out of the cow and all was well.  Geraldine and brother Dick liked to give the cow something to eat or water to drink and then look into that hole to see the material flow into the cow’s stomach.  

Geraldine was a picky eater, too.  She was small and not growing and would not eat much of anything, but the family discovered that she would drink the milk from one of the neighbour’s cows. So for over a year, Joe bought milk for her from the neighbour.  Then Geraldine did drink it and she did start to grow. She remembered eating lots of carrots!

Wilda was happier in Coos River, being closer to a bigger town, and close to Mamie and Heini Sander who had moved to Englewood, a nearby community. Coos Bay even had a movie theater. Nothing to match Portland for Wilda, but it was an improvement.

Mamie and Heini went down to Ashland once a year to visit the relatives and once they wanted to bring Louise with them, but Louise put up a terrible fuss saying there was going to be a terrible wreck and anybody in the back seat would be killed.  She was so adamant that Joe and Wilda said she did not have to go so she did not and sure enough as Mamie and Heini drove out of Marshfield, they were rear ended and anyone in the back seat would have been killed.  They themselves barely escaped with their lives. This event enhanced the superstition that the family was somehow endowed with the gift of clairvoyance!

Joe thought cars were too expensive but Wilda wanted a horseless carriage so much, he succumbed. The cars then had curtains and a rumble seat. When they got their first car in Arago some time in the early 1920’s, the roads to the farm were muddy and impassable in the winter, dusty and rutted in the summer. Going to town required a boat on the river, pretty remote for Wilda. 

If the hill was too steep you had to back up the hill as reverse was stronger than forward and at the top of those hills, there was always water for the radiators.  Those old cars were miserable, but they certainly were cheaper than a horse drawn carriage! And warmer! 

Joe’s love of animals extended to wildlife as well. Apparently, some dogs, maybe running as a wild pack, had wounded a deer, a doe. Joe came across it and brought it home. Alas, he was unable to save it and the poor creature died. Joe had a big heart. The state game commision sent Joe a letter of commendation for his effortsl 

Joe’s Death

Joe died of brain cancer in 1940 at the age of 52. It was a devastating loss for Geraldine and also for Geraldine’s son Ronnie. Many times Joe had come to Geraldine’s home to spend time with little Ronnie.

Joe and Wilda’s Children

Joe and Wilda’s firstborn was Louise. Born in 1913, she was the family farmer.

Joe’s children all loved their father dearly. Louise was the farmer and would probably have married a farmer. Fate would not have it so, though, for she died at age 14 from polio. She is buried in Coquille, Oregon. Her sister Geraldine visited her grave every year, forever lonely for her only sister. Geraldine was only 11 years old when her sister died. Her mother Wilda could not handle the grief and left for a time. Little Geraldine carried on with the cooking, laundry and farm work. She tried to fill the big void left by Louise.

Richard Delsman(1917-1943), or Dick, grew up on the farm, first in Arago and then in Coos River. He graduated from Coos River High School in about 1935. Some say Dick wanted off the farm; the rigors of the dairy were too much. 

Others say he was looking forward to building it up as part of his inheritance. It is hard to say what his life’s ambitions were at the time of his marriage to Edythe Spooner, a cousin of the Messerle clan in the area. Edy swept him off his feet according to Geraldine, Dick’s sister. Edy was 16 years old.  Even after Dick’s death in 1943 Edy continued to be an Aunt to the Guenther family. She was tops. Many in the family have stayed in touch with her. She worked most of her adult life at Douglas Aircraft just east of Los Angeles. She was a beautiful woman, both inside and out.

Dick tried welding and then was a machinist, but neither of these caught his fancy.  He did like his motor cycle and he and Aunt Edy loved to roller skate. He joined the service at age 25 with uncertainty in his future. The one bright light was Edy. He was like so many other boys of that time, anxious to fight for America, but the war took its toll on our young men. Dick wanted to fly, but he did not make pilot. He was a bombardier in a B-17 aircraft, a heavy bomber, also called a Flying Fortress, for the Army Air Force.

Many of the crews gave their airplanes a nickname. Dick’s crew named their plane BTO, an abbreviation for Big Time Operator. He died flying out of North Africa. They took off from Tunisia, bombed the submarine base in the southern part of France in Toulon and went down on the way back just off Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea. It is thought that their plane’s propeller was incapacitated by an enemy plane. The plane went down off the southeastern coast of France on November 24, 1943. Six men were observed parachuting out and at least several made it to their life rafts which had been dropped to them. Another plane dipped its wings to signal a recovery plane would be sent out. But the waves were reportedly very high that day and nothing was ever found of the plane or the crew. Dick gave his life for his country in the hope that future generations would live in a free land.

Dick received the Purple Heart, along with the Air Medal, American Campaign Medal, and World War II Victory Medal. At the American War Memorial in Rhone, France, Dick is listed among the dead. He was declared missing in action or lost at sea. 

For many months Edy and Dick’s family hoped against hope that somehow Dick had made it. The months turned into years and no one knows the exact point at which hope was lost. Years passed with no word about Dick. He was gone. Geraldine was always worried that her brother and war hero would be forgotten, but he has not been. Near Geraldine’s grave, before her death, she had a memorial plaque placed in memory of Dick, her lifetime friend. Geraldine could not remember when she stopped hoping for Dick’s return, but life went on. Perhaps he was a POW and would come waltzing in after the war. He did not. There were lives to live, and a free country to live them in. Much debt is owed to America’s war heroes. They will not be forgotten as long as the sun rises and sets on America’s shores.

Dick’s crew on that fateful, tragic day were as follows: Pilot: Silas E. Adams b.1917; Crew: Paul E. Malboeuf b.1920, Richard Reed b. 1920, Richard J. Delsman b. 1917, Peter V. Gocek b. 1924, Ernest L. Shattuck b. 1918, Roland K. Kahler b. 1922, John J. Vargo b. 1923, Eernest E. Lahti b.1911, Harold Oshin b. 1924.

Ronald B. Guenther’s Memory:

It was typical that when people went missing and presumed dead, they were not listed as dead for a year. When they went missing, a special delivery letter was sent to the homes. That would happen about a week after such an event. Grandma Wilda had dreamed of muddy water a few nights before and she was sure that her son had died. Nobody ever wanted to see a special delivery mail truck drive up. That was the worst. Well, one did drive up. Grandma was living with us at the time and I can still see her sitting at the dining room table just sobbing uncontrollably. She knew he was dead even though the letter just said he was missing in action. A year later he was declared dead and at that time, the widow started to receive death benefits. But I can still see grandma, sitting at the table, with the letter in her right hand, her head in her left, the hand with the letter dangling from her side and just crying and crying and crying. It was awful.

Donald S. Guenther on Aunt Edy:

Edy had a sister and a brother. When her mom died in 1929 she was 7 years old. She and her siblings moved in with Edy’s mother’s parents, their grandparents, John and Margaret Messerle, and uncle George Messerle. Her dad remarried and the family wasn’t re-united. Her stepmother had a daughter Goldie (Golda Grant) about her age. Edy had an operation for appendicitis when she was 14, and due to infection, couldn’t have children. She got an 8th grade education. She married Uncle Dick when she was 16. He died 4 years later in WWII. For a year they had hoped he was still alive. Following his death she experienced 4 divorces. I called Aunt Edy in 2013 and asked her about Uncle Dick. She said he hated the farm and wanted to see the world. His desire to see the world led him to enlist. She said he was a very nice man. She didn’t think he knew the risk he faced in the Air Force. I asked her about his family and Uncle Dick’s relationships with them. She said he never talked about them. She expressed her love for our mother. She appreciated our sister Mary.

Geraldine Clara Delsman(1916-2012)

Clara’s Namesake

Geraldine Clara Delsman was Clara Heitkemper’s namesake. Garaldine was born on January 27, 1916, in Tillamook, Oregon. She actually went by ‘Clara’ until she moved to Coos River at age 16. So she became either Geraldine or Clara.

Arago

The Arago farm was a place of wonder in Geraldine’s memory. She loved her father and she loved Dick and Louise. She observed animals giving birth, chickens laying eggs, and growing things in the garden. Coos River also was a great experience. Geraldine attended first grade in Arago and attended Coos River High School. She excelled in school, made friends (She made a life time friend in Joanne ——- here) and graduated in a class of 18 in 1934 as valedictorian. 

Babe the Chicken

Clara was given a pet chicken. She said she named it Babe. Babe got to eat pancakes off the table. One night when a fox got into the chicken coup Babe pecked at their front door until they let Babe sleep in the house. From then on Babe slept in the house in a nest behind the front door. One day, when Babe was close to 10 years old, the chicken pecked something on the ground, gave a great cluck, and fell dead. Babe was laid to rest, not eaten!

Uncle Dick, Geraldine’s brother and a WWII hero, as a teenager was determined that if he could carry a calf in his arms, he could eventually carry a cow. So every day he would lift the calf. Every day without fail. But a day came when he could not lift it. Teenagers.

Geraldine Learns to Swim

Geraldine remembered Aunt Mamie taught her to swim. At the time, Aunt Mamie and Uncle Heini Sander had a farm up the Coos River. 

They had been promised a road but the road never materialized and eventually, they lost the farm, but in the meantime, they had to do everything by boat and Aunt Mamie decided it was time for Geraldine to learn to swim; after all, Geraldine was about eight or nine years old, and so Aunt Mamie tied a rope around her and tossed her into the river and then walked back and forth across the dock. Geraldine said she was screaming, she would go under the water and Aunt Mamie would yank her up, she swallowed water, yelled for help, and Aunt Mamie never said a word, just walked back and forth across the dock and eventually,  little Geraldine came up and started to swim.                                                              

Gramma might have made a good wife for a farmer, but a John Guenther(1912 – 1991) came calling, sweeping Gramma off her feet.

Geraldine Delsman married John Guenther in 1935 at St. Monica’s Catholic Church in Coos Bay, Oregon.Geraldine liked to remember the first year of her marriage when she and John would take a Sunday stroll down North Bend’s main street to watch the progress on the McCullough Bridge. The bridge construction started in 1934 and opened for cars in 1936. John and Geraldine had their first home near the bridge and it doesn’t take a big imagination to see this 19 year old beauty swishing her skirts as she walked boldly down the street with her man, and with the world before her. At age 90 Geraldine said she still felt like she was 18 in her mind.

Glasgow, 1945

They bought a place in Glasgow, Oregon. Wilda chipped in the down payment of $1000 and planned on living there with them, which she did for a while. They bought the Old Place for $3000, on 25 acres, making monthly payments of $30 and paying it off in about 6 years. There was a fabulous view of the bay and the North Bend McCullough Bridge, a garden area, fruit trees, and a year round creek. Maybe this helped bridge the gap of Geraldine’s disassociation with her mother, but even in later years her memories centered around her beloved father.

Geraldine had a million ways to cut corners and save money. One of her schemes was having a cow. She knew all about cows. She had milked a zillion of them. She grew up on a dairy. She had cows starting in 1941 with a jersey, which was there when they moved out onto the place. This was followed by another jersey, then there was a Holstein, a giant cow that gave more milk than they could use at the time, and then another jersey. These cows were all called Boss.  They ate them all. At that time, Gramma was not so persnickety as she became later. There was none of this trading cows for beef. They ate the chickens, they ate the swine, they ate ducks, even the pet ducks, if it moved, they ate it. But in 1951 came Buttercup, gotten from Uncle Heini Sander, a cow with character and a name. They did not eat her, but she was traded for beef as they supposedly did with all the ‘pet’ cows from then on.

The cows were a necessity to family finances. This is how they kept a lot of kids fed. Shortly after Buttercup came Gussie. There would be at least one cow on the place until about 1960. When Ronny got old enough he would milk the cow, sometimes squirting the milk directly into his siblings’ mouths. He also had a maneuver where he would swing the milk pail quickly over his head in a circular fashion, and not one drop would spill, though the pail for a microsecond was upside down. Geraldine’s husband John did not like the cow, he did not like milking, he did not like vegetable gardens or anything else that dealt with the farm. But Geraldine saw the usefulness of it all.

Bossy

Another cow in the 1950’s was called Bossy. Bossy was mean, and if she had a calf, watch out. She could tree the boys. She would break out and go mate with a bull down the road. That is how they got calves and kept the cows in milk. One day when bossy was too old to give good milk, she disappeared and hamburger meat showed up like usual in the freezer. Gramma swore it was not Bossy in that freezer, but…

The boys would use the cow pies, as they were called, for frisbees after they had been baked in the summer sun. One time the boys tied a pallet onto the cow, planning to get a ride, but the cow high tailed it out of there, the pallet flipping over a branch of sister Louise’s apple tree. The rope stretched tight and it laid the cow out, flat on its back. Fortunately for the boys, the cow lived, but they never told their mother about this. Ever. Their mother prized her cows like her father had.

The Broom Handle

Living in Glasgow spelled frugal living, as evidenced by this memory from Louise Alice Guenther: Any car we ever had was an embarrassment. The folks would get a car and three weeks later it was a broken down mess.  The worst car for me was the broom stick in the door car.  Mom came to pick me up when I was in high school, and pulled right up in front with a car full of kids! When I got to the car she had the window open and says for everyone to hear, “OK, you can take the stick out and get in now.” Kids were standing around laughing! The Guenthers always had a big family car and eventually an over-sized van to transport the kids

Geraldine’s Children

Geraldine had 14 children: Ronny, Bobby, Weezy, Dory, Phiddy, Richy, twins Annie and Anjo, Johnny, Donny, Eddy, Davy, and twins Mary and Margy. “A big family is a happy family”, she’d quote from her father. Gramma took them through the childhood dramas of bottles, measles, mumps, chicken pox, broken bones, successes and failures, school, and all manner of life. All through these, Geraldine’s children looked across the bay at the McCullough Bridge. The bridge was like a beacon on the horizon line, the great arches welcoming ships into the bay. It was also a border, putting a break between the mighty Pacific Ocean and the playground of the bay shores. The sun would set as a burning orb behind the bridge. It would sink into the ocean only to emerge the next day on the other side. For the children the bridge just was. Always there. They would travel over it thousands upon thousands of times in the course of their young lives.

Not surprisingly, all 14 became successful people in life. Not a criminal in the lot. Not a bad apple or black sheep. Mostly. 

From the oldest, with Uncle Ron getting his doctorate degree and teaching at Oregon State University to the youngest of Aunt Margy managing a large business in Corvallis, they all made their mark, leaving their tracks on the land. And now their own children are making theirs. The earth is pock marked with their endless tracks. They have built buildings, solved problems, engineered and designed things, bore children, and they have lived, lived with the blood of their ancestors flowing through their veins. They are a testimony to the likes of Bernard and Bernardina, JB and Clara, Joe and Wilda, and Gerladine and John. They all fought the fight of life and did not give up. Never gave up..

And now, here we are. Here we are.

Gramma loved flowers. On the old place she had dahlias and surrounding the swimming pool were yellow roses, the prettiest she’d ever seen. On the new place up Rose Mountain, she grew roses, thousands of roses. As Geraldine got older the roses faded and disappeared as Gramma was unable to tend them. She gave thousands of roses away. In 2012 Gramma followed the way of her roses and faded away.

Geraldine is buried in Sunset Memorial Park, just south of Coos Bay off 101. Besides the folks, Joe Delsman is buried there and a memory plaque for Dick is there. Mamie and Heini Sander are buried there and so are Old Lester and Noma.  Jack and Leona Lapp also reside there.

Modern Day, 2014

Donald S. Guenther visited GG Grampa Bernard’s Wisconsin farm in June of 2014. It is still in the Delsman family. Howard Delsman, the son of William, the son of Louis, the son of Bernard Sr. ended up with the farm here. Louis is JB’s brother. Here is his account:

“I pulled into the place driving a nice SUV Lexus. They knew I wasn’t there for a  handout.They served us soda crackers with some cheese. Howard looked out on the farm and the memories he had all around him. He pointed at the old well beside the house by the lilacs. 

The maple trees he planted to dress the place up. His dreams of still replacing the old barn across the street for his kids. He had a heart and a love for everything around him.

“He is unique. His wife very special. They are good people, old people just being nice. One of their sons was there when we pulled in, and I think it was to make sure we were OK. When cousin Joe and his wife came in and said they knew Ron, and when they found out who I was, it was duck soup and all lots of fun. They had been back to visit Otto in Germany. Wonderful time they said. We were invited to come back and we will.

“It was strange in that my car just drove itself to their place. I was lost. Francis Creek doesn’t have a traffic light. Population, what, 700?

“Quite a few of these Delsmans are engineers here. Only Howard still works the farm. The Delsmans had family and love. Gramma Geraldine carried this on. A family was to be loved and protected. The Delsmans may have been slow to change but they did treasure their family. JB’s dad may have taken a hard stand with his sons. He was noted as a very strong man. Calling him a giant could have been something that referred more to his strong character and opinions. I can just hear one of his sons say in frustration, ‘He is so opinionated he can’t see beyond his German nose.’ When JB’s parents died they had purchased a large family plot in the Catholic cemetery in Manitovoc, hoping to be buried in the middle of the family they loved. However, times changed and by taking a hard line to changing times they ended up with no family buried around them, but alone, together having never totally embraced change. Hanging on to a past that no longer appealed to their family. A large brick home and a church with his name on it was not enough. JB’s dad hadn’t come to understand what it meant to live outside of Germany. JB, with Clara’s help, would be the one to take the next step in leaving Germany.”

And now, here we are. Here we are.

Bibliography

Brakenhoff, Sherri; Miller, Ted and Carole: NEGenWeb Project, copyright 2004; Catholic Franciscans, Franciscans in Nebraska: ch. 5, Columbus, Ohio, of 1890: http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/topic/religion/catholic/Franciscans/pages/pt1/fine0006.htm

Columbus, NE and its representatives; © 2006-2015 Columbus, NE and its representatives; History of Columbus: http://www.columbusne.us/index.aspx?nid=323

Donlan, Leni, producer; German Immigration, retrieved 2015: This feature presentation is the result of a collaborative effort between the Library of Congress’ Learning Page staff, members of other Library divisions and services, and consultants and contractors: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/german4.html

Falge, Dr. L.; Bio of Bernard Delsman: History of Manitowoc County Wisconsin,  1911-1912, v.2, p.261-262

Rose, Joseph; A brief history of Oregon vehicle fees and fuel taxes; The Oregonian Newspaper, Dec. 12, 2010: http://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting/2010/12/a_brief_history_of_oregon_vehi.html

Wikipedia, Panic of 1893; Economic depression of America: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893

Wikipedia; Columbus, Nebraska: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus,_Nebraska