To Jean and Gene's Grandkids

 COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

(This information was compiled for Keith and Jeanie and may be used by all my grandchildren)

Maternal side:  Jean Ellen Plucker Straatmeyer

 

GERMANY:

 

                        All ancestors were born in Germany. 

                                    Harm Buus                     Ostfriesland

                                    Gerhart Ludwig Thaden    ?  (Perhaps around Aurich, Ostfriesland)

                                    Justice Gruis                   Herrenland, Ostfriesland

                                    Phillip Witte                  Lippe-Detmold

                                    Menne Albert Plucker       Uttum, Ostfriesland

                                    Henry Straatmeyer           Loquard, Ostfriesland

                                    Koert Wibben                 Dollartland, Ostfriesland

                                    Jurgen Bossman              Holthusen Krus, Weener, Ostfriesland

                                    Engel J. Poppen              Suurhusen, Ostfriesland

 

Family Heritage:  

            Great-great grandfather Witte was the founding pastor of two churches in South Dakota.

            Great-great grandfather Plucker accumulated a large “empire” of land in South Dakota.  960 acres was distributed among his children and he also gave the land on which Germantown Church was built.

            Great-great grandfather Straatmeyer left Germany to escape conscription into the army.

            Great-great grandfather Bossman helped to establish Turner County First Presbyterian Church in SD.

            Great-great grandfather Thaden had a strong musical background.

 

Dates of immigration:

            Great grandmother Witte was born in Fosterburg, Illinois, but all other great grandparents were born in Germany and emigrated in the 1860s - 1880s.

 

Mode of transportation:

            The only way to make the trip was by ship.

 

Route:

            Most immigrants from Europe landed at the Port of Entry on the East Coast.  From there, they may have taken a train to the Midwest -- probably moving west by wagon from Illinois through Iowa to South Dakota.

 

Reasons for immigrating:

            Ostfriesland is quite small.  In the 1800s, there was no way to make a good living there.  One had to work for the land-owner all of one’s life.  They heard of all the land available in America and wanted to better themselves.  Many families moved all together, in a group.  That is what we think happened to the Straatmeyer clan since no references remain behind in Germany.


PAGE 32

 

GRANDMOTHER:

Name:               Jean Ellen Plucker Straatmeyer

Birth Date:         November 25, 1938

Place:                Chancellor, South Dakota (at home on the farm)

Interesting Facts:

            Born on a farm, her father farmed with horses and milked cows by hand.  There was no electricity and no indoor bathrooms.  Early memories include watching her mother, father, and brother go out to pick corn by hand in the fall.  (Her sister (12 years older) must have been watching her.)  In the summer, the whole family would go out to the grain field to shock the bundles of oats so the threshing crews could go by to pick them up. 

            She remembers when her father bought his first and only tractor -- a Minneapolis Moline.  Later, her brother-in-law farmed the land after her father had his first heart attack.

            She was married at 18 to Gene Straatmeyer, who was in Seminary to become a Presbyterian minister.  She finally graduated from college (University of Alaska, Fairbanks) the same year her oldest child, Cynthia, graduated from High School.

 

GRANDFATHER:

Name:               Henry Gene Straatmeyer

Birth Date:         March 4, 1934

Place:                Chancellor, South Dakota  (at home in town)

Interesting Facts:

            He had a hard childhood.  He moved around a lot -- lived in Chancellor, Davis, Harrisburg, Sioux Falls, Alcester and Lennox.  His father worked on the WPA during the Depression.  When his father finally got a good job as a lineman on the REA (Rural Electric Association) their life got better.  

            He started working when he was about 10 years old -- at anything that would take him away from home.  He worked on his uncles farms, as a paper carrier, a bag boy in the local grocery store, an egg candler, etc.  He was a very good student, had lots of fun in High School and after he had gone to College for less than one year, decided to become a minister.  He was ordained when he was 25 years old.

            In 1970, the life of the family changed dramatically when they moved from Iowa to Alaska.

 

WHERE THEY LIVED MOST OF THEIR LIVES:

            South Dakota                              Growing up

            Minnesota (State Line)                 1957 - 1962

            Iowa (Colfax Center)                    1962 - 1970

            Fairbanks (First Presbyterian)         1970 - 1978

            Dubuque (UDTS)            1978 - 1986

            Tempe, Arizona (CCTS)               1986 - 1991

            Wasilla, AK (First Presbyterian)     1991 - 1999

            ??? (Retirement)                          1999 -

 

WHAT THEY DID MOST OF THEIR LIVES:

            Grandfather:        Presbyterian Pastor

                                    Seminary Administrator 

                                    Seminary Faculty Member

                                    Chief Operating Officer for Charles Cook Theological School

                                    

 

            Grandmother:      Homemaker

                                    Administrator (Literacy Council of Alaska)

                                    Administrator (Community Development Block Grants - Iowa)

                                    Administrator (Arizona Energy Office)

                                    Administrator (Valley Women’s Resource Center - Child Care Assistance)


PAGE 34

GREAT GRANDPARENTS - MOTHER’S SIDE

 

Henry William Stratmeyer (He refused to put the extra “a” in his name)

Birth Date:         November 3, 1903

Birth Place:        ??? (Lennox, SD area)

Interesting Facts: He became a Lay Minister late in life as well as a school bus driver.

 

Gertrude Bossman

Birth Date:         September 19, 1906

Birth Place:        ??? (Lennox, SD area)

Interesting Facts: Had only a sixth grade education as the oldest in the family.

 

Menne Elvin Plucker

Birth Date:         August 4, 1900

Birth Place:        On a farm near Chancellor, South Dakota

Interesting Facts: Everyone knew him as “M.E.J.” because there were so many Menne Pluckers.

 

Dena Margaret Thaden (Hendina Margaretta)

Birth Date:         October 29, 1902

Birth Place:        On a farm in the Lennox, South Dakota vicinity

Interesting Facts: Had two years of a three-year nursing program completed when she married.

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