Henderikus Behrens (Berns)

DEGROAT, PETER, SEEDEN, HEUTON, JANSSEN, GOES, RABB, JACOBSDEGROAT, PETER, SEEDEN, HEUTON, JANSSEN, GOES, RABB, JACOBS

Posted By: Dick Onken (email)
Date: 12/11/2006 at 15:48:35

Taken from the Lidderdale Centennial book:
Henderikus "Henry" Behrens was born in 1872 in Aurich, Germany the son of Bernard & Elizabeth (Steinlagger) Behrens. Henry was raised a Lutheran being baptized in the Lutheran Church in Aurich. At the age of 23 he married Johanna DeGroat, she was a widow, age 37, with 5 children Margaretta, Dena, Rika, John and Hanna. Henry & Johanna then had two children, Elizabeth & Bernard "Ben" Behrens.
In 1906 the family boarded a ship for America. Margaretta, the oldest of the children, elected to stay in Germany. The rest of the children were ages 24 to 9. It was a rough voyage, taking 21 days, and Henry was very sea-sick on the trip.
After going through immigration processing, they went first to Illinois and then on to Carroll Co. Iowa, where Henry got a job on a farm. Somewhere in this time frame the name Behrens, was changed to the American version "Berns", and the Post Office told Henry he must have a middle initial, so he used "D" as the people in the area were calling him "Dutch." Hanna became very ill and died in June of 1906, at the age of 49. She is buried in Glidden. The older children started to marry, Dena married George Peter in 1907, while Rika married Harm Seeden. Then Hanna married Wm. Heuton. William died in 1915 and Hanna then married Dick Johnson in 1920.
Life was not easy raising an older son, John, along with Ben 10 & Liz 12. In 1909 Henry married another widow, Anna Brand Christiansen from Illinois, she had three children, Cecelia, Theodore and Jacob. The two older children stayed in Illinois but young "Jake" age 7 came to the new marriage. Anna took over the household and the children, and soon found herself expecting a child of the new union. Little Jake had already accepted Henry as "Dad". When Anna began labor, complications set in, and both she and the baby died in 1910. They were buried in Illinois, but Jake did not want to stay in Illinois, so he came to Iowa with "Dad" Berns and the other children.
Because Henry found it hard to farm and raise his family, friends advised him to get a housekeeper. So he advertised for a housekeeper in the Breda, Iowa, German newspaper. This is how Henry met his third wife, Tjadina (Dena). Tjadina was born in Pilsum, Germany to Henry and Nelke Bloem Van Briesen. At age 23 she married Conrad Erdmoed in 1904. A son, Henry (Hank) was born to them. In 1906 they decided to go to America. The went to Alvord, Iowa, where Dena had cousins that had come to America earlier. In 1907, another son Fred Conrad was born and in 1909 another son Conrad Fred was born. In 1911 Dena and her husband became ill with pneumonia. Conrad died Jan. 24, 1911. Dena was so ill that she was not able to attend her husband's funeral. Soon after, Dena found out she was pregnant. Dena was not having a good life. Some friends saw the ad in the German newspaper for a housekeeper, and suggested she answer it. So she went to Carroll County to meet Henry D. Berns, and he hired her. As in all small communities, people began to whisper about the "German farmer and his housekeeper" so on May 12, 1911, the were married by a justice of Peace in Carroll, Ia. On Oct. 4, 1911, Dena's baby was born. They named her Nellie Caroline Bern's.
Now there was John (25), Liz (16), Ben (14), Jake (9), Hank (6), Fred (4), Conrad (2) and baby Nell. They were living on a rented farm 2 miles east of and 3/4mile north of Lidderdale. In 1913 Henry and Dena had baby Hilda and then Habbe in 1915, Tenie in 1917, Fannie in 1918, Garbrandt in 1921 and Harry in 1923.
Some of the older children started to marry. John married Alma Bush and Liz married Jacob Peters in 1918m Ben married Anna Janssen in 1919 and Jake married Lena Janssen in 1923. During the years of WWI and then the Great Depression, times were very hard as people tried to hang on to what they had. Sometime before 1923, the Berns family moved to a different farm, one mile north and one mile west of Lidderdale. A year or so later they moved again 3miles east and 2 north of Lidderdale. Through the caring and sharing of children and tending the land, a deep love bonded Henry and Dena and the family together.
Several weddings took place in the 14 years they lived on the farm by the river. Hank married Mae Peter Goes in 1929, Nellie married Carl Jacobs in 1930, Hilda married Harold Rabb in 1932, Conrad married Anna Peter in 1932, Fred married Fern Knute in 1933, Fannie married John Bruns in 1936 and Tenie married Otmar Wenck in 1937. About 1930, Henry bought a 40 acre farm on the east outskirts of Lidderdale and moved there in 1936. Habbe died of ruptured appendix in 1941. Jake, Garbrandt and Harry all served in WWII. After the war Garbrandt married Velda Sparks in 1946 and Harry married Geneva Pollman in 1947.
When Henry & Dena could no longer take care of the land and orchard, they sold the acreage and moved into a house in Lidderdale. In 1961 the family celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. IN 1962 Henry died at their home and 1969 Dena joined him.