Tobe Janssen

JACOBS, EILTS, AHRENS, KUSCHEL

Posted By: Dick Onken (email)
Date: 12/14/2006 at 10:41:56

Taken from the Lidderdale Centennial book.

Tobe Harms Janssen was born in Ostfriesland, Germany, in 1854, and came to America, arriving in Baltimore in 1870. He joined relatives in Sterling, Illinois, for two years. His brother-in -law, Wilke Jacobs, was tusked by a boar and died, leaving his widow, Maria (Janssen) and two children, Wilkie, Jr. and Anna. Wilkie had previously bought eighty acres of land in Sheridan Twp., so Tobe accompanied Maria to Iowa to help her. Tobe bought 160 acres from the CNW Railroad for $4.70 per acre. Later, Maria married Gerd Eilts and they lived on their family farm east of Lidderdale. Anna Ahrens, born in Germany, followed Tobe to Carroll Co. and they married in 1873. Tobe and Anna and Maria and her two children were among the 43 charter members of Immanuel Lutheran Church in 1872. Two brothers, Christ and Ommo Janssen, settled in Ida Grove and helped charter the Lutheran church there. In clearing the land in Section 21, a huge stone was uncovered and upended to be a hitching post with a metal ring pounded in on top. It stands there like a sentinel today, watching the changes from horses to cars to tractors to combines to 12 row machinery. It watched the big red 1887 split roofed barn burn to the ground in June 1943 after being struck by lightning. It watched the building of the new white hip-roofed barn the same year. It watched the changing of the big white farm home built in 1889 as each generation closed in doors, windows and porches. John Henry Janssen was their son and heir to the farm. He married Augusta Kuschel and they had three children: Anna, Albert and Caroline. Tobe and Anna moved to Carroll to a home on the Lincoln Highway. Their house was razed after they died when the new Carroll post office was built.