WEICHERS, Dirk 1848-1925

WEICHERS

Posted By: Tammy (email)
Date: 10/29/2012 at 08:20:43

Dirk Weichers Is Laid To Rest

Dirk Weichers was born August 3, 1848, at Sued-Victobur, Ostfriesland, Germany, and died at the home of his niece, Mrs. Claus Hoodjer, near Wellsburg, Grundy county, Iowa, on Friday, December 4, 1925, at 7:20 a.m., aged seventy-seven years, four months and one day.

At the age of thirty-one years, in 1879, he emigrated to America, first landing at Ackley, where he made his home with his brother, John Weichers, then residing there.

Twenty-one years ago, in 1904, he took up his residence with Mrs. Claus Hoodjer, remaining with the family until his death.

In 1910 he was in South Dakota, as a tenant of one of the Frank Bailey farms, along with the Hoodjer family, when he suffered an accident which deprived him of the use of his left eye, and paralyzed his left side to such an extent as to render him practically an invalid.

So severe were his injuries that there was small hope of his recovering, but in the providence of God, it was granted him to move with the family back to Wellsburg in 1912, where he spent the evening of his life.

Mr. Weichers received a good religious training in his youth in Germany, and under the stress of his afflictions, the good seed of God's Word, thus implanted, bore fruit in a more perfect faith and trust in his Savior, and was a source of his strength to patiently endure this suffering.

This high Christian character made him not merely a member of the family, not only a friend and a brother, but he was venerated and loved even more than a father, which was shown in the loving care and kindly administrations of the Hoodjer family during his residence with them.

His last illness was about a week's duration, Mr. Weichers, being indisposed on the Sunday preceding his death, and his increasing indisposition made him conscious that the end was not far away. Pneumonia, complicated by his partial paralysis, was the immediate cause of death. In the last hours the deceased suffered much pain, which he withstood with fortitude and resignation, having accepted the will of God as his own.

"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."

He leaves to mourn, one brother, John Weichers, of Allison, Iowa; and two sisters in Germany, Trientje Ukena and Greitje Willis. Besides there are lots of friends and relatives hereabouts.

The funeral was held Tuesday, December 8, at the Wellsburg Reformed church, conducted by the pastor, Rev. William Landsiedel, who based his sermon upon the text from Phillipians 1:21. "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

The attendance was large, comprising many friends of the family who gathered to pay their last respects to the departed.

The pallbearers were Ehne Schoolman, Geert Hut, Jans Ohling, James deNeui, Eilert W. Knock, Anton Venenga.

Interment was made in the Hoodjer lot in the Wellsburg cemetery.

--Wellsburg Herald (Wellsburg, Iowa), 9 December 1925