KOCH, Dora S. 1840-1939

KOCH, LUESENHOP

Posted By: Tammy (email)
Date: 11/4/2019 at 06:08:08

Mrs. Dora Koch, Oldest Woman In Dike, Is Dead

Mrs. Dora Koch, the oldest person in Dike and probably the oldest person in Grundy county, died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Mary Dubbert, yesterday. Old age and complications are given as the cause of her death. She was 98 years old.

Mrs. Koch was a native of Germany. She was born November 6, 1840. Had she lived another year and a half, she would have reached the century mark. She came to American when she was 11 years old. The family located in Illinois after coming to this country. She was married there to Fred Koch. The couple lived on a farm in that state a number of years after which they came to Grundy county. For many years they resided on a farm a half mile south of Dike.

Surviving are three sons, Will, Dike, Theodore, Cedar Falls, and Herman, Britt; two daughters, Mrs. Lena Hoerman, Washington, Kan., and Mrs. Dubbert; 14 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Her husband died 40 years ago, and a daughter, Mrs. Harry Horner, 15 years ago.

The body is at the Gange funeral home at Reinbeck awaiting funeral arrangements.

--The Grundy Register (Grundy Center, Iowa), 13 April 1939, pg 1

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Rites Saturday

Dike, Ia.--Funeral services for Mrs. Dora Koch, 98, who died Wednesday at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Mary Dubbert, here, will be at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Dubbert home and at 2 in Zion Lutheran church near Hudson. Burial will be in the Dubbert family lot in Dike cemetery.

Dora Luesenhop was born in Hanover, Germany, Nov. 6, 1840. She came to America when she was 11, making the crossing with an uncle and aunt in a sailing vessel. The voyage required six weeks.

The crossing was extremely rough and all crew members and passengers became ill except the captain and the Luesenhop girl.

She helped with the cooking and ministered to those who were too ill to leave their cabins.

Three years later her parents came to the United States and settled in Cook county, Illinois, near Proviso, 14 miles from Chicago. Proviso is now a suburb.

Dora Luesenhop was married to Fred Koch of Proviso in 1859. They came to a farm in Grundy county, one and one-half miles south of Dike, in 1875

--Waterloo Daily Courier (Waterloo, Iowa), 14 April 1939, pg 9