Haan, John

HAAN, RIEMAN, BUUS

Posted By: Roseanna Zehner
Date: 7/21/2006 at 22:14:10

HAAN, JOHN

John Haan, whose home and farm are in Riverside Township, Lyon County, is still in his early manhood, and his industry, economical habits and upright life, are a credit to his race and blood.

He was born January 16, 1870, in Javerland, Germany, and the first five years of his life were spent in his native land, when his parents removed to this country, making indeed a vast change in the lives of their posterity, as well as greatly modifying their own condition. Germany is a land of liberty and education and law, but it has no such opportunity for ambitious manhood as Lyon County has presented in the closing years of the century.

The Haans crossed the ocean in a British liner, and effected a location in Grundy County, Iowa, where young John received considerable schooling in the neighboring district school. After completing his education he went to work on his father's farm, and for two years was employed as a farm laborer. In 1891 he became engaged in farming for himself in Pleasant Valley Township, Grundy County, and was married February 24, 1892, to Miss Bessie, daughter of Hie and Engel Rieman. He spent 1894 and 1895 farming in Butler County, and in December, 1894, bought a tract of land in Lyon County, described as follows: the north half of the northeast quarter of section 21, and also the north half of the northeast quarter of section 22, range 45, township 100.

In January, 1896, he came to Lyon and settled on this land, and in August, 1898, bought more land, as follows: the south half of the northeast quarter of section 21, and the south half of the northwest quarter of section 22, of the same range and township. He is also the proprietor of a farm of two hundred and forty acres in Noble County, Minnesota, owning in all an amount of land that would have made him an aristocrat in the old country, but which here simply lifts him out of poverty, and gives him an enduring competency.

To Mr. and Mrs. John Haan have come the following children: Alfred, born January 13, 1893; John, September 5, 1894; Henry, February; 20, 1896; Ella, March 8, 1898; William McKinley, November 25, 1899; Bertha, December 5, 1901; and an infant, born August 13, 1904. The father of John Haan was born October 12, 1825, in East Friesland, where he was reared to farm life, and where he married Miss Ella Buus in 1858. They had children as follows: Anna, who died when twenty-six years old; Henrietta, who lived to be nineteen years old; Lena; Hannah; Delia; John; Henry, who died in 1875, while still an infant. The grandfather of John Haan was born in Germany and served in the French Wars. He died in 1835. The grandmother of John Haan died in 1875. She was born in East Friesland, and her father also in East Friesland. He was a farmer and coming to the United States in 1866, located in Illinois, later making a home in Grundy County, Iowa.

Ella Buus, the mother of John Haan, was born in East Friesland December 7, 1835, and died February 25, 1880.

Hie Rieman was always a farmer, born in East Friesland, Germany, and came to the United states in 1868, and located in Illinois and married there; went from there to Grundy County, stayed there ten years, and then moved to Butler County, where he still lives in his sixty-seventh year. His wife died June 30, 1904.

Source: Compendium of History Reminiscence and Biography of Lyon County, Iowa. Published under the Auspices of the Pioneer Association of Lyon County. Geo. Monlun, Pres.; Hon. E. C. Roach Sec’y; and Col. F. M. Thompson, Historian. Geo. A. Ogle & CO., Published, Engravers and Book Manufacturers. Chicago, 1904-1905

Transcribed by Roseanna Zehner, Darlene Jacoby and Diane Johnson