Cleveringa, Frederick 1818 and sisters [Addendum]

CLEVERINGA, PEKELDER, POSTEMA, KUHL, BAUER

Posted By: Wilma J. Vande Berg, Volunteer (email)
Date: 12/22/2023 at 15:33:53

ADDENDUM - to the Cleveringa, Frederick 1828 and Sisters family history posted initially on 9/27/2018 of these BIOS has been received from Mr. Jan Pier Cleveringa of the Netherlands. His additions and corrections to the earlier posted narrative by Hester Vande Garde follow and are on this Addendum page.  His version of the narrative with corrections can be taken as verified as he hails directly from Holland and has done much research on the family.
NOTE: Since highlighting or similar notations do not work in this BiOS page's format, his additions and corrections have ((    )) around them.  

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Life and Times of Freerk ‘Fred’ Cleveringa 1828- and his three Cleveringa sisters.

The story starts with Freerk’s ‘Fred’s’parents in the Netherlands.
Biography taken from the book by Hester Vande Garde.

Klaas Pieters Cleveringa, son of Pieters Klaasen ((Dood))and Grietje Derks Cleveringa, the family took her name as a surname. (sometimes was done for inheritance purposes)

The following is a little history as has been told by their son Klaas Pieters Cleveringa born March 7, 1791. He was a soldier in Napoleon’s army, who was at this time Emperor of France and dominated Europe. Before 1806, Napoleon had made his brother, Louis, King of Holland. In 1803, he sold the land France had in the ‘New World’ to the then existing United States (only east of the Mississippi River). This war known as the Louisiana Purchase and is comprised of fifteen states west of the Mississippi river and is the land where most of us have our homes. The price was $15,000,000 or at about 2 and ½ cents an acre. We should be thankful that Napoleon let a future empire in the New World go to pay for the empire he wished to establish in Europe under the Bonaparte Dynasty. He recruited soldiers for his army from all his conquered countries to carry on his great campaigns all over Europe even to Russia, where he lost 250,000 soldiers; in the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig he lost 300,000 of his 400,000 soldiers in a few days. But the Cleveringa ancestor was not one of those for it was told that while the army was going through Holland, he hid for three days in a field until he was given up for dead, and was known as ‘Jan Dood’.

((This was Klaas Pieters Dood, in 1812 he was forced to serve in the “Grande Armée” of Napoleon and had to walk for 600 km to Nothern France, were he served in the 125th Regiment in the city of Amiens, 115 km north of Paris. In the summer of 1813 he deserted and walked the way back to Groningen, sleeping in the open air in the fields or haybarns. Back in Groningen he was hidden in for 1 year, in springtime 1814 the province was liberated. On Thursday 20.10.1814 Klaas married Klaeske Roelfs Torrenga, they got 8 children, two of them died at young age. The four youngest children all emigrated to Nort-America: Frederick Cleveringa and his sisters Grietje Jansen-Cleveringa, Zwaantje Pekelder-Cleveringa crossed the ocean in 1853. Sister Henderijka (Hendrika) Postma-Cleveringa emigrated 20 years later in 1873 and travelled with her husband and three children after arrival in New York through to Sioux County, were they settled in the West Branch. Hendrika was married before, her first husbands and the two children they had together all died. One year before the emigration Hendrika her eldest son Freerk married, he and his wife stayed in Groningen, Holland. Freerk was born before Hendrika married with her first man, Freerk’s father is registered as unknown.
Afbeelding met buitenshuis, boom, huis, gebouw

Automatisch gegenereerde beschrijving De Stoepen at Warfhuizen, Groningen, Holland
In 1811 father Klaas Pieters took the family name (surname) Cleveringa, as did his brothers and two sister. Their real surname was Dood, this was the familyname of their father who was married with Grietje Cleveringa. So in 1811 they took de surname from their mother when Napoleon obliged everyone to take a familyname and called themselves henceforth Cleveringa and so it was registered in the municipal administration.))

Now we are not sure to whom it applied because a member of the family of Jan of Freerk also knew the story but it was a Cleveringa.
Klaas must have been a young man with some spirit as we are told of the following incident: Young men from other villages were not welcome to come courting in the village where he was, and he is said to have thrown one into the sloot (canal). Maybe the young man wanted is girl. Be that as it may, he married Klaaske Roelf Torrenga on Nov 20, 1814. They resided in the town of Stoepen, in the municipality of Warfhuizen, in the province of Groningen.
Children born to them:
Grietje born Sept 28, 1815, ((she died in 1828 at the age of 12 )) before 1831 when there was another child named Grietje.
Roelf born Jan 31, 1916 (father of Klaas and Jacob) he died 1853
Pieter born Jul 20, 1820 ((died 14.12.1820, five months old)) before 1822
((Pieter was born April 5, 1822. He married in 1850 with Catharina Rietema ))
Henderika born Jan 1, ((1825. She married 1. Dirk Yjkes Sevinga, she married 2. Gerrit Postema and came to the USA in 1873.))
Freerk born Oct 28, 1828 came ((in 1853)) to the USA Father of William Fred, and Anna
Grietje born Aug 6, 1831 She married ((in 1853 at Warfhuizen, Holland, and emigrated three days after their marriage to North Ameica, Broer Willems)) Jansen, see the Bio on Broer Jansen for more on her.
Zwaantje born July 15, 1834 She ((married in 1856 at Chicago with)) Jan Pekelder, see the Bio on Jan Pekelder for more on her.
The first Grietje died and another little daughter was given the same name, to carry on the name of the grandmother. Roelf married Aaltje Alders; he died when his son Klaas was four years old and his son Jacob only two years old. The children were cared for by the mother’s brother. When 21 years of age, Jacob came to America, helped by the Pekelder’s who lent him money to make the trip in 1872. He arrived by the relatives who were then already in Sioux Center, Iowa. Jacob, in turn, helped his brother Klaas and family in 1889 to come from Holland by paying their passage money.
There was no information on Pieter, only that Frederick later had a son named Peter, very likely in remembrance of his brother, and who died by Sioux Center at the age of 18 years of typhoid fever.
The other ((three)) children came to America in 1853. Grietje was united in marriage to Broer W. Jansen on April 28, 1853, at the village of Piersburen, in the Province of Groningen. Twelve days later they went aboard a sailing vessel, and with them were, ((Freerk, and Zwaantje)), going to America. We wonder if they had converted their extra money into gold pieces ((they were poor people and had no money, poverty and their religious background was the reason for emigration)) sewed them on a belt which was then worn by the men under their arms, and if they had chests containing their other belongings. The Dutch were welcomed as emigrants because they were industrious, thrifty, respectable, and had money with them to begin in the new country.
The trip across the Atlantic Ocean took eighty days because of the storms and contrary winds, for at times the wind blew them back all what they had gained in three days. They must have had many anxious hours as they were tossed about and rocked in the cradle of the deep. We’re sure that they as devout Christians trusted in the Lord.
Finally arriving in New Yok, they then went on to Chicago, a trip that took eight days. They probably went to the Groningen Quarter which was already settled in 1848. South Holland had been settled in 1847 by people from Gelderland, and Roseland in 1849 by those coming from Noord Holland. The settlers were at home on the level, low-lying, and clay or dark swampy soil. They carried on dairying as in the home land and had a good market for their milk, butter and cheese. They also found it profitable to sell vegetables in American cities and thus began truck gardening raising cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, potatoes, onions, and other vegetables in abundance. The Dutch had a green thumb for that type of farming. Other occupations were carried on successfully, and money earned.
We knew that Broer W. Jansen (husband of Grietje) was a carpenter and helped after the Chicago fire, in 1871. Freerk ‘Frederick’ settled in Bloomington, IL. Zwaantje was married to Jan Pekelder on Jan 21, 1856, at the home of the Jansen’s and the next day they went to Muscatine, IA, where his company sent him to work in a newly built carriage factory. Hendrieka Married Gerrrit Postema, who was born on March 30 1838.
Frederick moved to Muscatine, IA, where there also was a Dutch settlement. He married Wilhelmina Bauer in 1869 or before. In 1870 this couple with their little six months old son, William, came to Sioux County, IA, traveling in a covered wagon. The settled on a homestead one mile east and a half mile south of Old Sioux Center. Seven children were born to them.
In 1872, Broer Jansen and his wife Grietje Cleveringa and their family of seven children came to Sioux county and settled near the Frederick Cleveringa’s on a homestead. They traveled in two covered wagons. The Jan Pekelders came to Sioux Center in 1872.
Mr. and Mrs. Gerrit ((Henderijka) Postema with two daughters and their son came to Sioux Center in 1873, they emigrated some months before from Holland,)) and settled two miles east and a half mile south of Old Sioux Center. They had ((three children (Klaassien (1862), Geertruida (1863) and Tjeerd (1864) )).
They moved to North Dakota later where she died. Gerrit then married Anna Wolf, who preceded him in death on March 23, 1920. Mr. Postema died at the home of William Cleveringa, Sr. on November 3, 1921.
The following is a translation of an article taken from the Dutch paper, ‘De Volksvirend’, about the 60th wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. John Pekelder, Mrs.Pekelder was Zwaantje Cleveringa. It included the interesting history:
Jan Pekelder was born in Uithuisermeeden, Groningen, Netherlands in 1830, and his wife four years later at Warfhuizen, in the same province. In May 1853, when he was 23 years old, he had his first great adventure in coming to America on a sailing vessel. The crossing took 42 days. During a bad storm they were nearly ship wrecked when the mast and sails were all blown down. His wife, when still Zwaantje Cleveringa sailed a month later along with her brother Frederick and sister Grietje (( (not with sister Hendrieka, she arrived in 1873). ))Their voyage lasted 80 days because of storms and contrary winds. All arrived safely on the American shore and proceeded to Chicago. There Pekelder found employment in a carriage factory. Zwaantje was also employed for three years.
They experienced the grace of God in their lives a second time when they were spared during the cholera epidemic of 1850s. Each day during a six week period an average of 150 died. Pekelder was working on a 400 acre farm for his brother in law; it was haying time and many were working there and 14 of those died and also his nephew.
Chicago had a population of 80,000 in those days…………………………..