Bomgaars, Arie W. ("Ira"), 1863-1885

BOMGAARS, VANDERLINDEN, KOOREMAN

Posted By: Lydia Lucas - Volunteer (email)
Date: 7/29/2012 at 11:34:22

BOMGAARS.--In Alton, on Tuesday, July 14, 1885, Arie W. Bomgaars, aged 21 years, 10 months and 13 days.

Early last spring, Ira, as he was familiarly called, caught a severe cold while working in S. D. Thayer & Co’s. lumber yard at Ashton. This cold stayed with him a long time, and he had finally to give up working and take to his bed. After a siege of two or three weeks he was up and working again, although far from well. The 4th of last month he was married to Miss Anna Kooreman, and in a day or two afterward lay down upon what proved to be his death bed, his sickness developing into chronic pneumonia and finally into quick consumption. It is indeed a sad case. For a young man, to whom a few short months ago the future looked so bright and promising, to be cut down by the cruel reaper death is indeed hard; and the young wife, so soon left a widow. Every heart goes out in sympathy for her in her bereavement, and kind friends have done all in their power to cheer her and make the blow less hard to bear.

CARD OF THANKS

To the friends, neighbors, and citizens of Alton: I do hereby tend my sincere thanks for your generous aid, kind interest and heartfelt sympathy shown me and husband, Arie Bomgaars, during his sickness and his funeral services. The kindness you have shown, dear friends, is felt and highly appreciated. One of the last wishes of my departed husband was "Thank all the friends for their help and sympathies." Especially in behalf of myself and all the relatives do we thank Dr. Owens for the untired interest manifested and his every effort to do for my husband all he could to restore him to health. We feel confident that the doctor did all that was in medical skill to do. The consultations held with other physicians was done not because our confidence in Dr. Owens was shaken, but rather to satisfy others and have the satisfaction that we were doing all that was in human power to do. But our best efforts are unavailing. My affliction and sorrow are great. My comfort is the kind sympathy of friends and neighbors, and the sweet hope that my dear husband entered into the joys of his Lord.
Mrs. Annie Bomgaars.
Alton, Io., July 16, 1885.

Source: Alton Review, July 17, 1885.

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Researcher Wilma Vande Berg found his survivors in the 1885 Iowa state census, Alton, Sioux County: father Willem, mother Adriana, siblings Gysbertus (16), Willem (10), Emma (8), Lucie (6), Henry (4), Nellie (1); and his parents from an entry for one of their other sons in the 1925 Iowa state census: Willem Bomgaars and Adriana Vander Linden. She also found in the Alton Reformed Church records that he was the father of a baby daughter, Ida Annie, born November 13, 1885.

The Sioux County Cemetery Index gives his birth date as 1 Sept. 1863; buried in Nassau Township Cemetery, Alton.

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Additional information leading up to his death:

Alton Review, March 27, 1885:
"Ira Bomgaars has returned to Alton from Ashton, where he has been managing S. D. Thayer & Co.'s branch lumber yard."

Alton Review, May 1, 1885:
"Ira Bomgaars has been appointed manager of the skating rink for the summer."

Alton Review, June 5, 1885:
"Married, Thursday, June 4, 1884 [i.e., 1885], by Rev. J. W. Warnshuis, Ira W. Bomgaars and Miss Annie Kooreman."

Alton Review, June 12, 1885:
"Ira Bomgaars is having a long siege of sickness this spring. He was taken with lung fever on Monday, and is quite sick."

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And subsequently....

Annie Bomgaars remained a widow for 18 years. She married Gerrit Popma of Orange City in May 1903. (Alton Democrat, May 30, 1903)