Van Peursem, George D. Sr. 1842-1929

VANPEURSEM, KARS

Posted By: Paul Van Dyke --Volunteer
Date: 6/13/2021 at 20:33:36

Source: Maurice Times (6-13-1929)

Born: July 13, 1842
Died: June 6, 1929

PIONEER SETTLER HERE ANSWERS LAST CALL--FORMER RESIDENTS WHO ASSISTED IN FOUNDING COLONY HERE--SIXTY YEARS OF WEDDED LIFE

George D. Van Peursem, aged 87 years, a pioneer of northwestern Iowa died Thursday night at the Pioneer Memorial Home in Orange City. Death was due to old age.

Mr. and Mrs. Van Peursem had made their home in Le Mars for the past few years having an apartment at the Community Hospital. A few weeks ago when it was abandoned and the building sold, they moved to Orange City.

George D. Van Peursem was born July 13, 1842, in The Netherlands, and when a boy of fourteen came with his parents and seven brothers and sisters to America. They settled at Pella, Marion County, Iowa, where a large Holland colony was already established.

Mr. Van Peursem was married at Pella March 2, 1865, to Wilhelmina Kars, also a native of Holland, who came with her parents to this country when a child of three years.

To their union eleven children were born. Four preceded the father in death.

Besides his wife he leaves six sons and a daughter, Peter, William, Henry and Martin residing in the vicinity of Maurice, Reverend John Van Peursem of Zeeland, Michigan, Gerrit who is engaged in missionary work in Arabia and Mrs. Janettte De Jong of Omaha. There are thirty-seven grandchildren and twenty-nine great-grandchildren.

Mr. and Mrs. Van Peursem came to Sioux County in 1873 and took up land southeast of where the town of Maurice was later built. They retain possession of the land to this day.

They experienced the vicissitudes which befell the early settlers both in Marion and Sioux Counties. Mr. Van Peursem recalled landing from the Mississipi River at Keokuk, with his father, Peter Van Peursem, and trekking across the country when there was nothing but a trail and the emigrants in their oxen drawn wagons forded streams and sloughs.

Mrs. Van Peursem remembers when wolves and other predatory animals harried the stock of the early settlers and were a menace to women and children in their homes.

After their arrival in Sioux County, the Van Peursem's saw their crops devastated in the seventies by the inroads of the grasshopper. Dishearted by these onslaughts at one time they offered their holdings for $300 with the idea of returning to Pella.

Finding no acceptance of this offer they continued on the place and with better conditions, began to prosper and farmed successfully until 1900, when they moved to Maurice to make their home and in later years lived in Le Mars.

The funeral was held Saturday afternoon from the Memorial Home in Orange City at one o`clock, and services were held at the First Reformed Church in Maurice and interment was made in the Sherman Township Cemetery, Sioux Center.

Among those from a distance in attendance at the funeral were James Rovaard and M. Van Wyk of Prairie City, Iowa, Mr. and Mrs. D. De Boer and Mr. and Mrs. Will Nordzee of Monroe, South Dakota, and Mrs. Will De Jong of Greyhawk, Kentucky.