Earl Grant Sanem

SANEM HENTGES

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 10/14/2010 at 21:50:42

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Earl Grant Sanem
By Dorothy (Sanem) Levitt

Earl Grant Sanem’s father was Dominic Sanem who came from Belgium around 1885 and settled people understand his name, Earl used to say, ‘It’s like fishing-if you can’t hook ‘em, you can seine ‘em.’ That line helped with the pronunciation, but alas, not the spelling!

Dominic’s wife, also from Belgium, was Katherine Hentges, 1825-1903. By 1897 she was a widow, listed as such by R L Polk & Sons in their Sioux City Directory for that year. They belonged to the Catholic Church. Their children:

Nicholas Peter ‘Nick’, 1862-1917,

Peter Nicholas ‘Pete’, 1866-1944, and

Katharina Sainam ‘Kate’, She married Karl Elsner in 1891. They had nine children: Doris (Elsner) Lottridge, Genevieve, Leona, Edith and Edward, all of whom died early; and Rose (Elsner) Anderson and Lillian (Elsner) Anderson, both of Sioux City; and Catherine (Elsner) MacDonald of Omaha, Nebraska.

Nick was the first to arrive, coming from Antwerp about 1875. In 1892 he married Mary Linden. They had seven children: Marie (Sanem) Belknap; Benjamin M; John N; Geralda (Sanem) Grous, who lives in Easton, Minnesota; Genevieve (Sanem) Beraggren; and twins, Dolores (Sanem) Cheever and Francis (Sanem) Linden. The last three have been longtime residents to Sioux City. While repairing tracks, Nick was severely injured in the head by an oncoming street car. He never recovered from the accident.

Every five years, it seems, enough money accumulated to enable another member of the Sanem family to take off for America. Pete came in 1880 when he was fourteen. Belgians are noted for their beer-making and Pete followed that old-country tradition for all his working life. The Polk’s City Directory of 1886-7 listed him as ‘Peter Samin, brewer, S C Brewery, boards 513 Pearl’. That was five years before he married Mary Ann Maria Smith, 1873-1961, of Hubbard, Nebraska. Their marriage in 1892 lasted until about 1910 when Mary obtained a divorce and then married William E Craig, owner of a brass foundry off West Seventh Street. He died in 1947.

Mary (Smith) Sanem’s family roots were in Venango County, Pennsylvania. Her grandfather, Peter Smith, 1790-1863, fought in the War of 1812, for which service he received bounty land in Cranberry Township. He was Justice of the Peace and also a member of the Presbyterian Church. His oldest son, John P Smith, 1820-1897, married Nancy Jane Lynsey, 1833-1925, in 1858. They headed west in 1870 of Dakota County, Nebraska, where they homesteaded 120 acres. They crossed the Missouri River at Covington, now South Sioux City, on a pontoon bridge. Their children were: Morelda (Smith) Rockwell, John C, Ulysees Grant, Emily (Smith) Aldrich, Elvin D, Linia May, who died in infancy, William, who died in childhood, and Mary Ann Maria. Many of these people , as well as their children, lived and died in or near Sioux City.

Peter and Mary had two sons: Earl Grant, 1895-1981, my father, and Leonard, 1903-1978. Earl said he was born in a a house across form the Bekins Van and Storage barn. Around 1900 they moved from Sioux City, first to Chicago, and then to St Paul. In time they returned to Sioux City, going separate ways: Mary and her son, Leonard, to 1407 Silver, Pete to a rooming house; and Earl to the YMCA, to the red stone building on Pierce and Seventh Streets which no longer exists. There through the guidance of E C Wolcott, then General Secretary, Earl began twenty years of ‘Y’ work. During World War I he switched from exercising boys to keeping medical officers in top military form at Fort Riley, Kansas.

In 1918, Earl married Mary Elizabeth Bishop in the Congregational Church in Manhattan, Kansas, with an admiring Mary (Krousie) Bishop, his mother-in-law, looking on. With money saved from Earl’s salary, extra income form refereeing basketball games in places like Sheldon, Iowa, fees from donating blood on a regular basis, and additional help form a businessman named Johns, Earl and Mary bought the house at 1704 West Fifth Street. Dorothy Elizabeth was born in 1921 and Robert Earl in 1924. Dorothy recalls attending Roosevelt Elementary, Smith and West Junior High Schools; watching the parade when Charles A Lindbergh rode through downtown in 1927; eating a peas and cheese salad, luncheon treat at Bishop’s Cafeteria; and fixing up the Floyd Cemetery graves with bedding plants form Taggart-Bishop greenhouses where her Uncle Ned ‘Edward K Bishop’ was grower.

The family moved to Sedalia, Missouri, where Earl continued as General Secretary of YMCA. Drawing no salary in the depths of the Depression, he moved Mary and the two children back to ‘Gram’s’ in Sioux City. Sioux City days were over when Earl’s work as a professional fund raiser took the family to Oak Park, Illinois. Earl and Mary retired from positions at Chicago Community Fund and the Veterinary Medical Association, respectively, to join their children’s growing families in California.

Dorothy Elizabeth married Edward Levitt in 1945. They have three sons: Geoffrey who is unmarried; Dan who married Robin Monroe and is the father of two sons and a daughter, Matthew, Dustin and Rachel; and Paul who married Susanna Halpert and who is the father of Anna Livia.

Robert Earl has had a successful and long career as a petroleum geologist. He married Margaret Anastasia who has borne three daughters: Susan (Sanem) Fusselman, mother of Marci and Michael; Kathryn (Sanem) (Grieze) Stone, mother of Amy; and Barbara (Sanem) Russell.

Now 86 years old, Mary (Bishop) Sanem is the great grandmother of seven!