Family tree familie Eilders » Jan (John) Jansonius (1846-1920)

Personal data Jan (John) Jansonius 

• He was born on September 8, 1846 in Oldemarkt, Overijssel, Netherlands.
• Profession: in Farmer.
• He died on January 23, 1920 in Ackley, Hardin County, Iowa, United States, he was 73 years old.
• He is buried in Westfriesland Presbyterian Church Cemetery, southeast of Ackley, Grundy, Iowa.
• A child of Frederick Jansonius and Hendrika Veurman

Household of Jan (John) Jansonius

He is married to Margaret( Grietje) Nymeyer.

They got married on June 21, 1874 at Goshen, Elkhart County, Indiana, he was 27 years old.

Child(ren):

1. Ida Jansonius  1888-1973 
2. Sarah Jansonius  1886-1972 
3. Kathryn Jansonius  1890-1956
4. Henry Jansonius  1896-1910
5. Arthur Jansonius  1893-1971 
6. Fredrick Jansonius  1877-1947 
7. Henrietta Jansonius  1875-1955
8. Gertrude Jansonius  1879-1904 
9. Ipana Jansonius  1884-1966 
10. Bertha Jansonius  1882-1964 

Notes about Jan (John) Jansonius

Jan Jansonius and Margaret Nymeyer were married in Goshen, Indiana. in the presence of her father and mother. The marriage certificate was signed by Aaron Nymeyer, her father, and Louis Meints.
Margaret was eleven years old when she came from Holland with her folks.
Jan and Margaret first settled on a farm in Grundy County Iowa, near to Westfriesland Church. The first four children were born there. The other six children were born on the Butler County farm near Island Grove.Henry Jansonius died of infantile paralysis in the summer of 1910, when there was quite an epidemic. His obituary is found elsewhere in the Jansonius scrapbook.

Jan( John) Jansonius was born of Sept. 8, 1846 in Oldemarkt, in Overjissel province, Netherlands to Frederick and Hendricka (Veurman) Jansonius. Theirs was a wealthy family. After his parents died an uncle became his guardian, and the boy spent some time in Rotterdam. Upon reaching maturity the orphaned youth became a commission agent(stockbroker). At the age of twenty seven John and a younger brother Hendrick (Henry) settled in the United States, bringing a sizeable inheritance to invest in American land. Property around the Dutch settlement in Goshen, Indiana proved too expensive ($40.00 per acre) so the brothers trekked to Iowa, securing more land at less cost in Grundy County. In 1883 John moved to Butler County where the children would be closer to school.

John had stayed in Indiana long enough , however, to fall in love with a Frieslander, Grietje Nijmeijer( Anglicized as Margaret Nymeyer) who had grown up about 20 miles from Oldemarkt, in the town of Balk(although they had never met in the Netherlands.) John married this eighteen year old girl and brought her to Iowa. This woman, Margaret, was born Oct. 21,1855, the seventh child of Arend Hendriks Nijmeijer and Truike BartsSietsema (Arend Henry Nymeyer and Gertrude Sietsema). The parents had moved to America in the summer of 1867 with seven of their eleven children. Sietsema ancestors had lived in Balk, Friesland, The Netherlands for many centuries, and the family had become prosperous gentry and mill owner. These great-grandparents, like many other European immigrants, sought prosperity for their increasing progeny by finding larger land holdings in the New World.

Church was very important in the life of this young couple. John and his brother, Henry, were charter members of the Westfriesland Church which was completed in June 1874, soon after they arrived. Margaret was homesick for her family, but with the arrival of her children, she waskept busy.

John Jansonius was a gentleman farmer. He bought and sold farms but did not do much of the actual farming. His son Fred did much of the farming before he went off to study law. John's favorite pastime was fishing. If it hadn't been for his large family, John probably would have been more of the wanderlust. In 1918, when Arthur Jansonius married SophiaPenning, John, Margaret and daughter Kate moved to town first to a largebrick house on Park Ave. then to a smaller home on 2nd Ave. Ackley. They lived in the brick one only one winter. It was so huge and cold.

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Timeline Jan (John) Jansonius

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