1. Arent Jan Geurink, son of Lammert Geurink and Mijken Voerman, was born in Durkom (Aalten?), Gelderland, the Netherlands March 24, 1822.
-- This date is listed in Dutch church records and on Dutch emigration records. His son, Henry (Hendrich Jan) states in a letter to the Michigan Geurinks that his father's birth date is January 11, 1823. Arent's tombstone gives the date March 24, 1823. Because Arent lists his age as 25 when he leaves for America May 1st of 1847, I am recording his birth date as I am. The other dates would place him at age 24 when he departs for America.
-- The Michigan Geurinks have Arent's place of birth as Durkom, Gelderland, but I am unable to find a city named Durkom on a recent map of the Netherlands. Immigration lists state he came from Aalten.
He married Hermina Oonk in Lima, Sheboygan County, WI, August 31, 1854. Hermina was born in Winterswijk, the Netherlands January 19, 1832. She was the daughter of Jan Willem Oonk and Janna Gesiena Damkot.
Hermina Died June 10, 1904 Gibbsville, WI, at 72 years of age.
Text taken from a Sheboygan County newspaper obituary:
Mrs. Geurink, widow of the late John Geurink, passed away at the home of her son Henry, Friday, June 10th, aged 73 years. Mrs. Geurink was a pioneer resident here, being a survivor of the steamer Phoenix, which burned off Sheboygan in 1847. She leaves a number of children and many friends to mourn her departure. Funeral today (Monday). (Note: Arent Jan Geurink went by the name of John in America.)
-- "Likened unto an eagle, the Phoenix, a fabled bird of ancient times with all its gorgeous red and gold plumage, lived for five hundred years. At life's end, amid a nest of twigs and fire, the Phoenix burned itself on a funeral pyre. And then, as the story goes, with renewed youth and beauty, a new, young Phoenix arise and carried the ashes of the father to the altar of the sun. Legend states that the life of the Phoenix, and its dramatic rebirth from its own ashes, made it ma symbol of immortality and spiritual rebirth.
-- Out of the ashes of another Phoenix, the Steamer Ship Phoenix, there came a new and tragic beginning, the beginning of an important historical chapter in Wisconsin and Sheboygan County history.
