Henry died July 6, 1959 in Ringle Route 1, WI, in his home, at 89 years of age.
Funeral services will be held Thursday afternoon at 1: 15 o’clock in the Helke Funeral Home here and at
2 o’clock in the Forestville Reformed Church, with the Rev. Cornelius Dolfin officiating. Interment will he in the Forestville Cemetery.
The body will be at the funeral home this evening at 7 o’clock and until the services.
The deceased was born March 21, 1870, in Sheboygan County, the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. John
Geurink. He married Effie Jensema there Feb. 7, 1894. The couple moved to the Town of Easton in 1908,
where Mrs. Geurink died Dec. 28, 1928. He married Frances Holster July 5,1932, and she died Aug. 6,1939.
He was a former deacon and trustee of the Forestville Reformed Church.
Surviving are five sons, John, Jess, Elmer and Floyd Geurink, Ringle, and Hilbert Geurink, Aniwa; two
stepsons, Robert Holster, Town of Wausau, and Peter Holster, Hammond, Ind; three daughters, Mrs. Lester
TenHaken, Ringle, Mrs. Henry Nauta, Antigo, and Mrs. Wiebe Nauta, Woodruff, a stepdaughter, Mrs. Floyd
Geurink, Ringle; 25 grandchildren; 39 great-grandchildren, and 2 great-great-grandchildren.
Geurink Funeral: Funeral services were held this afternoon in the Helke Funeral Home here and at the
Forestville Reformed Church, Town of Easton, for Henry J. Geurink, 89, Ringle Route 1, who died Monday
evening in his home. The Rev. Cornelius Dolfm officiated and burial was in the Forestville Cemetery.
Pallbearers were grandsons of the N Henry, Roger, Truman, and Gerald Geurink, Victor TenHaken
and Harold Nauta.
-The funeral and burial for Henry were on July 9, 1959.
-“Henry was born with a club foot but after treatment he could walk quite normally. He went to school
and Sunday school with his cousins and good friends, the Pietenpol boys, John and Will (Hermina’s sister
Janna’s children). For his 10th birthday Henry was given a pocket watch. This 1880 model was wound with a separate tiny key. Predictions were that he ‘wouldn’t have it long’ but Henry lived to age 89 and the watch was still going strong.
One of Henry’s duties as a young boy was to pump the pipe organ in the Gibbsville church, which his
family attended regularly. The little pump room was in back of the organ and in those days of manually
operated instruments, the most responsible person to the congregational singing was not the organist, but the pumper! Since Henry manned this post for quite some time, we conclude that he was A-#1 ! Henry played the concertina and reports from his cronies bear out the fact that he did plenty of living as a young man! In his late years he would admit with a chuckle, that after a night of sociability that extended into the wee hours, he would catch a nap now and then at the far and unseen end of the corn rows he was supposedly cultivating! Of course with 5 sons of his own, it would have been poor strategy to admit these things at an earlier time!. . .
When Henry and Effie were married they continued to farm in the town of Lima, near Gibbsville. There
John Jess, Clara, Elmer and Ruth were born. In December, 1908, they moved to the farm they bought in the
Town of Easton, Marathon County, where Hilbert, Ora, and Floyd were born. ” *Taken from Annie
Geurink’s writing The Geurinks in America - Part 1.
*Text taken from Wausau newspaper obituary: Henry J. Geurink, 89, Ringle Route 1, died last evening
at 6: 15 o’clock in his home. He was a retired farmer.
-“The Geurinks and neighboring Will Reimes families came to Hatley by train in early December 1908, bringing cattle, horses, and machinery with them from Gibbsville, Sheboygan County. Rail service was excellent and reached every small town and daily mail was being delivered now along most roads, improving communications. The families spent the night in the Hatley Hotel and the next morning unloaded horses and wagons from box cars, filled them with tools and household goods and drove them and their cattle the ten miles or so to the waiting farms. It made quite a caravan! It was how settlers moved then and an improvement from the earlier covered wagons! Henry had not seen the farm since two years earlier. Then he had been negotiating with John Kemp for the ‘front eighty’. Henry also wished to purchase the back eighty’ which was the farm of Herman Ladwig, but he was not yet ready to sell.
Meanwhile a farmer named Fraedrick bought the Kemp farm. Two years later Ladwig changed his mind. Fraedrick didn’t wish to stay, so Henry was able to buy both ‘eighties’. But in the intervening two years the new brick house had undergone a big change! The day was far spent as the weary family turned into the long tree bordered driveway. The stock went on to the barn, wagons with household things stopped at the brick house, and Effie went in to investigate. ‘Home Sweet Home’ it was not! To her horror, dirt and litter were everywhere. Now, this Butch housewife who abhorred dirt in any form, was not about to move her household things into that mess! Why - what she had planned to be her ‘company parlor’ had been used to house chickens! Stoves were set up and spaces cleaned for the beds, but everything else must remain out of doors until a thorough cleaning took place, and so, the tired family slept their first night at their own farm. Next morning they woke to find it had snowed in the night and the wet clinging snow covered all their boxes and furniture remaining outside! Henry, who was economical with words only said ‘Then you should have heard Ma!’ Well, when things are so bad they are bound to get better. Effie’s home became one of the most admired in the community, and farming these new and fertile acres, in spite of the many stones, developed and prospered.
John and Jesse were teen-agers, Clara, a 9 year old mother’s helper, and Elmer and Ruth - the ‘little ones.’ In August of the following summer a new son, Hilbert joined the family and at exact 2 year intervals, Ora and Floyd. Clara had her hands quite full looking after Hilbert and Ora, so when baby Floyd arrived on the scene, Elmer - then aged 10, was heard to comment, ‘Well, they don‘t have to think I’m gonna take care of this one!’ Being youngest in the family, good buddies, Ora and Floyd mostly played away their days and got into mischief of which Hilbert, older and wiser would inform the family and at times punishment was meted out. One day, after a misdemeanor they ran and hid in the big horse manger. Time passed - or so they thought, and believing the day to be far spent, were considering spending the night, when Pa came in and said they had better come for noon dinner! Ora, who later told of their escapades said that Floyd got spanked his first day in school!
At the Geurinks arrival the nearest school for Clara and Elmer to attend was the Dewey School on highway 2 over 2 miles away. Henry and some of his neighbors felt there should be another district and school at a halfway point on Highway Q to accommodate a growing community of children, and also another road to make existing highways more accessible for children walking to school and for farmers hauling wood or produce to Wausau. For this they petitioned and through their efforts, the road now known as East Tower Road and the Easton Center School became realities. Henry served on the schoolboard as Director for many years...
At the farm routine chores began early each morning with Pa calling the reluctant boys from their beds and after milking, the small horse drawn milk wagon or sleigh was loaded with milk cans which one of the boys drove to the cheese factory. There followed breakfast which could include fried potatoes, salt pork or bacon and bread with its fat and syrup, oatmeal or cormneal mush, or fried cold mush and always all winter buckwheat pancakes begun in the fall with a yeast ‘starter’ base and added to each day until spring’s warm weather. These were baked 6 at a time on a huge cast iron griddle covering 2 burners of the wood burning kitchen stove. Then, cold or not, the doors must be opened to clear out the thick smoke.
Usually the women washed the milk cans and pails, in winter in the kitchen, in summer outside by the can rack in the sun. It was the most disliked chores of the day. Besides cows, pigs, and chickens in the Geurink’s diversified farming farm animals included 4 good work horses plus ‘Mabel’ a driver for the ‘Top Buggy’ in summer and ‘Cutter Sleigh’ in winter to take to church and which Effie could drive to ‘Ladies Aid.’
Horses were a prideful possession and it was a ‘big day’ when Jesse as a young man purchased his own red wheeled buggy and driver named ‘Pearl.’ Before that the young people often walked to church and community events, taking a short cut through Kraege’s woods. It was common for a young man to ‘walk’ his date home.
There were many young people and beside ‘Singing School’ at church they enjoyed socials and house parties, playing practical jokes on one another and for those who had them, ‘racing’ their drivers and buggies...
Henry, also known as ‘Pa Geurink’, was progressive as to new conveniences and in succeeding years was one of the first in the community to purchase the iron wheeled Fordson tractor, the first Surge milking machine, a Carbide gas lighting system and a party line telephone. AI1 party rings were heard night and day, and if there were three short rings, it was for the Geurinks... Pa Geurink purchased his first car in 1919-a Buick touring model with foldout seats on each side and called an 8 passenger. It was the grandest car in the yard of the Forestville Reformed Church on summer Sundays. This congregation was just three years old and a small church was built when the Geurink and Reimes families arrived and they gladly welcomed this increase in membership. Henry served as Deacon and Treasurer on the Congregation’s Consistoxy for many years.
The boys, now young men, each in tnrn acquired a ‘Tin Lizzie,’ the Model T Ford which reached mass production in the 1920’s. But as winters snow filled the roads, cars went up on blocks and it was back to horse and sleigh until spring when the caterpillar plow opened the main roads, side roads left for the spring thaw, accompanied by it’s ruts, mudholes and washouts.
Activities on the farm were full time for the entire family plus a ‘hired man’ and ‘hired girl’ during the busiest season, these, usually young people from the community. Silo filling and wood cutting were done in crews of shared labor of neighbors and during the 1920’s as farms improved, new basement barns were built under the direction of local carpenters, Paul Marten or his brother Ed, and all neighbors present, the men with pike poles responding to his ‘Heave Ho’ in raising the sides of the haybarn atop the basement. The women meanwhile were preparing the huge meals for the day, preceded by much baking of bread, pies and cakes. Eggs, cream and butter was plentiful and used lavishly. It was not unusual in a well used recipe to use a half dozen eggs and a pint of cream!
Ma Geurink set a good and generous table with dinner at noon, including huge platters of meat, with big bowls of gravy, potatoes, and vegetables, all home grown, home made bread butter, preserves, pickles, relishes and pie. In smnmer lettuce and potato salad baked beans and home cured ham or sausage balls preserved in layers of lard in a crock. A delightful new dessert in summer, if you could get it to ‘set’ that is, was jello.’ The only refrigeration was stone crocks holding an inch or so of water, set on the cool basement floor. Included in the family’s entertaining were visits of relatives from Sheboygan County who would stay a week - sometimes more. Seasonal trips were also made to relatives there. ‘Week-end’ was an unused term then. Visits were longer, required much preparation and an overnight stay at a hotel at a halfway point. The trunk must be packed and Clara often told of ironing the starched shirts, dresses and petticoats for days in preparation.
It compared somewhat with the ammual or semi-annual ‘housecleaning’ when every window curtain came down for laundering, starching and restoration on curtain stretchers sharp with pins and those with ruflles dampened and ironed with the appropriately named ‘Sad Irons’ heated on the red hot kitchen stove, this task no more popular than the beating of the carpets hung over the clothesline. The ‘younger’ family members delegated to this task usually ‘disappeared‘ when the grown ups turned their backs. Well, there was also plenty of fun, for Jesse and Elmer were great contributers of pranks and jokes. Sometimes they were themselves the victim, for instance, Jesse coming home much later than the approved hour, tiptoed up to bed in the dark.
Quietly he lowered himself to the bed, but moved during the house cleaning it wasn’t there! The fact that he was nursing a boil on his seat didn’t make the horrendous noise any less!. . .
With the increasing use of the Model T, social events became more widespread, including rides to Mayflower Lake and the Eau Claire Dells and to Wausau for shopping picture taking and movies. These along with the barn dances’ in the newly constructed hay barns were to those with a Calvinist upbringing rather ‘forbidden ground’ at that time, so occasional attendance at these was usually kept ‘under cover.’ Highlights of the summer were the annual July 4th picnic and the County Fair which have continued ever since...
1918.. .brought the devastating InfIuenza Epidemic which took more lives than the war. At one time all the Geurink family were sick except Henry. It fell upon him to care for them as well as the barn and housework The neighboring Shoepke boys helped with the latter. Loss of appetite hindered the sick family’s recovery, the all consuming craving was for pickled herring! It was no longer in season, so none could be found until Grandma Shoepke across the road shared what she had. This German lady, a pioneer, often endeared herself to the Geurinks, though she could not speak English! Grandpa Shoepke too liked to come on a winters day and spin yarns with Henry in the Geurink kitchen. But Effie abhorred his old woodmen’s habit of spitting his tobacco juice on the sizzling hot kitchen stove!
The community west of the Eau Claire River was an ethinic mixture, Irish and Yankee former woodsmen and first settlers plus German, Swiss, Dutch, Scandinavian and Polish immigrants, or descendants of, all, in diversified farming yet only occasionally did marriages take place then of mixed nationalities. The churches too retained their nationality language and with reluctance made way for use of English in worship upon pressure by the young people. John, Jesse and Clara learned their catechism and the psalms in Dutch, though it was rarely spoken at home. Beginning in 1916, childrens religious classes and on Sunday service began to be held in English in the Forestville Church. All the Geurink family, boys and girls were attractive and popular...
Mother Effie whose health continued to deteriorate, died in December of 1928...
Henry had been seeking the company of a 40 year old widow, Frances Holster, whose husband Charley had died the same winter as Henry’s wife Effie. They were married in July of 1932. Frances brought three children with her to the Geurink farm, 15 year old Annie, Robert or ‘Bud’ aged 11 and Peter aged 5. They adjusted to a somewhat more structured and formal way of life. Annie liked the piano in the larger and better furnished home, if not being called upon to milk more cows and wash more milk cans! She also for the first time ever, trimmed a Christmas tree in the Geurink ‘Parlor.’ The boys took on their share of farm chores and enrolled in Easton Center School. Meanwhile the country was in it’s third year of the Great Depression and continued summer droughts resulted in crop failures. High winds brought soil from the midwest ‘Dust Bowl’ through the Wisconsin atmosphere and gathered on windowsills and floors. Hordes of grasshoppers threatened to consume standing field corn, the hardier and only remaining crop. Government funded grasshopper poison was available, mixed with a bran base and spread by hand in the corn rows. Fires broke out and wells ran dry.
Milk production was at it’s lowest ebb and whatever could be harvested was fed to the cattle to keep them going, such as straw, marsh hay, and leaves from cut down tree saplings. Many cows and horses died from eating poisonous plants. Only strict necessities were purchased and that mostly by barter for eggs, meat or stove wood. Unless used in trade, eggs brought but 9 cents a dozen and veal calves 8 cents a pound Henry had the added burden of remortgaging his farm which had been paid for when he took over the farm of Jesse and Willy. . . With the added help now of stepbrothers at home, Hilbert decided to go on his own and went to work as a milk truck driver for his brother John.. .
The following spring (of 1936) Henry Geurink decided to retire.. .
Henry and Frances moved to a small home on Highway N purchased from Frances’ father. Not accustomed to retirement, Henry drove down to the farm most week days in summer to help with odd jobs and field work. He also enjoyed fishing with his sons-in-law and friends. Frances died just three years later after a long debilitating illness. Stepson Robert was now working for farmers and later for W.O. Nauta.. .Peter lived with Henry while finishing grade school and in summers worked for Hilbert, and afterward for area cheesemakers. They also in turn took vocational school classes in carpentry while doing short term factory work. Both served in the Army and both went into construction business as highly skilled contractors.. .
. ..1957 when Henry finally decided to sell the farm to his son (Floyd)... Two years after selling the farm Henry died in his home at the ripe age of 89. Members of his family cared for him in his home his final two years. His interest in the farm, family, church, travel, television and neighbors continuing to the end” *Taken from Annie Geurink’s writing The Geurinks in Marathon County.
Historical events during the life of Henry John Geurink:
Henry John Geurink and Effte Jensema had the following children:
