STRASMA
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The Frisians: How the Stroosmas Became Strasmas
The Strasma family originated in the area of the
Netherlands known as Het Bildt, located on the North Sea coast. The
coastal area is an intertidal zone -- the Waddenzee -- between the string of
Frisian islands and the coast of the Netherlands.
The land of Het Bildt was reclaimed from the Waddenzee
tidal area beginning in the 14th Century when dikes were first built to
protect the coast villages. This increased the natural silting that
was gradually building up the land in the tidal area.
In the early 1500s, a ten-mile long dike was built to
permanently protect the land and Het Bildt was established with three
principal villages, including Sint Anne or Sint Annaparochie. The dike
was built by hand by a large work force, largely drawn from the south of
Holland, and many of the workers settled in the newly protected area.
(Two parallel, taller dikes built over the centuries have reclaimed more
land from the Waddensee.)
The inhabitants of Het Bildt speak a Dutch dialect called
Bildts that is a blend of the Dutch spoken by the south Hollanders and the
Frisian spoken in the nearby coastal region. (The Bildts name for the
village is Sint Anne, which reflects the family tradition for the Strasma
home town, St. Annes, whereas the “map” name, in Dutch is Sint
Annaparochie.)
Sint Annaparochie’s place in in history came when the
artist Rembrandt von Rijn married Saskia von Uylenburgh in the church there
in 1634, although the original church has since burned.
The first family member to bear the family name Stroosma
was Pieter Beerends Stroosma who was born 24 Apr 1763 in the neighboring
village of Sint Jacobiparochie. He was the son of Berent Piers (Stroo)
and Trijntje Pieters, and the family has been traced back for two additional
generations.
According to the Wikipedia article on Dutch names, family
names or surnames were not required until 1811 when Napoleon occupied the
Netherlands. Beginning with the French administration of the
Netherlands, detailed records of births, marriages, and deaths were
maintained which are now available online at
https://www.wiewaswie.nl/en/home/.
Pieter Beerends Stroosma was married four times (after
the death of a previous wife), and our family stems from his second
marriage. (Jan Stroosma who visited us with his wife Baukje is
descended from Pieter’s first marriage.)
Pieter’s second marriage was to Dieuwke Jacobs Borger,
who was born 25 Jan 1767 in Sint Annaparochie. They were had
four children, two daughters and two sons. The younger son, Jacob
Pieters Stroosma, is our ancestor, and he was born 6 Nov 1805. His
mother, Dieuwke, died 9 Jun 1807.
Jacob married Froukje Klazes Hoekstra on 23 Aug
1832. He was 26; she was 23. The marriage records show Jacob was
a farmhand (a “boerknecht”) and Froukje was a maidservant (a
“deinstmeid”). Both had been born in Sint Annaparochie and were living
there when married.
They had eight children, three sons and five
daughters. Our ancestor, Pieter Stroosma, was the fourth child, born 6
Apr 1840 in Sint Annaparochie.
Jacob died 26 Jan 1879, and Froukje died 5 Dec 1885.
Pieter married Aafke Koets in Sint Annaparochie on 15 May
1868. Aafke was born 12 Jun 1844 to Yte Pieters Koets and his wife
Jannigje Hendriks Post. Pieter is identified as a 28-year-old workman,
and Aafke was 23 when they were married.
Aafke’s father, Yte (also listed in Frisian records as
Yete; another alternate spelling is Ijte) Koets. was married three times;
Aafke was the third child born to Yte and Jannigje, his first
wife. Her older brother, Pieter, was born in 1842.
Brother Pieter married Trijntje Haitsma in 1870, and they
emigrated to the United States in either 1880 or 1882 (records vary).
Both the Koetses and the Stroosmas settled in Danforth, Illinois (see
sidebar on why they chose Danforth).
The future had looked bleak for Pieter Stroosma in the
early 1880s. The farming economy in north Friesland was failing as it
tried to compete with imports from the productive farmlands in
America. Jobs were scarce for agricultural laborers like him. His
father, Jacob Stroosma, had died a year earlier, and Pieter - a “werkman” or
laborer - had his wife Aafke and three young sons to support.
Yete was the oldest at 11; Jacob was 4; and Pieter was
just over a year old. Their daughter, Froukje, has died four years
earlier at the age of 3.
(The children's names followed Dutch tradition in which
the sons is named for the grandfathers, although the order was
reversed. Usually, the first son is named for the paternal grandfather
but Yete, the oldest, took the maternal grandfather’s name (Yete Koets)
while the second was named for the paternal grandfather (Jacob
Strasma). The third son's name is from his father and paternal
great-grandfather. The daughter who died, Froukje, was named for her
maternal grandmother. Henry, born in the US, was perhaps named for
Aafke’s half-brother, Henry Post.)
The year the Stroosmas left for America was the start of
three decades of emigration from Friesland, mostly to America, which saw
almost 4000 Frisians leaving the Het Bildt where the Stroosmas lived.
(The 1880 population of Het Bildt was about 9500.)
Aafke's half-brother, Hendricks Post, had emigrated to
the United States 16 years earlier, found a wife who was native to Ireland
and was farming in a community called Danforth in Illinois. Danforth
was home to many immigrants, predominantly from Germanic areas, but a few
Dutch families as well. .
Why Danforth?
Since immigrants often located in areas where there were already family
members, I checked the 1880 census for Danforth for clues. (Aafke’s
brother, Pieter Koets, and his family emigrated in October 1880, too late
for that year’s census, but they, too, settled in Danforth.)
There were no Stroosmas or Koets, but one name stood out — Henry Post.
Aafke Koets mother was Jannigje Hendriks Post. Could Henry be related
to Aafke?
Sure enough, Frisian records showed that that Hendrik Spatke Post was born 3
January 1831 in Het Bildt. His mother was Jannigje Hendricks Post but
there was no father listed and Hendrik had his mother’s surname; apparently
he was illegitimate.
Jannigje married Yete Pieters Koets in 1838. Jannigje was 30 and Yete
was 21. Our Aafke was born 12 June 1944. (Hendrik Post would therefore
be her half brother.)
Frisian records show that Pieter and Aafke Stroosma and
their three sons, Yete, Jacob, and Pieter, emigrated to the US on 21 March
1881.
Passenger lists show Pieter and Aafke Stroosma arriving
16 April 1881 in New York with three sons, Jan, 11; Jacob, 11; and Pieter,
10. They traveled in steerage on the steamship W. A. Scholten from
Rotterdam. The ages of the Jacob and Pieter are clearly
inaccurate and Yete is listed as Jan, but, based on the Frisian records, we
can assume that all three sons traveled to the US with their parents.
(The arrival information is from a Dutch immigrant index, and the original
passenger manifest is not available online of verify the accuracy of the
information.)
The name change from Stroosma to Strasma took place
between the family’s passage -- Stroosma on the passenger list -- to their
first days in Danforth. Family tradition suggests the change was made
by immigration officials who misspelled the name and were not corrected by
the arriving family, but this may just be speculation. The first
record of the Strasma name is in youngest son Peter's death notice in
Danforth six weeks after their arrival in New York.
Unfortunately, both the Strasma and Koets families
arrived too late for the 1880 census in the U.S. and the 1890 census records
were lost in a fire, leaving us with no records before 1900. The 1900
census records show both the Strasmas and the Koets living as neighbors in
Danforth. The census shows both families arriving in the US in 1882,
but other references show the Koets family arriving in 1880 and the Stroosma
family is conclusively listed in the 1881 passenger arrivals.
In the 1900 census Peter Koets is listed as a farmer and
Peter Strasma is a day laborer. Peter Strasma's wife is listed as
Eva. (Note the changes in spelling of the names by that time.) Jerry
Koets, 23, is a farm laborer; Henry Strasma, 19, is an express agent, and
Eddy Strasma, 15, works in a butcher shop. The oldest son, Jacob, who
would have been about 24, is listed in the census for East St. Louis,
Illinois, where he lives in a boarding house and works as a laborer in a
rolling mill. The census record spells his name 'Strausma.' (The
1910 census shows Jacob married for 10 years to Dora and living in
Gilman. He died in 1912.)
There is some variance among official records,
immigration records, and family tradition concerning the children of Pieter
and Aafke.
Eula Strasma recalls that Pieter and Aafke did not marry
until a child was on the way, causing “consternation in Holland.”
However, the Friesland birth records show that the oldest child, a son named
Yete, was born 12 Nov 1869, about a year and a half after their
marriage.
Frisian records show the next child to be a daughter,
Froukje, who was born in 1873 and died less than three years later.
A second son, Jacob, was born 3 Dec 1876, about 3 months
after Froukje’s death.
A third son, Pieter, was born 22 Nov 1879.
The ship that brought the Strasmas to the US was the W.
A. Scholten, a steam-powered three-masted schooner which carried 50 first
class cabin passengers and up to 700 passengers in steerage. It began
service from Rotterdam to New York in 1874, and later sank in 1887 after a
collision off the coast of England.
The recollections of Ethyl Strasma Scott and Eula Strasma
include two sons besides Jacob born in the Netherlands -- Edward and --
perhaps -- Peter, and they remain somewhat of a mystery.
In a letter to Jane Strasma Randall, Ethyl wrote:
I do know there was another Ed (Grandpa’s -- i.e. Henry's -- older brother,
but he lived to adulthood, and then was in a terrible accident where he lost
a leg while trying to cross a train track, between two cars, and either died
then or soon after, as they then had another Ed (Grandpa’s younger brother)
after they arrived in America.
Could this have been the oldest son, Yte? Yte
apparently becomes Edward in English, as we see in the Peter Koets family.
Peter Koets and wife Trentje had a son Yte, whose birth
is shown in Frisian records on 5 Oct 1871. US census records list his
name as Edward Koets, born that year in Holland, who lived in Danforth --
and his death information lists his birth name as Yete. Peter and
Trentje had another son, Sjoerd, born in 1876, who became Jerry Koets, who
is the only child remaining at home with Peter and Trentje by the 1900
census.
The emphatic message of the accidental death of
Yete/Edward gives the recollection credence, although no records have yet
been found documenting his death. (It was common Dutch practice to
give a child the same name as a sibling who had died earlier. With the
youngest Strasma son being named Edward, this may be evidence that
Yete/Edward died between 1882 when Henry was born (and not named Edward) and
Edward's birth two years later.
Eula recalled hearing that Peter and Aafke lost a baby
during the voyage from Rotterdam to New York. We know, however, that
young Pieter arrived with his family, but that he died six weeks later in
Danforth with his obituary giving us the first record of the Strasma name
and the anglicizing of Pieter to Peter.
Once in the United States, Peter and Eva/Effie had two
more sons, Henry, born 22 March 1882, and Edward, born in 1884.
Eula recalls: Peter Strasma worked on section gang
for Illinois Central at $1 a day. Later he had a farm 3 1/2 miles SW
(of Danforth) as a tenant farmer.
Effie died of a stroke at the age of 69 in 1913.
(Her gravestone records her name as Afka.) Peter died two years later
at the age of 75. Both were buried in the Danforth Cemetery.
Addendum 1 — Henry Post, Afka Strasma’s Half Brother
Afka Strasma’s half brother, Henry Post, was living in
Danforth, Illinois, when Pieter, Afka, and their three sons emigrated in
1881. They apparently went directly to Danforth upon arrival in New
York.
An index of Dutch immigrants shows that Hendrik Spotke
Post arrived in the US in 1854 at the age of 23.
(The obituary of his daughter, Mary, states that she was born to Henry and
Catherine Post in Chicago on 27 April 1856. When she was 3 years old,
the Posts moved to Henry in Marshall County, Illinois.)
The 1860 federal census shows Henry living with his wife
Catherine and two children in Henry Township, Marshall County,
Illinois. The family is in the same household as John Kroodsma, who is
from Wandswerd in Friesland, about 6 miles from Sint Annaparochie, Henry’s
home town. Both Henry and John were born in 1831 and both came to the
US in 1854. (Henry’s emigration date is from an index of arriving
passengers, and John’s date is from the 1910 census — there is no indication
they traveled together.)
(Mary’s obituary states that the family moved in 1866 to
a farm one mile east of Danforth.)
By the 1870 census, Henry and his fellow Frisian, John
Kroodsma, had gone their separate ways. Henry was in Danforth, and
John moved to Wisconsin where he married Sophia in 1871. John and his
family later returned to Illinois, living in Ashley, Washington County.
The census records for Henry raise questions about his
marriages with three different names listed in succeeding decades. The
1860 census shows his wife to be Catherine and their two children,
Mary and Henry. (Mary’s obituary identifies her mother as Catherine,
as well.) Wife Catherine had been born in Illinois, according to the
census, but son Henry’s later census information reports she was born in
Germany. However, Civil War Draft Registration for Marshall County,
Illinois, three years later in July 1863 lists Henry Post, 33, as an
unmarried laborer who had been born in Holland.
The 1870 federal census finds Henry in Danforth, Iroquois
County, Illinois, with his wife Bridget, born in Ireland, and their two
children, Mary and Henry.
In 1880 he was still in Danforth but his wife is listed
as Amelia, also born in Ireland. (Researchers at the Iroquois County
Genealogical Society believer Amelia and Bridget are the same person - her
1901 obituary gives her name as Bridget.) Henry is listed as a
retired farmer, and his son Henry, now 22, remains at home.
Daughter Mary had married John Rieken in Danforth in
1878. (Her obituary states that she and John began farming on Henry’s
farm and later purchased the farm, southwest of Ashkum, where she remained
until her death 28 August 1842.)
The ages of the two children are inconsistent in the
censuses — however, Mary was born in 1856 and Henry was born in 1858, both
in Henry, Marshall County, Illinois. Mary’s obituary indicates that
she had a sister as well as a brother, but no further information has been
found.
Henry remained in Danforth until his death in 1889.
A one line death notice in the Iroquois County Times records his death,
attributed to dropsy, on12 April 1889 in Danforth. He is the
only Post buried in Danforth Cemetery (where the Strasmas are buried).
(His gravestone records his birth date as 3 January 1831, further evidence
that this is the Hendrik Post who is Aafke’s half brother.)
Bridget Post died 6 April 1901 while visiting relatives
in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, according to s short news item in the Danforth
Herald.
Son Henry Post died 8 March 1928 by suicide. [His
obituary indicates he was born 11 April 1858 in McHenry, Illinois (perhaps
Henry?) Oddly, the 1900 census records that he was born in the Netherland
and emigrated to the US in 1863 while the 1910 and 1920 censuses record his
birth correctly as Illinois.]
Addendum 2 — The Other Strasma Family
There is a family in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, that is
related to the Illinois Strasmas, although they have used several variations
of the original Stroosma name. The 1900 census records John Strasma,
47, and his wife, Kate, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1882. In the
1910 census the family name is Strausma; by the 1920 census, the name is
recorded as Stroosma; and in the 1930 census the name is Strawsma.
This appears to be the spelling the family has settled on -- Strawsma -- as
later records reflect that spelling.
Through reviewing Frisian birth and marriage records, I
have determined that John Strawsma was born Jan Pieters Stroosma on 3 Mar
1853 in Sint Annaparochie. We share a common ancestor in Pieter
Beerents Stroosma, although his family line stems from the first marriage
and our family line is from the second.
John Strawsma’s wife Kate was born Trijnte Rooda on 28
Dec 1851 in the neighboring village of Vrouwenparochie. She and John
were married 17 May 1877 and had at least 2 children born in Friesland. The
Strawsmas settled in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. John died in 1937,
and Kate died in 1936.
Addendum 3: Peter Strasma's suicide attempt.
The news story has a dramatic headline: OLD MAN
CUTS HIS THROAT and the lengthy news story, perhaps in the Gilman Star,
gives the gruesome details of Peter Strasma’s suicide attempt when he cut
his throat with a razor. “Despondency over ill health” was given as
the motivation. The newspaper reported: “For months the old man had
been confined to his bed most of the time because of rheumatism.” A
Danforth doctor was summoned to treat Peter’s injury.
The copy of the new story, from the archives of the
Iroquois County Genealogical Society, is undated but he is listed as living
with Edward and that Henry and Jake lived south of Gilman. Peter is
reported to be about 70 years of age, putting this event about 1910 and
prior to Jake’s death in 1912.
The news story provides an interesting detail about his
smoking habit:
Mr. Strasma had been an ardent smoker most of his life but had refrained
from the use of tobacco during his illness. He kept a pipe and a large
package of tobacco on a shelf near his bed and frequently looked at them
longingly.
“When it come spring and the days get warm and there is plenty of sunshine,
I can smoke,” he would say. “I am not going to smoke till spring.”
He would take the tobacco pouch in his hand, together with the pipe and
handle them tenderly and put them back on the shelf.
* * * * * *
Acknowledgements: The early genealogical information is from a family
tree prepared by Libbe Stroosma, Jan Stroosma’s father, in the
Netherlands. Jan’s wife, Baukje, handled the letter writing for her
father-in-law. Similar information was developed for Ray Strasma, son
of Edward, when he was working in Europe.
The Frisian records were first researched on microfilm at the Mormon
Church’s Family History Center in Naperville, Illinois, but those records,
dating from the early 1800s, are now online, indexed and full image,
at https://www.wiewaswie.nl/en/home/. The website has an English
version, but the original documents, of course, are in Dutch.
May 2016
Jan Strasma
rjan@mac.com