1. How Did Ed and Jennie TeGrotenhuisEnd Up in Colorado?
In 1908, a young couple named Ed and Jennie TeGrotenhuis, moved from a small farm town in western
Iowa to the western slope of Colorado. They traveled here with the first four of what would eventually
become 11 children, to join Jennie’s parents in making a new home in this beautiful country. That
endeavor went pretty well, as evidenced by the crowd of us that stem from the roots of that special
family tree.
As we prepare to gather in Colorado for our 2013 family reunion this summer, I’ve been looking over the
historical information pulled together for our 1991 event. I am so thankful to those who took the time
to gather up that story, dating back to our first American Sipma ancestor, Sjoerd(pronounced “zhooerd”,
and translates as “Stuart”) AukesSipma, who took the time to write two letters in 1847-48 that describe
in great detail his journey to Iowa and the conditions he and his fellow Dutch immigrants encountered.
Those letters are so rich, in fact, that they are cited in a number of publications—just
googleSjoerdAukesSipma and see for yourself.
The emigration story for our TeGrotenhuis side has been more of a mystery. We knew they did not
make their way to Iowa with the Sipmas, but little else about when and where they first settled in
America. A few of those bigger questions now have answers.
In this little paper, I’ve tried to pull together what we know about the TeGrotenhuis-Sipma journey from
Holland to the western slope. There are still some holes in the basic tale, so I welcome you to fill in any
of these that you can. And, of course, please straighten me out if anything here is just not quite right.
Alan Holt
Son of Alice TeGrotenhuis (10th
child of Ed and Jennie TeGrotenhuis), and Hardy Lloyd Holt
June 23, 2013

2. The Sipma Journey
Jennie’s grandfather, SjoerdAukesSipma was born on August 17, 1812 at the village of Bornwird in the
municipality of Westdongeradeel, in the province of Friesland (or Fryslan) on the Netherlands northern
coast. Bornwird (sometimes shown as Bornwerd or Boarnwert)today is a small village in the merged
municipality of Dongeradeel and has about 130 citizens (2004). Friesland is culturally distinct from the
rest of Holland. Even today, over 90 percent of the residents of this province speak the native Frisian
language, which has many similarities to Old English. Frisian was primarily an oral language from the
time the Saxon conquest of Friesland established Dutch as the official language in the 15th
century, until
the 19th
century when Frisian literature blossomed anew.Sjoerd would have conducted business,
writing, and conversation with non-Frisian Dutch immigrants in the national High Dutch language, and
spoken Frisian with his family and Frisian neighbors.
Sjoerd was a son of AukeSipkesSipma and YttjeRitskesReitsma. He worked as farmhand and market
gardener at a time when work was scarce, severe hunger was the norm, and the prospect of owning or
even leasing farmland was far out of reach for most families in the Netherlands. These hard times were
the result of a war that split off the wealthy, industrialized southern portion of the Netherlands to form
Belgium, leaving the north more dependent on agriculture at a time when the potato blight was wiping
out this major food source much as it did in Ireland. The war also burdened the people with massive
taxation to replenish the national treasury. At the same time, Sjoerd’s community struggled under
religious oppression. The Dutch monarchy had claimed control over the church after the defeat of
Napolean in 1814, and by the 1840’s the failures of this nationalized church had given rise to a strong
and widespread “dissenters” movement. The government, in turn, clamped down on these religious
dissenters, preventing them from organizing their own churches and jailing their ministers. These two
forces—desperate poverty and religious persecution—drove thousands of Dutch families to organize
emigration “associations” in which they pooled their resources to form new communities in South
Africa, the East Indies, America, and elsewhere. (See the appendix below for more on this subject.)
Less than a month before emigrating to America, Sjoerd married JantjeSjoukjes de Vries. She was born
on June 6, 1819 at Engwierum in the municipality of Oostdongeradeel, a daughter of SjoukjeRuurds de
Vries, a labourer. Together, Sjoerd and Jantje left Friesland on April 3, 1847 to go to America in search
of a better life. Sjoerd’s sister Heiltje and her husband HierkeYpesVierson were part of this same
emigrant group. (His brother Ritske joined Sjoerd in Iowa in 1853 and raised a large family there. His
eldest brother SipkeAukesSipma left Holland to join his siblings years later, at the age of 70, but died
during the voyage. Three other siblings—Grietje, Jeltje, and Iltje—never left Holland.) After a grueling
but successful ocean voyage they arrived in Baltimore on June 11, 1847 and on August 31, 1847 in the
open prairie that would become Pella, Iowa. The details of this journey are described in Sjoerd’s letters
home, which are attached below. These two letters* warrant a close and careful read by any family
member, for they say a lot not only about the times and the country, but about the character of the man
we all share as a common “first American” ancestor. They speak of dedication to family and
community, open-mindedness to strangers, and the quiet boldness to build a living out of virtually
nothing other than hard work, careful preparation, and skilled execution in harmony with his neighbors.

3. As they helped establish the first Dutch community and surrounding towns in the eastern part of Iowa,
Sjoerd and Jantje had three children, Ietje, Auke (died in infancy), and Jan (John). Jantje died sometime
after the birth of John before 1856. Sjoerd remarried in 1857 to Boukje (or Bertha)BoonstraBrunia, a
widow with one daughter, Tryntje. Sjoerd and Boukje would have six more children together. Sjoerd
made his living as a farmer and by buying and selling land. He was well-respected in his community, as
evidenced by the fact that he was chosen along with three other men to set out in 1869 to inspect lands
available for homesteading further west. The scouting party filed claims for about 80 families over
17,920 acres of land near the settlement of Cherokee in far northwestern Iowa, not far from the
Missouri River and the Nebraska border. (A record of their exploration describes the mayhem in the
streets in front of the land claims office in Sioux City, where men ran foot-races to determine who would
win a disputed claim. The well-organized Dutch party arranged with the land office agent to meet at the
back door to the office that evening to file their large claims, apparently in recognition of the benefit to
the country that would come from the establishing an orderly Dutch community. Or was the land agent
a cousin?) Their claims in hand, they moved west by wagon in 1870, and established the new
community of New Holland, later renamed Orange City, as well as other towns over the coming years.
Other Dutch families from Iowa, Holland, and from Dutch settlements elsewhere in the U.S. joined the
new community in northwest Iowa, and among these was the family of Ed TeGrotenhuis. More on the
TeG’s later.
Sjoerd never regretted his decision to leave Friesland as is witnessed in his many letters to the country
of his birth. But leaving had been difficult for him.A short fragment from one of his letters:
Now a few words for you, my elderly father, if you are still alive. For you to come here would
probably not be good, you would likely not complete the voyage. Parting from you was difficult
for me, much more difficult than I let on at the time. I would wish to be with you, Father, and
with my brothers and sisters, but I would not wish to return to Friesland. O Father, should our
names be written in the Book of Life, about which from this side of the grave we know but little,
then we will see each other again in the heavenly Jerusalem where there is no mourning or tears;
then all our tears will have been wiped away.
Sjoerd’s second wife Boukje—the mother of our ancestor John Sipma—died in 1884. Sjoerd married for
a third time, to KaatjeDeBoer. Upon his death in 1896, Sjoerd was buried next to Boukje in the
Westlawn Cemetery in Orange City. He left behind 63 grandchildren.
By the time his parents moved the family western Iowa in 1870,JohnSipma was a young man of 18,
raised on the hard work of creating a self-sufficient farm from Iowa’s tallgrass prairie. Undoubtedly, a
man’s share of work fell to him in this new push west.
While we don’t know the year of their marriage, by 1878, John’s bride Dena Harmson (5 years his junior)
gave birth to Jennie (or June in Dutch), followed by Nettie (Antonia) in 1879, Edith (Eatje) in 1881, Gerrit
in 1886, Stuart (Sjoerd) in 1888, and Edward in 1891. Somewhere along the way, John and Dena moved
to the new town of Hospers, about 50 miles northeast of Orange City in Sioux County, and built a

4. prosperous hardware business to support their growing family. Four months after his 50th
birthday in
1902, John’s eldest child, Jennie, married Ed TeGrotenhuis.
The TeGrotenhuis Story
Ed TeGrotenhuis was the seventh child of Evert Jan TeGrotenhuis and Bernedine(or Bernendina)Aleida
(sometimes abbreviated as B.D.A.)Rensink. Evert (born March 5, 1832) and Bernedine(born June 27,
1839) had joined the wave of emigrants leaving Holland to escape the poverty and religious persecution
of the mid-19th
century. Unlike the Sipmas, the TeGrotenhuis’ were from the municipality of Aalten in
the province of Gelderland in the central-east part of the Netherlands, immediately adjacent to the
German border. It is likely that their first language was Dutch, and certainly not the Frisian of their
Sipma in-laws.
The TeGrotenhuises immigrated to America in 1866, according to Bernedine’s obituary. I haven’t found
any details of their journey, nor any record of where they first settled in America other than Aunt Mabel
Barton’s 1991 reunion letter indicating that they first settled in Michigan. Michigan was a popular
destination for Gerlanders (along with New York and Wisconsin). According to the 1880 and 1885
census for West Branch Township,Sioux County, Iowa their three oldest sons were Gerrit Jan born in the
Netherlands in 1865, Hendrick born in Wisconsin in 1867, Dirk Willem born in Wisconsin in 1868, and
Willem born in Wisconsin in 1872. Dirk Willem’s birthplace is listed as Waupun, Dodge County,
Wisconsin, and another sibling was born in nearby Cedar Grove, Sheboygan County, suggesting the
family lived in more than one location during their five years in Wisconsin. Evert and Bernedina moved
the family to Iowa in 1872 and their seventh child Edward John was born in Sioux County in 1876. (Ed
had three other siblings: John, Jane, and Mina, also born in Iowa.) When he married Jennie, Ed was
nearly 24 years old. He built a house and a successful blacksmithbusiness in Hospers, within blocks of
the Sipmahome and hardware store.
The Move to Colorado
By 1903, JohnSipma’s father Sjoerd had passed away (1896). With his three daughters now marrying
and his three sons in their teens, John, together with a number of other Holland families, began to
explore new opportunities further west. He fell in love with western Colorado, and much to the
exasperation of his dear wife, John sold theirpleasant Hospers home and successful business to finance a
new start west of the Rockies near Crawford. I have no record of their journey from Iowa to Colorado,
but presumably some portion of it was by train, perhaps from Omaha to Grand Junction, and then by
wagon to Crawford. I also do not know if their younger boys—Gerrit, Stuart, or Edward—joined their
parents in the move to Colorado or remained in Iowa. They lived at first on a fruit ranch owned by a
fellow Hollander (Van Zyles, according to Uncle John’s 1991 reunion letter), before moving to their own
homestead 10 miles from Crawford where John cleared sage and cedar, built a simple four-room cabin,
and planted a fruit orchard of his own.

5. In 1908, Ed and Jennie left Iowa to join Jennie’s parents in Colorado, bringing with them the first four of
their children (John, Dena, Nettie, and Mabel). Again, we know little about their journey, although we
can again assume they travelled by train and wagon, and perhaps that they would have waited until the
late summer to make the journey since Mabel, the youngest, had just been born in February. Jennie’s
sister Nettie and her husband William Den Beste also moved to Crawford(as did her sister Edith and her
husband Jim Teeslink?), thus putting in place the foundation for the renown TeGrotenhuis/Den Beste
choirs, quartets and general sing-alongs our TeGrotenhuis parents talked of so often. This and the rest
of their Colorado stories are told in their children’s memories, and in the letters some wrote for the
1991 reunion, and of course, in the marks they each made on the communities they helped to build.
“Must” reading for our clan members:
1. Two letters written in 1847-48 fromSjoerdAukesSipma to the “instructor of youth” in Bornwerd,
Friesland, together with the introduction to their publication in Holland by said instructor,
JellePelmulder (who would later join the Dutch settlements in Iowa and be among the four men
selected to scout new homesteads in western Iowa together with Sjoerd in 1869). (I have pdf of
these letters.)
2. Overview of Sipma history prepared by our cousins Henry and Thessa Sawyer in 1975. (I have
pdf of this document.)
3. Obituary of SjoerdAukesSipma from the January 22, 1896 edition of the Sioux County Herald,
Orange City, Iowa. Includes a photo of Sjoerd. On the web at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-
bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=18565731
4. Jacob Van der Zee (1912) Hollanders in Iowaat
http://www.iagenweb.org/sioux/books/hollanders/hollanders_26.htm
This publication (from 1912) offers a deeper look at the Holland that our ancestors left behind,
their motivations for doing so, and the vigorous growth of the Iowa communities they founded.
The excerpt below describes the conditions in the very region of Holland from which ourSipma
ancestors emigrated. What’s more, our ancestor SjoerdAukesSipma was a “farm laborer”,
whose general plight in Holland is specifically described below:
Most of those who are coming over now are from Friesland. They come here as a land of refuge
from conditions which have grown intolerable in their home land. There opportunity has
departed, and to remain means that a man must ever be a plodder. Of course, over-population
enters into the question. In such a crowded country there is no chance for that spirit which we
call over here "get up and get". There is no chance for fortune to smile, and there is no incentive
to develop the land which one does not own.
Holland is becoming a country for the well-to-do. The rich own much of the land. The land is
nearly all in their hands. If by chance there is a piece of land, the farmer must bid for it. When a
piece of land is vacant, which is not often, it is advertised for about a week and a date is set for
renting it. The lease is then practically sold at auction. One farmer will make an offer for the

6. property and another will raise the price a bit. And so it will go until finally it is a question
whether the man who obtains possession is really the fortunate bidder. The price is run up to
such a figure that one may perhaps make a living, but as to making more, never.
Now, if this holds for the farmer, the man generally who has inherited some money or a lease, or
who has slowly climbed the ladder by the hardest kind of work, work that bows the shoulders in
age and in time turns a man into a dull plodding fellow, what chance has the farm laborer, the
honest, hard-working man who has seen the sun rise and set in the fields as long as he can
remember? His chance of becoming a leaseholder is reduced to a minimum, and he has hardly a
chance of ever becoming a landowner.
Is it to be wondered at that these men are turning to the United States; that they are coming
here filled with an ambition to succeed? Could a more desirable class knock at the gateway of
the New World? I crossed the Atlantic with several hundreds of my countrymen and I was proud
of them every knot of the way. They combine thrift with a capacity for the hardest kind of work,
and they are seldom discouraged. They were born to fight for existence in crowded Holland, and
that is the spirit they bring with them across seas.
5. Robert P. Swierengen, The Western Michigan Dutch, from a 2004 talk by the author. (This paper
gives some idea of the Michigan settlements that our TeGrotenhuis ancestors may have
encountered as they settled in nearby Wisconsin before moving on to Iowa. On the web at
http://www.swierenga.com/hgspap1204.html
6. Greetings from America 7—A bit more info on Sjoerd, including this comments: “A number of
these letters [from SjoerdAukesSipma to relatives in Friesland] have been saved and those who
remained in Friesland have published them in an historically worthwhile booklet. Sipma can
rightfully be named as one of the most important pioneers that came from Friesland and
worked so hard to build the American midwest.” The booklet including the letters may be the
Dutch language publication shown on Amazon.com when you search for SjoerdAukesSipma.
Would be great to get these translated. Greetings from America 7 is on the web at:
http://iagenweb.org/marion/GROETEN/English_GROETEN/GroetenTrans_7.htm
Most intriguing family mystery: Who was the American farmer who gave SjoerdAukesSipma a house to
live in and a job after a pennilessSjoerd lost many of his belongings in a house fire as winter was setting
in during his first months in Iowa? (See his first letter from Iowa to Friesland.)Since we’ll probably never
know, I guess our only way of repaying this incredible favor is to ‘pay it forward’ to some other stranger
in need.
Grave Sites and Obituaries:
Grave of SjoerdAukesSipma and Boukje (Bertha) BoonstraSipma--Visit the West Lawn Cemetery,
Florida Ave. NW at 6th St. NW, Orange City, Sioux County, Iowa. North Center Section, Row 22.

7. Grave of Evert Jan and B.D.A. TeGrotenhuis—Visit the Newkirk Cemetery, (cemetery of the First
Reformed Church of Newkirk (Hospers), Iowa, which lies less than a mile south of the church on
Road 400 west of Hospers. Middle section, row 3 from east side.
From the Alton Democrat of Oct 19, 1901 .Hospers News.
Died at his home in Newkirk on Thursday E. J. Grootenhuis at the age of sixty nine years.Bruial
services were held from the Dutch Reformed church at Newkirk of which he has been elder for
almost twenty years. He was a good Christian man and was respected by all who knew him.
From the Sioux County IA cemetery index and from ancesty.com accounts. Evert Jan
TeGrotenhuis born 15 Mar 1832 Lintelo, Aalten Geld. Neth, died 15 Oct 1901 Floyd Tsp. Sioux
Co. IA. His parents were - Jan HendrikTeGrotenhuis and AleidaReimes. He and wife were buried
in the Newkirk cemetery. He married BerendinaAliedaRensink Sep 11, 1862 at Aalten Geld.
Neth. She was born Jun 27 1839 and died 2 Jan 1912. Their children were - Johanna 1863, Gerret
1865, Henry 1867, Dirk 1872, Johan 1874, Jan 1877, Jennie 1878, and Jane 1879.
From the Alton Democrat of Jan 6, 1912 .(A family picture appeared)
Mrs. Evert J. TeGrotenhuis died at her home near Newkirk Iowa on Tuesday January 2nd of
ailments brought on by old age. Mr. [Mrs.?]TeGrotenhuis was born at Aalten, province
Gelderland, Netherlands on June 27, 1839. In 1866 she came with her husband to America and
they located in Sioux County in 1872, and deceased was therefore one of Sioux County's
pioneers. To Mr. and Mrs. Grotenhuis ten children were born, six of whom survive. Mr.
TeGrotenhuis died about ten years ago. The funeral services will be held this Saturday afternoon
and will be condutced by Rev. Douwstra. Ed TeGrotenhuis, a son who resides at Crawford CO, is
expected to attend the funeral. The surviving children are Mrs. G. Kleinwolterink of Sheldon, G.
J. TeGrotenhuis of Orange City, D. W. TeGrotenhuis, John Te. Grotenhuis and Mrs. John DeVries
of Hospers and Ed TeGrotenhuis of Crawford CO. Deceassedis also survived by two brothers and
one sister: Henry Rensink of Sheldon, G. J. Rensink of Hospers and Mrs. G. W. Wesselink of Sioux
Center.
(on www.genlias.nl found the marriage of Evert Jan teGrotenhuis born Aalten Geld. Neth 1832
married Aalten 11 Sep 1862 to BerendinaAleidaRensink b. 1839 Aalten, daughter of Gerrit Jan
Rensink and JennekenteBokkel. His parents were Jan HendrikteGrotenhuis and AleidaReimes)
Note—TeGrotenhuis or teGrotenhuis or teGrootenhuis is a “farm name” meaning Evert Jan of
Grotenhuis farm. A person using this naming tradition would change his or her surname if they
moved. A man might marry a widow and move to her farm and, then, change his surname to
that of his new wife’s farm. The French established the civil registration when Napoleon
invaded the Netherlands between 1795 and 1811, requiring citizens to stick with a single
surname so that the government could identify boys to be drafted for the army. The farm name
tradition still shows up in surnames like ours.