Catharina Dühr

1820s–1840s

Born 14 or 16 October 1824 in Taben, in Prussia's Rhine Province, to Jakob Dühr and Margaretha Neises. Married the linen weaver Johann Gansemer in Taben on 28 January 1847.

1850s

Lost four young children between 1848 and 1857. Daughter Catharina was born in 1858.

1860s

Daughters Elizabeth (1860) and Margaretha (1861) were born. Emigrated with her family in 1862, settling on a farm in Peru Township, Dubuque County, Iowa; son John was born in 1864.

1870s–1880s

Widowed in April 1874; her son John died that August and her daughter Catharina married Michael Leineweber that September. Headed the farm until 1882, when she sold it to Michael. Gave a stained-glass window to the new church at Sherrill about 1889.

1890s–1900s

Lived on the farm with her daughter's family. Died there on Christmas Day, 1904.

From Taben to Iowa

Katharina Dühr was born on October 14 or 16, 1824, in Taben, in the Taben-Rodt district of Prussia's Rhine Province, the daughter of Jakob Dühr and Margaretha Neises; her godparents were Peter Faha and Catharina Neuses of Rodt. She had a brother, Peter, a sister, Margaretha, and a sister who died young, as well as older half-siblings from her father's first marriage. On January 28, 1847, in Taben, she married Johann Gansemer, a day laborer and linen weaver.

Katharina buried four children in Taben: Johann, who lived three days in 1848; Matthias, who died in 1853; and Peter and her first Catharina, both in 1857. Her daughters Catharina (1858), Elizabeth (1860), and Margaretha (1861) survived. In November 1862 the family left for America, crossing on the Admiral through storms that stretched the voyage to forty-six days, and settled on a farm in Peru Township, Dubuque County, Iowa, near Sherrill. Her son John was born there in 1864. Her brother Peter also came to Iowa and settled at Balltown.

The Widow Gansemer

1874 was a hard year. Johann died in April, leaving her the farm for her lifetime, and her son John died that August, at ten. In September her daughter Catharina, sixteen, married Michael Leineweber, who had worked on the farm. From 1875 Katharina's name was on the tax rolls for the farm's 109 acres, and she ran it with Michael and Catharina. In 1880 the farm had fifty tilled acres, pasture, an orchard, and woodland, with four horses, six milk cows, twelve pigs, and forty chickens; the year before, it had produced fifty tons of hay, 350 bushels of corn, 600 of oats, 300 of wheat, and 500 of potatoes, along with 250 pounds of butter.

On November 30, 1882, she sold the farm to Michael for $4,000. Around 1889, when the new Saints Peter and Paul Church was built in Sherrill, she gave it a stained-glass window inscribed "Geschenk von Catharina Gansemer," "Gift from Catharina Gansemer." She hoped her grandson John Baptiste Leineweber would become a priest. Katharina lived out her life on the old farm with her daughter's family, and she died there at Sherrill's Mound on Christmas Day, 1904, at eighty. She was buried at Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery in Sherrill.