Forebear Friday - John Henry Seemann

John Henry Seemann was born in 1800 in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, the son of Hans Seemann and Christina Petersen Moldt.  He married Maria, and they were the parents of 8 children. 
In 1853, sons Hans and Detlef left Germany for the United States, in particular, eastern Iowa.  The following year, John and Mary boarded with Germania, traveling from Bremen to New York, with sons Johan and Henry.  Most, if not all, of their children ended up coming to Iowa.  John and Maria purchased land in Jackson county, Iowa later that year, but by 1856 had moved in with their son Hans in Clinton county, just to the south.  By 1870, they were back in Jackson county, this time with their son Henry and his family. 
John died on 09 April 1873, and Maria went back to Clinton county to son Hans’ home; however, in 1884, Hans’ family sold the farm and moved to South Dakota, and Maria apparently went back to Jackson County, where she died on 26 Sep 1889.
On a trip to this area a few years back, we decided to visit Evergreen cemetery in Jackson County.  It’s a beautiful cemetery located next to the backwaters of the Mississippi River, and true to its name, lots of fragrant evergreens dot the landscape.  We located the graves of John and Maria, in a family section which included the graves of their son Henry, Henry’s wife Catharina; their daughter Mary Blossfeld and her husband William and daughter Lotta.  In another part of the cemetery, John and Maria’s son Peter is buried.