We have traced the long arc of the Blommer family as they left Germany in 1840, settled in Loose Creek Missouri, moved to Minnesota in 1855, and then looked at the two sons-in-law, Herman and Sebastian Kreifels, as they left Missouri for Nebraska in 1869. We’ve examined the difficult early years for Herman and Sebastian – […]

Upon arriving in Otoe County, Nebraska, Herman was apparently able to buy land outright, probably from the sale of his farm back in Minnesota. According to family lore, he took in Sebastian’s children after Sebastian’s death, Herman’s oldest daughter Elizabeth told her children the following story about living on the farm: One day Elizabeth’s family was […]

As we saw in the previous post, the two Kreifels brothers and their families left Minnesota sometime in 1869. Their original intent was to move to Kansas, but they were unable to locate a German community there. Herman and his family chose to move to Nebraska City. Sebastian and his kids detoured to Oklahoma and […]

In recent posts on this topic, we have learned how the Kreifels brothers and their families traveled with their father-in-law Mathias Blommer from Missouri to Minnesota in 1855. They lived in Minnesota for about 15 years. They acquired land (some of it purchased, some of it homesteaded) and were caught up at least to some degree […]

We attended the annual Swedish Candlelight Service at Ryssby Church near Longmont on Sunday evening. In the English sermon, the pastor mentioned his participation in the 100-year observance of the 1862 Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. Just a week earlier, I had been reading about the effect of that conflict on the Kreifels family during their time […]