Pedigree
Theodorus W. Hendrickx
Johannes W. Hendrickx
<
/
Christina Tilmans
Hendrickx, Johannes Antonius Hubertus
AKA "John Anthony Hubert"
\
Jacobus Brouwers
Maria J. Brouwers
<
Emilia B. Delbeck
Born: 8 July 1862
Venlo, Province of Limburg, The Netherlands
Died:
7 July 1928
Butler, Minnesota
Buried:
abt. 10 July 1928
Holy Cross Cemetery, Butler, Minnesota
Father:
Johannes Wilhelmus Hendrickx
Mother:
Maria Johanna Brouwers
Siblings: Maria
Jacoba Hubertina b. 5 November 1854 - d. 5 December
1908
Christina Emilia Hubertina
b. 8 April 1858 - d. 9 December 1932
Johanna
b. unknown (a twin - possibly stillborn)
Karel
b. unknown (a twin -
possibly stillborn)
Jacob Theodore Hubert
b. 10 June 1860 - d. 25 February 1909
Andreas
b. 25 January 1865 - d. 4 November 1944
Spouse:
Maria Margaretha Timmermans
Married:
12 November 1889
St. Lambertus Catholic Church,
Reuver, The Netherlands
Children:
Jacques Antoine
b. 11 June 1890 - d. 19 July 1955
Anna Petronella
b. 1 June
1891 - d. 18 February 1975
Maria Antoinette
b. 7 November 1892 - d. 21 March 1972
Josephine Barbara
b. 5 March 1894 - d. 5 July
1974
Louis
Joseph
b. 24 September 1895 - d. 17 August 1964
Emilia Brigitta
b. 8 April 1897 - d. 8 December 1973
Clara Maria
b. 15 August 1898 - d. 26 June 1899
Matilde Aldegonda
b. 26 February 1900 - d. 21 January
1970
male
b. 18 September 1901 stillborn
Pierre Gerard
b. 18 September 1902 - d. 2 May 1969
Frans Coenraad
b. 1 April 1904
- d. 10 May 1913
Notes:
Johannes received his First Holy Communion in May of
1874 at St. Martinus Catholic
Church in Venlo, The Netherlands.
Johannes and Marie Margaretha
we married in The Netherlands. All of their children
were born in Venlo. Johannes
was a farmer and also owned a tavern that he had
purchased from his father.
It was located at Old Market Street, #22 and was called
Stad Rijssel, "The City of
Rijssel".
In 1909, Johannes read articles
in the paper written by a Father Van den Heuvel about
a farming community that was
to be formed in America and would have land available
for as little as $20 an acre.
The availability of land in The Netherlands was scarce and
often was selling for as high
as $1,000 an acre.
Johannes was intrigued both
by the price of the land and that two priests and a brother
from the Crosier Fathers would
be accompanying the group of settlers from The
Netherlands to their new home
in Butler, Minnesota, with the intention of establishing
a Catholic Monastery. After
months of planning, the Hendrickx family left Venlo on
22 February 1910.
The family was scheduled to
travel as part of the group of 84 settlers organized by the
Crosier Fathers on board the
SS Lapland of the Red Star Line. When they reached the
port of Antwerp, Belgium, however,
they were met by Father Van den Heuvel who had
realized he had not purchased
enough tickets for the Hendrickx family. At first Johannes
considered leaving his oldest
two children to wait for the next ship, but decided it would
be best if the family travel
as a whole. They stood on the dock as the SS Lapland sailed
without them.
After being left behind, the
Hendrickx family needed to find another vessel. They went to
the Red Star Line office only
to find that all the ships in the near future were fully booked.
The Red Star Line office cabeled
the office of the White Star Line and found the family
passage on one of their ships.
Unfortunately, the ship was sailing from Liverpool, England,
so the Hendrickxs needed to take
a smaller vessel from Antwerp to Harwich, England.
From there they took a train
across England to the port of Liverpool. There they boarded
the SS Megantic scheduled to
depart Liverpool on 15 March 1910 and land at Montreal,
Canada on 23 March 1910. In
Montreal they boarded a train to St. Paul, Minnesota.
From there they traveled on
a Northern Pacific train to New York Mills where they
purchased a horse and wagon
to travel to Butler. They finally arrived at their ultimate
destination on 29 March 1910.
When Johannes and the other
settlers looked over the land, they found it not exactly as
they thought it would be. There
would be a lot of work to do before fields could be
planted. Johannes purchased
120 acres of wooded land in section 16 of Butler Township
for $20 an acre. Through
hard work and perseverance, he and his family managed to make
it into some good farmland.
In 1912, Johannes lost his
left hand, which was severed at the wrist, in a sawmill accident.
The 14 November 1912 issue
of the Perham Enterprise Bulletin, a nearby town's newspaper,
reported, "John A.H. Hendrickx
(Johannes), who recently lost a hand, walked home from
Perham Wednesday and on Thursday
he went out and began to pile brush with one hand."
As the story goes, Johannes
was tired of his stay at St. James Hospital in Perham, so he
climbed out the window and
walked 15 miles home in the cold and the next day was out
clearing brush. He was
55 years old when this accident occured.
In January of 1928, Johannes
sold his farm and purchased another, which has been worked
by 5 generations of Hendrickx.
At present it is the Hendrickx Brothers Dairy, owned and
operated by 3 of Johannes great-grandsons.
The original farm, with the house and barn that
Johannes built, is also back
in the family, now being owned by another of Johannes great-
grandsons.
Johannes worked his farm until
his sudden death, the day before his 66th birthday. The
official cause of his death
was unaemia, cardio renal disease.
Photos:
Johannes and Maria Margaretha
and children - circa 1907.
The Hendrickx Family pictured
in front of their farmhouse - circa 1912.
Johannes Antonius Hubertus Hendrickx
- circa 1925.
Johannes and Maria Margaretha
Hendrickx - circa 1926.
Two pictures of the Hendrickx
farm in Butler Township, Minnesota.
Top picture circa 1910 - bottom
picture circa 1925.