LYON COUNTY GENEALOGY
JACOB AND EMMA SCHOELERMANN
On a small farm in the Kronprinzen Koog near Hamburg, West Germany in 1800 a boy by the name of Peter Schoelerman was born. The farm being reclaimed soil from the silt of the Elbe River and the North Sea. Peter grew to manhood on this new land and married Margaretha Ahrens. Peter and Margaretha bought a small farm in the Kronprinzen Koog and raised sheep and geese while operating a small country store. There they raised four sons, Johann, Peter, Reimer and Hermann. Hermann Heinrich Schoelerman bought a farm in the Kaiser Willhelm Koog, which was a parcel of reclaimed swamp land, in 1874 and in the same year married Wilhelmine Charlotte Meier.
Hermann and Wilhelmine Schoelerman had six children, Margaretha, Johann, Jacob, Bertha, Rose and Emma. In 1890 Hermann and his family moved to America. They traveled to Keystone, Iowa where they lived for a short time with his two brothers, Johann and Reimer. In the spring of 1890 Reimer and Hermann traveled by train to Larchwood in Lyon County. Reimer was looking for some cattle to purchase and Hermann was looking for some good farm land. From Larchwood they went to Inwood and boarded the train bound for South Dakota. There were rumors of Indian uprisings in the area and the two brothers did not return as expected. The families back in Benton County became worried. In September of 1890 the two returned to Keystone safely. Reimer didn’t get any cattle but Hermann Schoelerman did buy a half section of Lyon County land for twenty three dollars an acre.
In late October of 1890 Hermann Schoelerman and his family moved to the farm in Lyon County near Lester. Jacob and Emma Scholerman lived on this farm for 66 years. In 1897 Hermann bought another half section and on both farms original prairie ground had to be broken using a special breaking plow. Margaretha married and lived in Colorado, Johann moved to California, Jacob and Emma lived on their father’s farm and later moved to Lester, Bertha married August Maurer and Rose taught school in Rock Rapids.