Delaven

HISTORY

Volga Germans from the colonies of Frank, Norka and Walter settled in the area of Delaven and nearby Emden after their arrival in the United States in 1899 and 1900. They are recorded in the 1900 U.S. Census in the Delaven, Tazewell district. These families appear to have stayed in the area for only a few years and later moved to Colorado, Nebraska, and Washington State.

FAMILY DETAILS

Several families from Frank are living in Delaven according to the 1900 Census. These include Conrad Lesser, his wife Maria Elisabeth Meier and three of their sons. Heinrich Lesser was listed in his parent's household; Conrad Lesser and his wife Maria Barbara Bernhardt were listed with their children in the next household; and Johannes Lesser and his wife Maria Catharina Hopp are in the household after that. The next household on the census includes Heinrich Trupp and his wife Maria Katharina Lebsack and their three children. Farther down the page are Heinrich Fahrenbruch and his wife Anna Maria Sitzman and their children, and Heinrich's brother Johannes Fahrenbruch and his wife Anna Katharina Derr.  

Three families from Norka also appear in these records. Johannes Giebelhaus, his wife Anna Margaretha Kaiser, and four of their children are reported on the same page of the 1900 Census as the families from Frank. Their two younger children are listed in the parents' household. Their son Johann Heinrich Giebelhaus and his wife Margaretha Louise Ross and their daughter appear in the next household. Their daughter Anna Maria, her husband Conrad Ludwig Brill, and their two children are in the household after that.

The group also includes two families that appear to be from Walter: Bretthauer and Benner, and a Herbst family who could be from either Walter or Frank.  

The Lesser and Trupp families arrived on the steamship Pennsylvania, which departed Hamburg on 25 March 1900 and arrived 7 April 1900.  One of the Fahrenbruch families arrived in New York on 21 November 1899 on the steamship Kaieser Wilhelm de Grosse from Bremen.  

Several children were born to these families while they lived in Delaven. Those baptisms are recorded in the parish records of St. Peter Lutheran Church in Emden, Illinois.