Henry Rossow

(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society and Tom Rainford.

Henry Rossow was born in Germany in 1827. He came to this country early enough in his life that all his children were born here — and he had plenty of children: a dozen that I know of, who reached maturity, and populated this area, and handed down enough historical images and information to fill a blog. His first marriage, to Wilhelmina Kummerow, produced three sons: William, Theodore, and Robert. Among the children of his second marriage, to Augusta Stolp, was Ida Rossow Henrix, whose grandson has given us the image above, and the clipping below that tells how Henry's life was cut short:


Hobart Gazette, 23 Aug. 1895.

Among the grandchildren Henry did not live to see was Minnie Rossow Harms. The story of his death came down to her with a few details differing from the newspaper's version, as she recorded in her manuscript, As It Was Told To Me:

Going back now to the year Summer of 1894,* in the month of August, the exact date was Aug. 17. A church holiday was planned with a basket dinner, a host of relatives and friends were to join them on the morrow — for this was Saturday. Some of these folks were from Chicago so work laid aside, a group of them hitched the old Prince horse to a light wagon and were all set with worms and rods to fish in the near-by river. My grandfather declined. He said, all his grain was laid by, threshing done, hay all made, he'd go to the woods to cut some marsh grass to cover a stack of good hay he had to stack outside and it wouldn't take long and then he'd be thru so by that time you folks, he said, could be home with a mess of fish if they're biting for when I get thru today, he said, I can enjoy a few weeks vacation like before the fall comes and its corn-husking time again and we'll all have a good time tomorrow at the Church Mission (Sunday) Festival to be exact. The Lutherans still set aside a Sunday at the end of the Summer for it and they were all taking a basket dinner so they could enjoy both morning and afternoon services.

Well, with his spirited horses and his jug of water he went to the woods, hitched his horses on the waiting mowing machine. The other group went off with a wagon-full of happy people bent on catching fish. They heard the clatter of the mowing-machine as they passed the marshland (Missouri St. and Road 6 [Old Ridge Road]) but as they neared the corner Oh a sight met their eyes — the eldest daughter with the fishing party (Lizzy Rossow) walked on up to what seemed to be a jumble of horses and mow-machine and there was my grandfather lying on the ground right leg and neck broken. From what they could learn they judged the horses ran away and he wasn't expecting it so he had been jerked to the ground and the heavy wheel ran over his leg so the unexpected jerk also snapped his neck. He must have died instantly for though warm his body was lifeless when found. The family was too grief-stricken to have an outing on the morrow so preparations were made for his funeral and the family needed all the money they could gather together now so my father went to (Hobart) and purchased a cemetery lot, … so midst sympathy, tears and heartaches he was laid to rest there, leaving 5 daughters and 2 sons and his young 36 year old wife [Augusta]. The baby girl Clara was about 3 yrs. old and that was 3 yrs. before I was born. And as long as I can remember it was a yearly task in May — was to pretty up the cemetery lot and fix grandfather's grave.

Henry's grave is in Hobart Cemetery.

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*Minnie was writing from memory, apparently, and was off by one year.