Holland City News, Saturday, February 9, 1895

Johanna Hoogewind Grootenhuis

In chronicling the death of Johanna Grootenhuis-nee Hoogewind last week, it was felt that her departure severed another of the few remaining links which still connect the present with the primitive past. She was a pioneer, the pioneer of her sex; the only woman that accompanied the first band of sturdy settlers that located in these dense forests in the winter of ’46-’47.

With that kind-hearted disposition which made her beloved by those who enjoyed her acquaintance, she joined a devotion to duty and a readiness to serve, which to the mourning circles she leaves behind will ever remain a fount of sweet recollections.

As a historic figure in the early period which marks the dawn of the settlement of the Holland Colony, the deceased has merited her place in the galaxy of uncrowned heroines, and as such we lay the tribute of our appreciation upon her bier.

She was born in 1817, at Steenwijk, in the province of Overijssel, Netherlands, and in 1842 was married to the late Bernardus Grootenhuis. In the fall of ’46 she joined Dr. Van Raalte, in whose family she had been heretofore employed, and crossed the Atlantic

in the brig "Southerner," arriving in New York in November,’46. Part of the succeeding winter was spent in Detroit and St. Clair by the party of which she was a member. In February, they proceeded hither by the way of Kalamazoo and Allegan. At the latter place, all the women and children of this first band of pioneers were left behind, except the deceased, who volunteered to accompany them to these unknown regions and render them her services.

Their first huts were built on the heights east of the city, on what is now the Van der Haar farm, and there the deceased waited upon the group of colonists with that readiness which ever characterized her. She continued to do so for several weeks, until additional log huts had been erected to receive those who had been left behind. It is thus, that the deceased enrolled herself upon the historic page, and that in her death passes from among us a pioneer—only of its kind.

Mr. and Mrs. Grootenhuis, after remaining here five years, went east and lived for about ten years in Detroit and Grand Rapids, returning here in ’62. This was during the war period. Two of her sons enlisted in the war for the Union, one of whom, James, Co. D, 8^th Michigan Infantry, was mortally wounded in the Battle of the Wilderness.

The loss of this loving mother is mourned by three surviving children-one son, John, and two daughters, Mrs. J. Kerkhof and Mrs. L. Ter Beek, all of this city.

(Buried in Pilgrim Home Cemetery)