THEIR NEW HOME, LYONS, IOWA﷓1882﷓1883

THEIR NEW HOME, LYONS, IOWA‑1882‑1883

Jens' sister, Sophie, her husband Peter Lorenzen, and Jens' mother Lena Asmussen, met their train I'm sure, and took them home to their house. Sophie, Peter, and Lena all lived in Lyons, Iowa, as did many Germans, many from Schleswig‑Holstein. More Lyons people had German backgrounds than any other country. Next were from Ireland and then from Denmark. The Lorenzens lived on the flat land of Lyons South of Main Street and east of Sixth Street near the large Mississippi River. May was a nice sunny, warm time of year and a good time to come to their new home.

Flowers were blooming and birds were singing. Thankfully, Anna got over her sickness and was feeling better. Jens and Anna soon moved to a home on 3rd Street near 23rd Avenue North. This was not where 3rd Street is now. Their house, probably near the Lorenzen's and Jens' mother Lena as well, was within sight of the Mississippi River, two blocks or so south of Main St. (later called Main Avenue), and only about one block or so west of the mighty Mississippi River. They were about two blocks from the B. and B. Ferry Company's landing. Everything that went across the river, people, wagons and horses, goods, crossed the river by ferry. There was no bridge over the river within 150 miles in either direction. They were also near Lyons Fourth Street Brick School, the first school built in Lyons. At that time, 2nd street in Lyons was the first actual street from the river, although right at the riverbank was Water Street.

Jens liked being near the big Mississippi River but he was not happy when it flooded, which was most every Spring, up to or well past where he lived. In Germany he had looked west toward the North Sea though it was not in sight, in Lyons he looked east to the Mississippi. I mentioned Sophie Asmussen Lorenzen, Jens' twin sister to whom he was quite close, and her husband Peter Lorenzen.

Sophie (Asmussen) Lorenzen, Jens' twin sister

Peter worked at Joyce Lumber Co. in Lyons, one of the large lumber mills in the area. It was located at about 17th Ave. North on the river, just a few blocks South. Peter Lorenzen helped Jens get a job there too. Salary at that time was about $2.00 per day for a 10-hour day, or .20 cents per hour. They worked 6 days per week for about $12.00. It was a paycheck and it went a long ways in those days. Jens and Anna spent that first spring and summer getting acquainted with their new home in Lyons, Iowa USA, and meeting the people. Many were from Schleswig‑Holstein. About one‑half the people in Lyons were originally from Germany. Jens began to understand and speak English. Anna was very glad to be settled on dry land so she could prepare for her new baby due in ‑the Fall. Lyons and Fulton, with about 2000 people, were connected by the ferry.

There was a German newspaper in Lyons and several German organizations like the Odeon Club to help the newcomers get acquainted. There was a German Lutheran church, St. John's Lutheran Church, up the hill on West Main St., later Main Avenue, which Jens and Anna joined. St. Boniface Catholic Church, for the many German Catholics, was located one block north of Main St. near Seventh Street. Generally the Catholic Germans had come from south Germany or Bavaria. The German Association of Lyons met at the Odeon club just north of Main St. near Fourth Street. There they had dances, box socials, band concerts, speakers, magicians, played cards, had eats and beer and just plain socialized. Jens liked Lyons and soon was taking classes to learn to speak English better.

The B. and B. Ferry line that connected Lyons and Fulton was very important. There was no bridge north of St. Louis, Missouri or south of Minneapolis that crossed the river, except for the railroad bridge in Clinton. People, wagons, and everything else got across the river by the ferry. The ferry cost 5 cents for one person, 5 cents more for a horse, and 25 cents for a team of horses and wagon to cross the river. The ferry had been in operation since before 1840. It was very important to the families and the economy of Fulton, Illinois and Lyons, Iowa.

Imagine the hundreds of settlers of Iowa and Nebraska that came across the Mississippi on the B and B Ferry. The Mississippi River, called the "father of waters" or "great water" by the Indians, simply came to be called "the river" by most residents of the area. "The river" affected the lives of most residents one way or the other, sooner or later. It separated Illinois and Iowa, in fact the East from the West. The "high bridge" for pedestrians and vehicles, was not built until 1891 at Lyons on the spot called the narrows. There, the river was about 600 feet wide and 25‑50 feet deep. When spring came and the ice melted upriver the river got deeper and wider. There were frequent Spring floods at all low places along the river, especially on the lower Iowa side in Lyons and Clinton, as Jens and his family would soon learn. The river would flood the lowlands except where the bluffs were. In most years, the floods went inland past 3`d St where Jens and Anna lived. In some year's, the floods were worse than in other years and sometimes went past Sixth Street. The muddy slime left by the floods was smelly and much trouble to clean up.

Ice for home and business refrigeration, was cut from the river in large blocks in the Winter, packed in sawdust in ice houses, for use in the summer when ice was needed to keep food cold and/or preserved. Cutting and hauling the ice gave many of the lumber mill workers jobs when the river was froze over. If the mills couldn't get logs, which were floated in large numbers down the river from the North woods in Wisconsin and Minnesota, they would have to close. I understand the lumber mills usually ran about eight months of the year. Many people also fished in the river, commercially and privately, rode the large steamboats or in their private boats, small and large, across the river or to islands for picnics, ice skated on it in the winter and swam in it in the summer, or just sat and watched it. In 1882, most people in Lyons and Fulton lived within a few blocks of the river except for those who lived on the high bluffs. The river carried millions of logs south downstream each year from the tall virgin pine forests in Minnesota and Wisconsin and made the lumber mills a major business for three decades in Lyons, Clinton and Fulton. The river, the lumber mills and the railroad are what built Clinton and Lyons into quite a city for its day. Everything seemed to begin and end at or with "the river". Main St. and Pearl St. in Lyons, where the business district was, began at the river, went several short blocks west on level land and then started uphill just past 6th Street (now 2"d Street). Some pictures in the book show the river, harvesting the ice, steam boats, ice skating and how an unpaved Main Street looked like in 1882-1900 and after.

On September 25, 1882, Johanna Marie Asmussen was born to Jens and Anna. She was probably named after Anna's sister Johanna, left in Germany, and her mother Anna Marie. She was a very small baby, probably due to the slim diet on the boat and how sick Anna had been, and they felt fortunate she survived. For weeks, she could be held in one large hand or on a small pillow. Before they knew it, it was Christmas, their first in America. As Jens thought about it, looking at his young son nearing two years old, and his new little daughter, he already knew it was good they came to America. Jens was learning the new language, and with so many relatives and friends, and other German‑Americans in Lyons, it was almost like home. The jobs at the mills were hard, but they were paid a livable wage, and it was reasonably regular work. In Germany, except when he was in the Army seven years, he worked as a farm laborer, which he did not enjoy. The Asmussens celebrated at Christmas, as Germans did, with singing, dancing, good food and fruit, with plenty of cakes and sweets. Many American religious Christmas songs like Silent Night, and other traditions like St. Nicholas and decorated Christmas trees, came from Germany. "Kinder" then, as children now, enjoyed the festiveness of Christmas. Anna missed seeing her family.

In 1885, Peter Lorenzen took a better job in Fulton, Illinois at the Langford and Hall Lumber Company, which was later bought by Joyce Lumber Co., and moved to Fulton. Soon after that he got Jens a job at the same company in Fulton and Jens worked there several years before he moved to a lumberyard in Lyons. Jens crossed the river six days per week on the ferry. Later, we understand he used Peter Lorenzen's boat to row across to work and also to take the family on visits. Jens worked hard to learn to speak English. He thought it the thing to do. He would tell Anna and later their children, "we are Americans now, and must always speak English not German". Anna, since she didn't get out as much or didn't try as hard, continued to speak German, mixed with English, and liked to read the local German newspaper regularly. Because of Anna and also other German children, the children learned to speak and understand German as well as English. Jens and Anna Asmussen settled into their new home on Third Street in Lyons. They were in their early thirties with two small children when 1883 came.

I'm sure Jens and Anna knew little about the history of Lyons, Iowa and the surrounding area, or that the American Indians owned the land fifty years earlier. They were there and it was home was about all they knew. By 1883, most Iowa Indians lived west of Clinton County on reservations. For our information and interest, since it was our first American home, let me tell you about the beginnings of the town of Lyons, and Clinton County, Iowa, how it was from it's beginning to the 1880s

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