Rein Talsma Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1343-1344 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	REIN TALSMA, one of the successful and prominent farmers of Bon 
Homme county, was born in Friensland, Holland, on the 8th of November, 
1846, and is a son of Mattheus and Reintje Talsma, the former of whom 
passed his entire life in Holland, where he was a gardener by vocation, 
while the latter came to the United States in 1870 and located in Sioux 
county, Iowa, where she passed the remainder of her life, her death 
occurring in 1879. Of the five children in the family the subject of 
this review was the second in order of birth, while of the number all 
are living except two. The subject was reared to maturity in his native 
land, where he was afforded the advantages of the excellent national 
schools, after which he was engaged in carpentry until he had attained 
the age of twenty-two years, when, in 1868, he immigrated to America, 
believing that here were to be found superior opportunities for the 
attaining of definite success through individual effort. He had learned 
the trade of carpenter in Holland, and upon coming to the United States 
he located in Marion county, Iowa, where he followed his trade and 
worked on farms for the ensuing six years. At the expiration of this 
period, in 1874, he came as a pioneer to South Dakota, being thus 
numbered among those who initiated the strenuous work of development and 
civic progress. He made the overland journey with a wagon and team of 
horses and two yoke of oxen, being thus better prepared to take up the 
work of reclaiming new land than was the average pioneer of the period. 
He took up three hundred and twenty acres of government land in township 
93, Bon Homme county, the tract being entirely wild, and soon after his 
arrival he completed the erection of a sod house of the primitive type, 
and he then set himself vigorously to the work of placing his land under 
cultivation, while during the long intervening years he has developed 
one of the valuable farms of the county and made the best of permanent 
improvements on the same, including the erection of his present handsome 
and commodious residence in 1899, while about the home is found a well-
matured grove of trees, all of which were planted and nurtured by 
himself. 

	On the 26th of May, 1873, Mr. Talsma was united in marriage to 
Miss Grietje Ferwerda, who was born and reared in Holland, whence she 
came to America in 1873, their marriage being solemnized in the state of 
Iowa. The great loss and bereavement of Mr. Talsma's life came on the 
last of April, 1901, when his loved companion was summoned into eternal 
rest, at the age of forty-nine years. They became the parents of twelve 
children, all of whom are living except two, the names being here 
entered in order of birth: Reina, John, Bertha, Winnie (died at the age 
of five years), Matthew, Fred (a son who died in infancy), Winnie (2nd), 
Katie, Fred (2nd), Lucretia, Margaret and Clarence.