Biography of Rev. Leonard Van Wolde

	This biography is from "Memorial and biographical record; an illustrated
 	compendium of biography, containing a compendium of local biography,
	including biographical sketches of prominent old settlers and 
	representative citizens of South Dakota..." Published by G. A. Ogle & 
	Co., Chicago, 1898. Page 409

	Scan and OCR by Joy Fisher, 1997. This file may be copied for non-profit 
	purposes. All other rights reserved. 


REV. LEONARD VAN WOLDE resides on section 10, Grant Center township. He 
was born in Switzerland September 30, 1829, and is the sixth son of 
Conrad and Christina Van Wolde. Conrad Van Wolde was also a native of 
Switzerland, where he was born in the year 1806. He was a carpenter by 
occupation, and came to America in 1847 and located in Sauk county, 
Wisconsin, where he took a claim of government land, upon which he made 
his home and followed agricultural pursuits until the time of his death, 
in 1888. His wife bore the he maiden name of Christina Bruecher, and was 
also a native of Switzerland, where she first saw the light of day in 
the year 1810. She died in Wisconsin in 1875.

	Our subject emigrated from the land of his nativity, with his 
parents, in 1847, and was educated in the English language in the common 
schools of this country, his aim in life being to become a minister of 
the gospel. Upon arriving in Wisconsin, he worked for a time on the 
farm, and in 1852 he was admitted to the Illinois conference of the 
Evangelical Association, at Racine, Wisconsin. He began the work of a 
minister in the Fond du Lac mission, where he had charge of a number of 
churches. At that time the Wisconsin conference had not been 
established. In 1858 he went to St. Paul, Minnesota, and continued 
preaching the gospel at that place until 1882. In the spring of that 
year he went to Grant county, South Dakota, and bought the 
relinquishment to, and proved up the southeast quarter of section 10, 
Grant Centre township, and now has a valuable farm of three hundred and 
twenty acres. The first three years of his residence in that county he 
preached regularly, but since that time has preached at intervals for 
about two years.

	December 30, 1872, in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, Reverend 
Van Wolde was united in marriage to Miss Catharine Kaechel, a native of 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she was born November 27, 1854. To 
this union have been born eight children, two of whom died in infancy. 
Those now living bear the following names: Mary, Aaron, Christine, Carl, 
George and Hannah. Mr. Van Wolde uses his elective franchises in the 
support of the candidates of the Republican party, but takes little 
interest in political matters generally.