Herman Steinbeck(1) was the third child of German immigrants Diedrich “Dick” Fredrick Steinbeck (1848-1926) and Sophia Jaeger (1860-1921), who had emigrated from Hanover (then Prussia, now Lower Saxony) in 1883 along with their first two children, Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) (1879-1936) and William (“Willie”) (1882-1972). The family settled on a farm near Gaza, in Highland Township of O’Brien County, where Herman, the third child, was born in 1889.
There, three more children were born to Dick and Sophia: Dick Jr. (1892-1954), Emma Marie (1895-1954), and Henry D. (1901-1977).
By 1910, the family had moved to the southern portion of Liberty Township. On a 1911 plat map, a 320-acre farm (in Sophia Jaeger Steinbeck’s name) is seen in Section 36 of the township. Herman is listed in the census as working on the farm.
Soon afterward, on 31 January 1912, Herman married Maggie Petersen (1888-1953), daughter of Hans Henrick Petersen (1858-1945) and Catharina Magdalena “Lena” Reimers (1861-1955). They were German immigrants who as with so many other Calumet German Band member families reflected a Schleswig-Holstein heritage.
In the 1915 Iowa census, Herman and Maggie are seen to be farming near Hartley, further north in O’Brien County. The couple had three children: Bernell (1912-2008), Lulu (1915-1965), and Alyce Irene (1922-2009).
By 1920, the family had moved to a farm near Round Lake, in Noble County, Minnesota, immediately north of the Iowa-Minnesota border. They continued to farm there for the next two decades. But by 1940, they had moved just a few miles away, to the town of Ocheyedan, Iowa (Osceola County, just north of O’Brien County). Round Lake and Ocheyedan are only about 12 miles from each other. Herman was no longer farming but was the owner of a restaurant, where Maggie was working as the cook and daughter Lulu worked as a waitress.
This change from farming to restaurant ownership evolved again, as did their residency. By 1950, Herman and Maggie were back in Minnesota, but further north, in the town of Westbrook (Cottonwood County), where Herman operated a pool hall for the remaining years of his life.(2)
But Maggie died in 1953, at the age of 64, and Herman’s death took place only five years later. His death occurred tragically, from an automobile accident in northeastern Utah. Although the circumstances of his travel there are unknown, he died in the early evening of 28 January 1958, when a car that he was driving crashed into a truck parked at the side of the road near the town of Echo, in Summit County (about 50 miles northeast of Salt Lake City).
Herman Steinbeck, along with his wife Maggie, are buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery, Primghar, Iowa.
Subscribers to Ancestry.com may wish to further explore some family connections of Herman Steinbeck by accessing an Ancestry profile page (within the context of a “Mugge Family Tree”).
Connection to Other Band Members
A few years after the 1909 photo, Herman Steinbeck would become the brother-in-law of his bandmate Henry Friedrichsen (1889-1937). Herman’s sister, Emma Marie Steinbeck (1895-1954), married Henry Friedrichsen on 18 November 1914.
Herman would also become related to Henry W. Mugge (1891-1967) through their spouses. The aunt of Herman’s wife Maggie Petersen, Anna Reimers (1867-1952) (sister of Maggie’s mother, Catharina Reimers, 1861-1955), married John Rohwer (1864-1943), brother of Dorothea J. G. “Dora” Rohwer (1862-1932), mother of Henry Mugge’s wife Lillie C. Kundel (1892-1960). A schematic, available here, helps to visualize this complicated relationship.
Through more distant marriage connections, Herman Steinbeck is also related to Henry Andersen, Newell Bidwell, John Brumm, Nick Jessen, Ralph Langley, Henry Lorenzen, Albert Mehrens and John Mehrens, Charley Rochel and Harry Rochel, Ernest Shafer and William Shafer, and Allie Sohm. Readers who seek more information about these connections (some of them quite complex) may wish to contact John Mugge through the Contact form.
Footnotes
(1) Puzzlingly, Herman Steinbeck signed two official documents — his draft registration cards for both World War I and World War II — as “Stienbeck.” Likewise, a descendant of Herman Steinbeck reports that the invitation for Herman and Maggie Petersen’s wedding in 1912 printed the name as “Stienbeck.” This spelling, however, does not comport with any other primary record, and it is also a less likely German surname spelling.
(2) Coincidentally, Herman Steinbeck’s bandmate Nick Jessen (1890-1938) had also spent the earlier years of his life farming before turning to the operation of beer halls and billiards parlors, successively owning establishments in Sutherland, Sioux Rapids, and Calumet, Iowa.