Herman Hilgenkamp

Walter Hilkgenkamp opened the door that leads to the upstairs and closed it again slowly. "Yes, sir! It still squeaks!" Walter had come to visit the farm home of Rupert Hilgenkamp where he was born. The squeaky door held some special memoried. "No matter how late it was or how hard you tried to sneak in at night, that door would always squeak, and the folks would hear you." Walter in the last living child of John and Marie Hilgenkamp. John’s father, Herman Hilgenkamp, had come to Washington County in 1861. He had come to America from Westphalia, Prussia, in 1853, and settled in Quincy, Illinois. In Germany he had nine children by his first wife, Anne Herman, Peter, Henry, William, Hanna (Mrs. William Krueger), Frank, Elisabein (Mrs. William Stork), and Rachael (Mrs. Herman Stork). His second wife Lisette Hallerberg Hilgenkamp bore him four children; John, Mary (Mrs. Carl Vogt), Emma (Mrs. Herman Giesselman), and Fred. In the spring in 1861 Herman brought his family to Washington County and bought the farm on which John was born. That farm has been worked by his descendants since that time. Herman was a strong-willed man who would never allow his picture to be taken and who made his own coffin before he died. He was a charter member of St. Paul’s Church. John was born on March 3, `862. In the fall of Sept 1, 1882, he married Marie Kuhls who had come to this area from Germany via Quincy, Illinois, also. They had eight children: William, who died at the age of two; Emma; William, named after his deceased brother; Walter; Cora and Otto, twins who died at the age of six weeks of "summer sickness"; Henry; and Arthur. Marie and John Hilgenkamp would have celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in the fall of 1907, but Marie died in January of that year of cancer of the breast. In 1910 John married "Little Marie" Mahrlein, a young German girl working in Omaha who was twenty years his junior. She was much loved because she was so happy and lively, but died seven years later of TB of the hip. In 1918 John married Sophia Laws of Omaha. They moved to Omaha in 1927 and lived there until his death on March 12, 1933. John was the custodian of the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church for 35 years. He was on the school board for many years and played cornet in the church band. John’s daughter, Emma, married William Stork and they mored to a farm need Beemer, Nebraska. William married Wlma Bockhorst and they moved to a farm near Telbasta. Walter married Laura Laaker and they, too, farmed in Washington County. Arther married Esther Echtenkamp and stayed on the home place to farm. Henry never married. He lived with Arthur and Esther until 1946 when he moved to Fremont. Walter celebrated his 88th birthday on April 25, 1980. The home he was born in was brand new and dedicated when he was baptized in 1892. The door still squeaks, It would be a shame to have it any other way. Submitted By Karen Hilgenkamp

Source: Washington County Nebraska History 1980, page 198. The Washington County Historical Association. Taylor Publishing Company, Dallas, Texas, 1980.