Herman Luers Family
From The Luers Family in America: "It is said Grandmother [Anna Christina] persuaded Grandfather [Johann Albrecht] to make this move that their growing sons might escape the compulsory military service that would have been their lot in Hanover. She wanted her sons to escape being targets for bullets in the wars so common in that era. (Is Europe any different now?) And in addition they both wanted for their children the greater opportunities they hoped to find in America.
They sailed about the first of June from the nearest port, Bremen, and experienced a very stormy passage. After the severe hardships of thirteen weeks passed in the steerage of an old sailing vessel in rough seas, they first set foot on American soil in the port of New York on the first day of September, 1839... They went at once to Cincinnati, Ohio, then crossed the Ohio river to near Newport, Kentucky, where they lived on a farm for about three years... in 1842 they moved on westward and bought 160 acres of land from the government the same year in Dutch Creek Twnshp, Wash. Co., Iowa. The farm had been in the family through at least 1973, a Century Farm, 35 the site of "The Old Brick House," a local landmark."
Other members of the Meyer and Luers families migrated from Sudweighe amt Syke, Germany to Washington County, Iowa over the next couple of decades. Among these was Anna Christina's nephew, Herman Luers III, who came in 1851. He married his first cousin (Anna Christina's daughter), Mary Anna Meyers in 1858. Their son, Herman William Luers IV (1872-1960) married Edith Hope Ott (1884-1972) in 1918 and lived in West Chester, Iowa.
Edith's father Daniel came from Chilicothe, Ohio, fought in the Civil War, and moved to Iowa in its aftermath.
