Our Gohman Story

The First and Second Generations

Some fifty years apart, two itinerant men wander into two adjacent German towns. Two of their descendants, a man and a woman, eventually meet and, after traveling nearly a fourth of the way around the world to a new land, are married. In story form, this book covers the German roots of the couple, reasons for leaving their homeland, ending up in the Minnesota Territory, and the effort of becoming successful homesteaders. Following the in-depth exploration of the lives of the first generation couple, individual stories about the second generation of the family are presented. Generally engaged as farmers, the two generations of Gohmans had very diverse personalities but adapted to the world around them uniformly with strength and character. The family members experienced and adapted to great changes in their livesmoving from a German Heuerling environment to working in early Cincinnati industries and finally moving on to homesteading in the wilderness of the Minnesota Territory.