Johanne Westerman was born December 5, 1867, in Daklhausen, Germany, and
   immigrated to America at age seventeen. Friederike Oldenburg was born 
April
   3, 1871, in Statton, Germany, and immigrated to America at age three. They
   settled in the Breman community in Marshall County, Kansas, near the Nebraska
   border. It was in this German Lutheran community that they met and were
   married November 14, 1890.
     Four children were born there. William was born July 19, 1891; Elsie,
   September 15, 1892; John, December 25, 1893; and Henry, October 31, 1895. 
   The family then moved to Rib Lake, Wisconsin. Three more children were
   added to the family. Christina was born November 15, 1897; Anna, September
   20, 1899; and Fred, July 18, 1901. They moved back to Washington County,
   Kansas, and Martha was born September 29, 1903, and then George, September
   12, 1905. 
     Two weeks before George was born, the father died, leaving the mother and
   the  older children to do the farm work.
     Meanwhile a sister of Friederike had come to Nashville and she urged that
   Friederike bring the family to where there was better opportunity. They
   moved in 1913 and purchased a farm five miles southwest of Nashville. The
   older boys hired out to do farm work. They were requried to promise to stay
   one year and the pay was $15 a month. Crops were wheat and corn with the
   work day beginning at 5:30 am. and extending into the evening hours. They 
   utilized walking machinery.
     All nine children eventually married. William married Mary Peters May 2,
   1902; Elsie married Herman Dierking February 4, 1914; and moved to Breman,
   Kansas. John married Katie Peters December 10, 1916. Henry married Edna 
   Hensiek in 1922 and she died in 1927; he then married Edna Kalthoff July 20,
   1930. Christina married Ernest Klaustermeyer May 9, 1920, and moved to Alma,
   Missouri. Anna married George Dierking December 17, 1922, and she died
   February 26, 1923, in a fire. Fred married Hulda Hensiek September 16, 1923;
   Martha married Henry Dicke September 16, 1923; and George married Amanda
   Hensiek February 26, 1928. Six of the family have lived and farmed around
   Nashville and Zenda.
     Friederike eventually moved to Nashville. She passed away March 9, 1964,
   at the age of ninty-three years and eleven months.
                         
  Source:St. John's Lutheran Church Centennial 1893-1993, Nashville, Kansas, pg. 98 
  Submitted by: Monita Westerman for the Nashville Centennial Book as taken
  from the Westerman Family History Book.