About the book
The Cornelius Van Laarhoven Family Homestead in Montana traces the Van Laarhoven family and related families across generations, including their years homesteading in Montana.
The book brings together family genealogy, photographs, documents, and captions to preserve the people, places, and experiences behind the family’s history.
Read the book
The book is available in six PDF parts, covering pages 1–482. Both Chapter 3 files require a password.
- Chapters 1–2 · Pages 1–112PDF
- Chapter 2 · Pages 113–209PDF
- Chapter 3 · Pages 210–279PDF · Password required
- Chapter 3 · Pages 280–339PDF · Password required
- Chapters 4–6 · Pages 340–430PDF
- Chapter 6 · Pages 431–482PDF
The backstory
My name is Lawrence Reinhold. Mom often spoke about her father’s family, the Van Laarhovens. Her sister, La Verne (Van Laarhoven) Zastrow, had done extensive research on that side of the family, but her work had not been written up until I included it in The Cornelius Van Laarhoven Family Homestead in Montana.
We knew a great deal about the family and our relatives in Holland. Mom’s father, his parents, and his brothers immigrated from Holland in 1911. We also heard about the Rothamer family, on Mom’s maternal side, who immigrated from Germany in 1891. The Rothamer and Kummer lines are related to the Van Laarhoven family.
When Mom spoke about these families, her voice and words were full of praise: they worked hard, did not drink, were good Catholics, and endured hardship.
The Montana discovery
One of the most rewarding parts of researching this book was finding the Montana records. Mom and La Verne had spoken about their father’s life as a cowboy and about their father and grandfather, Cornelius, living in Montana. They had not explained exactly where they lived or why they went there.
They also told of the Van Laarhoven brothers bringing horses from Montana by train and driving the herd through downtown Medford. These stories stayed with me, but I had never heard that the family had homesteaded in Montana.
One day, on a whim, I searched the federal homestead database, which had only recently become available online. I did not expect to find anything. To my astonishment, three Van Laarhoven names appeared in the homestead filings.
At first, I thought the records must belong to other people. I requested the documents anyway. Once I read them, there was no mistaking whom they described: these were our Van Laarhovens.
All the documents I requested are included in Chapter Two of the book. Finding them was the highlight of my Van Laarhoven family research.