Johannes Bonekemper was born on July 6, 1795 in Niederbraeunfeld, near Neumbrecht, in Rhineland, Prussia.  His mother died when he was seven years old; five years later his father died.  With a family of four brothers and sisters Bonekemper stopped going to school, since they were very poor.  He had to earn a living as a domestic servant to help feed his family. 

Leaving home at the age of twenty, Bonekemper decided to learn the blacksmith trade.  However, after having spent a year at his birthplace, Bonekemper desired to become a minister.  He was then notified he had to become a soldier and in 1817 he was sent to France.  Throughout his military life he spread his Christian beliefs.  Then in 1820 Bonekemper received his discharge from the army.  In 1821 he entered school in Basel, Switzerland, to prepare himself for missionary work.  In 1824 he was ordained as an Evangelical minister and was sent to serve the isolated German colonies in the Black Sea area of South Russia.

Bonekemper's most satisfying years were those from 1835 to 1846.  He spent 24 years of ministry work at Rohrbach traveling to Odessa, Freuental, Bessarabia, Cherson, and other colonies.  In 1848 he moved to Atmadscha, Dobrudscha (then part of the Ottoman Empire) where he preached the gospel for five years.  Because of the Crimean War (1854-1856), Bonekemper and his family were driven out of Turkey, going back to his Prussian birthplace of Nuembrecht which he had not seen for thirty-four years.  There he lived until his death on January 24, 1857.

Rev. Bonekemper was married three times.  There were eight children.  The oldest son, Carl, came to the United States in 1849 at the age of twenty-two.  He was ordained a minister in 1851.  Carl returned to south Russia in 1865, where he served the Reformed Church at Rohrbach-Worms until 1876, when he again emigrated to the United States, where he lived from 1849 to 1854.  He served churches in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Iowa; Wisconsin; and South Dakota, retiring at Scotland, South Dakota.  Carl died on September 17, 1867.

The article "Johannes Bonekemper and His Family" (Heritage Review, No. 24, 1979) by Carl Bonekemper, translated and edited by Theodore C. Wenzlaff, appears in folder one of the collection. 
 

Johannes Bonekemper Papers  |  Religion