John Henry Hauberg papers

John Henry Hauberg was born 22 November 1869 on his father's farm near Hillsdale, Illinois. He was one of nine children, eight of whom lived until adulthood. Hauberg's education was his own responsibility. When farming duties interrupted his schooling at age eleven, he continued to read books and memorize documents such as the Declaration of Independence. He worked his way across the country, then returned to enroll in Duncan's Business College in Davenport, Iowa, in 1893, graduating in 1894. The same year, he enrolled in Northern Indiana Normal College, now Valparaiso University, Indiana, first attending classes in January 1895. Through the university's accelerated program, he earned a Bachelor of Science in 1896 and a Bachelor of Arts in 1897. He then enrolled in the Law Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, working odd jobs to pay his way, graduating with an LL.B in 1900. He passed the Illinois State bar exam in 1901 and set up a practice in Moline, Illinois. John Hauberg married Susanne Christine Denkmann 29 June 1911. He then moved his practice to Rock Island, Illinois, but abandoned it by 1914 because he and his wife traveled too extensively to be able to maintain it. Susanne Denkmann Hauberg brought many business interests into the marriage from her family, the Denkmanns of Weyerhaeuser and Denkmann Lumber Company, and John Hauberg held executive board positions in the Weyerhaeuser and Denkmann Lumber Company and many others through the rest of his life.

After marriage, John Hauberg became heavily involved in community work and in his passions for nature and history. He was actively involved in Rock Island County's temperance movement in the 1910s, served in the Illinois National Guard, and held positions of responsibility in the Lutheran Church, Augustana College and Theological Seminary, and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), among others.

In 1909, Hauberg founded the United Sunday School Boys Band, a fife, drum, and bugle corps designed to give boys an incentive to attend Sunday school. For fifteen years, Hauberg and hundreds of boys marched and gave performances in the Quad City area. Hauberg also led the boys on weekend hikes and longer summer hikes, which evolved into the Big Hike, a yearly two- or three-week camping trip aided by wagons and, later, trucks. Hauberg founded the Black Hawk Hiking Club on 8 May 1920 under the name Black Hawk Prairie Club (the group changed its name in 1923), and led them on hikes every week regardless of weather. The club still exists today, and continues to go on its weekly and Big Hikes.

Hauberg served on the boards or held membership in several historical societies, including those of Augustana College, Rock Island County, and Illinois. He was also interested in preserving Native American history, particularly focusing on the Quad City area and the Black Hawk War. He was instrumental in the founding of Black Hawk State Park (now Black Hawk State Historic Site) in 1927, and he and his wife furnished many of the relics in the museum erected in the park (later dedicated as the Hauberg Museum) in 1937. For this and other work, he was elected an honorary chief of the Meskwaki tribe in Tama, Iowa in 1940 and named "Ah-be-chi-ne-ma-so-ta Ma-qua," or "Standing Bear." Hauberg traveled extensively before and after marriage. He spent six months in Europe in 1900, and made two additional trips with his wife and children in 1924 and 1926. John and Susanne Hauberg also traveled to the Holy Land and to Asia, Africa and South America, sometimes on missionary work.

John Hauberg died on 13 September 1955 after a protracted illness. He is buried with his wife in Chippiannock Cemetery in Rock Island, Illinois.

Susanne Christine Denkmann Hauberg was born 2 May 1872 in Rock Island, Illinois, to a prominent family. Her father, Frederick Carl August Denkmann, supervised four sawmills as part of the Weyerhaeuser and Denkmann Lumber Company. She was one of seven children who grew to adulthood. She was educated in Rock Island's public schools, then sent to Miss Brittingham's private school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and finally to Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts, from which she graduated. She attended Wellesley College but was summoned back home by her mother. She also briefly attended Radliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Susanne Hauberg spent a year as a kindergarten teacher at a school run by a friend in New York City, then returned to Rock Island, inspired to found and fund the West End Settlement to provide services to impoverished mothers and children living in the west end of Rock Island. She also served on the board of the Bethany Protective Association (now Bethany for Children and Families), where she met John Hauberg. After marriage, she continued her philanthropic work with her husband, helping to set up Rock Island's Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), serving on the Red Cross Canteen Committee and various church-related causes, and donating money and goods to various organizations. In 1909, Susanne Denkmann and her siblings financed the construction of Augustana College's Denkmann Memorial Library (now Denkmann Memorial Hall) in memory of their parents. In 1921, she donated a plot of land, known as Archie Allen's Place, to the YWCA for a girls' camp. She died of a stroke 13 February 1942.

John and Susanne Hauberg had two children, Catherine Denkmann Hauberg and John Henry Hauberg, Jr. The oldest child, Catherine Denkmann Hauberg, was born 11 April 1914 in Rock Island, Illinois. She attended public high school in Rock Island, and then followed her mother's footsteps to Dana Hall School, from which she graduated in 1932. She graduated from the University of Illinois in 1936 (having also attended Augustana College during the summers) with a major in geology and a minor in zoology. She then proceeded to study zoology, with a botany minor, in graduate school, continuing at the University of Illinois for a semester before transferring to the University of Arizona. She married Edward Cleaveland Sweeney on 22 October 1938. She combined her interest in botany with her parents' philanthropy, becoming a trustee to the American Horticultural Society, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Conservation Foundation, among others. She was also a patron of the arts, supporting the Metropolitan Opera and the Aspen Music Festival. The Sweeney Mountains in Antarctica were named for her after she financed an expedition by the Norwegian explorers Finn and Jackie Ronne in the 1940s. Catherine Denkmann Hauberg Sweeney had five children: Susanne, Edward Jr., Philip, Harriet and John. She died of heart failure 25 January 1995.

John Henry Hauberg, Jr. was born 24 June 1916 in Rock Island, Illinois. He began his education in Rock Island's public schools, spent a year at Fessenden School near Boston, Massachusetts, and graduated from Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut. He spent some years at Princeton University, leaving the school in 1939. He married Anne Westbrook Gould on 9 June 1941. John Hauberg Jr. served in the infantry during World War II from 1943 to 1946, and then returned to college to get a degree in forestry from the University of Washington. He experimented successfully with reforestation in the Pacific Northwest on his Pilchuck Tree Farm, in addition to board positions with the Weyerhaeuser Lumber Company and the Pacific Denkmann Company. He was also a patron of the arts, donating his extensive collection of Native American art to the Seattle Art Museum, supporting the Seattle Symphony, and founding the Pilchuck Glass School with his wife, Anne Gould. They had two children, Fay and Sue. John and Anne divorced in the late 1970s, after which he married Ann Homer Brinkley. He died of a heart attack 5 April 2002.