Built From Scratch
Around the turn of the twentieth century, Henry and Hannah Loomans decided to build a home on the original property purchased by Henry’s grandfather more than five decades earlier.
The classic Loomans skill of expert craftsmanship was put to work in a multi-year endeavor that saw Henry lead a small crew of family and friends to a construct the family’s new two-story farmhouse. The home, sitting at the intersection of Oak Grove and Lake Maria Roads, still stands today along the north branch of the Rock River.
Property Growth & Construction
Historical records from Alto Township and the Fond du Lac County Register of Deeds indicate that the main house was finished in 1900 along with a shed that sits to its left. The farm contained about 118 acres at the time, with the most recent purchase by Jan Albert around 1874 (the family started with 40 to 80 acres originally in 1846).
There are no records of any further land purchases until current owner Mike Sperger and his father bought the farm in 1980 and enlarged the area to just under 200 total acreage.
The brick home featured a fairly standard layout with two chimneys perched on each roof ridge to provide the family with multiple sources of heat, at least one of them acting as a hearth for cooking. At the time it was built it was unlikely for the home to have running water or electricity, forcing Henry and Hannah to rely on wood burning stoves, kerosene lamps and outhouses. Once electricity became more widely available in the 1930s, life undoubtedly became significantly easier.
Henry and Hannah kept the home in the family, passing it immediately to their son Wesley in the late 1910s who ran the farm for about a dozen years after the good-natured couple retired to nearby Waupun.
Their youngest son, Richard Henry, purchased the farm from Wesley in the 1930s and moved his own family to the homestead, maintaining the area for a few years before selling it to his nephew Howard Lemmenes in the 1940s. Howard and his wife Everdeen went on to raise their six children at the homestead, keeping it in the family for three more decades until selling it to the current owner, Mike Sperger, in 1980.
The stretch of more than 130 years that the farm remained in the family’s ownership is a remarkable part of the Loomans family story. Today the house that Henry built still stands, and the property surrounding it continues to operate as a crop-producing farm.
Loomans Family Homestead Constructed in 1900 at N3160 Oak Grove Road in Alto, Wisconsin