Folkert Harmens Kuipers

1843 - 1904  (60 years)

• Name	Folkert Harmens Kuipers
  Birth	23 Oct 1843	Utingeradeel, FR, NLD
  Gender	Male
  Living	Bef 1866	Leeuwarden, FR, NLD   [1]
  	clothing store clerk
  Emigration	1866	Buffalo, NY, USA   [1]
  	found same type of employment
  Name	Frank H. Cooper
  Reference Number	30234
  Death	1904	Chicago, IL, USA   [2]
  Person ID	I30234	Haasdijk family tree
  Last Modified	17 Apr 2012

  
  

  Father	Willem Harmens Kuipers,   b. Abt 1808, Akkrum, Utingeradeel, FR, NLD d. 03 May 1903, Utingeradeel, FR, NLD (Age ~ 95 years)
  Mother	IJttje Rommerts de Vries,   b. 22 May 1814, Akkrum, Utingeradeel, FR, NLD d. 27 Nov 1887, Utingeradeel, FR, NLD (Age 73 years)
  Marriage	15 Jun 1837	Utingeradeel, FR, NLD
  Family ID	F13914	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Photos		Siegel Cooper Chicago
  		Kuipers Folkert Akkrum

  
  

• Notes

  opened a tailoring shop opened a tailoring shop "joined Henry Siegel, a German drapery businessman, in opening a modest store in the heart of the city retail district" but it burned down five years later "The building stretched from Van Buren to Congress Streets, and the store was touted as 'the largest retail establishment in the world'. Siegel-Cooper was the first business of its kind in the city, ... the Chicago building cost $1.5 million, and the prime lot was worth $2.5 million in 1905. Its fifteen acres of floor area, which displayed $125 000 in stock and furnishings, was contained on eight floors and a basement and was serviced by eight passenger and six freight elevators. Some twent-five hundred employees worked in the store, and more than two hundred were fellow Hollanders." The store closed at Cooper's death in 1904 "endowed a home for the aged in his hometown of Akkrum, Friesland. The institution continues to the present day (2002). one of the first occupants [Abe Wijbrens Fennema] of Coopersburg "in 1900 gesticht door de Akkrumer Folkert Harmens Kuipers, die in Amerika fortuin heeft gemaakt ... In het park bevindt zich het mausoleum van de oprichter."

  
  

• Sources

  [S110] Robert Swierenga, Dutch Chicago, (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids MI, 2002), Dutch Chicago, p.663. [S110] Robert Swierenga, Dutch Chicago, (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids MI, 2002), Dutch Chicago, p.665.