In the genes: II

Another of our Sunday morning bicycling group has biking in the genes — and he has the photo to prove it.

Bill Bowen

Bill Bowen, a former colleague at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram who lives a few streets away in Fort Worth’s Mistletoe Heights neighborhood, had read my March 26 post, “Maybe it’s in the genes.”
The post included two photos of one of my ancestors, Hendricus Antonius Maria Siewe, who lived in Amsterdam, riding a bicycle sometime in the latter half of the 19th century.
Bill said he had reconnected with relatives in Iowa before participating last July in RAGBRAI, the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. Among the artifacts in the history of the Iowa branch of Bill’s family was a photograph of his great-grandmother Lillie Koerner, as a young woman in 1900 standing beside a bicycle decorated with garlands of flowers.
Bill said that his family, like mine, has roots in Germany. Some of his forebearers immigrated to the United States and settled in Iowa in the 1840s.
“I saw your family photos and had to add this bike to the archives,” Bill wrote in an e-mail. Here’s the photo:

Lillie Koerner in 1900