Author Description

To purchase your copy of The Joostens, please contact the author, Steve Shaw, at steve7429@hotmail.com or 541.912.2920.It has been more than 100 years now since the Joosten family split in half, exchanged their Badger hats for Beaver hats, and moved from Wisconsin to Oregon. In the early 20th century family would travel to Oregon or to Wisconsin for visits. Although those visits have diminished over time, my goal in writing this book is to reunite the family, and to bridge the knowledge gap of "who is who" in our vast Joosten Family. Another goal was to create a book filled with names and dates to become a valuable reference for future use.There were two influential and visionary priests, first Father Theodore Vandenbroek who led the Joostens from Holland to Wisconsin, and later Father William Verboort who convinced part of the family to move to Oregon. For that reason I have dedicated chapter one to these two wonderful priests, and other priests who were close to the Joostens. I feel it is important to reveal how and why the Joostens came to America, which is captured in the early chapters.The remainder of the book is laid out with a chapter dedicated to each of Joseph and Nellie's nine children. In all there are five complete generations of the Joosten family you will get to know and learn about. Each of these chapters comprises four parts; first there are family stories and facts, a dedication to our family members' military service, a photo and image gallery from my vast collection of memorabilia, and ends with a three-generation genealogy.An index can be found at the end of this book containing more than 1,750 people who are named throughout this book. Incredibly Joseph and Nellie Joosten's nine children added 86 grandchildren and 387 great-grandchildren to this awesome family.