What did Our Ancestors Face? Settler's & Emigrant's Guides by Kimberly Powell

Johan Knutsson Lof (aka John Leave) was born in Sweden in 1828, the youngest of five children. He lost his father before he was two years old and his mother when he was eleven. John immigrated to Andover, Henry County, Illinois in 1852 where he eventually married his first wife Christine in 1859. She died ten years later leaving John with two young children. Within a year John married Clara Gustava Swenson who had just arrived in America and was twenty-two years his junior. Clara bore John six more children but none of the males had children of their own, effectively ending the Leave surname. Two daughters - Almedia and Phoebe - married and had children of their own.

John farmed and prospered in America and was able to build up his worth slowly over his years. They left Andover soon after their fifth child was born and moved to Fort Dodge, Webster County, Iowa where the family settled for twenty-five years. For the last few years of his life John resided with Clara in Fergus Falls, Otter Tail County, Minnesota where he died of pneumonia in 1905 at the age of 78. He left his wife of 36 years and his family financially secure.