Pesman was the youngest of seven children born on May 28 1887 in Thesinge, a small farming village near Groningen, Netherlands. At age eighteen he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was forced to stay in bed and be overfed for a year, the only cure known at the time. After being pronounced well, he was urged to leave the damp climate, so he followed the lead of his two elder siblings and their spouses, moving to the Western part of the United States to settle in Colorado.