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Jasper County, Iowa
Historical and Genealogical Data Exchange
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A.
C. Meyer It
requires considerable personal courage and strong resolution .to sever the ties
which bind one to home, friends, kindred and native land and seek fortune and a
place of abode in a foreign country, where the language is unknown, where
manners and customs are strange and where the future is uncertain, but A. C.
Meyer, well known business man of Baxter, Jasper County, took the risk incident
to such a course, nor has he been disappointed in the hope which led him to
leave Germany and come to the United States, a youngster of tender years at the
time of his arrival, possessing no capital save willingness to work and a strong
determination to succeed, which he has admirably done, as we shall see by the
study of the following paragraphs which will show the ease with which thrifty
Germans achieve such financial success in this country that it is astonishing to
most Americans. The record of the
gentleman whose name appears above is not only one of industry, but also of
honor. Mr.
Meyer was born in Hanover, Germany, December 15, 1843.
He is the son of Fred M. and Betty Meyer, both natives of Germany, the
mother in Bremen; the date of the father's birth was July 11, 1800, and he died
in Illinois on July 11, 1864; the mother was born on 1810 and died at Freeport,
Illinois, on June 10, 1883. They
grew up, were educated and married in the fatherland and immigrated to America
later in life, securing a good home in the new world.
They were the parents of the following children:
William, Carl, Theodore, Reinhard, Johanna and A. C. of this review; also
a daughter, Lizzie. A.
C. Meyer of this sketch left his native land on October 28, 1856, arriving in
New York on December 24th of that year. The
family came west at once and settled in German Valley, Illinois, where they
remained fourteen years, and in 1869 came on to Eden Township, Marshall County,
Iowa, where the young Meyer reared his family and cultivated a large farm in
that Township until March 1, 1907, when he removed to Baxter, Jasper County,
where he owns one of the best residences in that thriving little village and has
long been successfully engaged in business.
He has been most successful in whatever he has turned his attention to,
and is the owner of a very valuable farm of three hundred and twenty acres, well
improved, located near White Lake, South Dakota, besides an interest in the bank
at Baxter, and telephone stock in the Baxter Telephone Company; he also owns
eighty acres of good Missouri land. Since
1872 he has improved one of the choice farms of Eden Township, Marshall County.
He is one of the best-informed botanists and floriculturists in this
section of the state, having long taken a deep interest in plant life and his
beautiful flower garden is the pride of Baxter.
It shows a very commendable quality in Mr. Meyer, a well-developed
esthetic taste, showing that he has an eye for the beautiful and is a lover of
nature; to him, in the language of the English poet, Wadsworth, "The
meanest flower that grows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for
tears." This is a most
commendable quality, for in this money-mad age, most men permit the affairs of
business and the love of the dollar to take the place of almost everything,
literally eradicating what little esthetic quality they had in their childhood.
No man can be wholly bad who is a lover of nature and "communes with her
invisible forms." Mr.
Meyer was married to Catharine Dahlem, who was born in Bavaria, Germany, October
23, 1844. When a child she came with her parents to America, reaching Freeport,
Illinois, on December 25, Christmas day, 1852. She is the daughter of Henry and
Susan (Vogt) Dahlem, the father born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1812 and died
September 10, 1877, and the mother was born in the fatherland in May 1822, and
died December 8, 1877. They were
the parents of four children, namely: Henry,
born in Comoden, Bavaria, November 28, 1842; Catharine, wife of Mr. Meyer, of
this review; Elizabeth Pfeil, born November 26, 1848, is living in Illinois;
Abraham, born May 26, 1850, lives in Baxter. Eleven
children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Meyer, named as follows: Henry, born
April 5, 1867, is living in Saskatchewan, Canada; Elizabeth, born September 11,
1869, died in Eden Township, Marshall County, Iowa, January 14, 1896; Susie,
born October 14, 1870, died December 21, 1880; Hannah Meier, born September 25,
1872, is living at White Lake, South Dakota; Catharine, born August 26, 1874,
died October 9, 1874; Fred, born October 11, 1876, died February 27, 1877;
William T., born April 14, 1878, lives
in Eden Township, Marshall County; Carl Reinhard, born May 4, 1881, is
living near Waterloo, Iowa; August A., born August 9, 1883, is living at White
Lake, South Dakota; John O., born September 7, 1885, also lives at White Lake,
South Dakota; Anna D., born March 18, 1888, died March 20, 1888. Politically, Mr.
Meyer is a Democrat. He has
been a member of the school board for a period of eighteen years and has done
much for the cause of education here during that time.
He and his family belong to the German Reformed Church. Mr. Meyer, who is one of the pioneers of this community, has done his full share in developing the same. Many young men of this place can attribute their success in the financial world to the confidence placed in them by Mr. Meyer. He is a whole-souled, genial, hospitable gentleman whom it is a pleasure to know and he numbers his friends by the scores. The Past and Present of Jasper County, Gen. James B. Weaver, Editor-In-Chief, 1912 B.F. Bowen Co., Indianapolis, IN, p. 1344. |
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