USA > Nebraska > Dodge County > History of Dodge and Washington Counties, Nebraska, and their people, Volume II > Part 44
USA > Nebraska > Washington County > History of Dodge and Washington Counties, Nebraska, and their people, Volume II > Part 44
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life with but scant capital, he was fairly successful in his undertakings, accumulating considerable property. His wife survived him and is now a resident of Blair. Four children were born of their union, as fol- lows: Otto D., an architect, lives in St. Louis; Emil F., of Denver, Colorado, is manager of a large foundry ; C. A., of this brief sketch; and Carl J., employed in the State Bank.
Completing his early studies in the city schools, C. A. Schmidt assisted his father on the home farm for three years, and then accepted a position in the State Bank, with which he has been actively identified for twenty-two years. Beginning in a minor position, he proved him- self faithful, trustworthy, and eminently capable, performing the duties devolving upon him in whatever capacity he served with such prompt- ness and ability that he was frequently promoted. On January 1, 1906, Mr. Schmidt was made cashier of the institution, and ten years later, on January 1, 1916, he had the distinction of being made president of the bank, being the youngest man in the state to hold such a responsible position. The State Bank, which has a capital of $50,000, with surplus and undivided profits of $50,000, receives annually, on an average, upwards of $900,000 in deposits, it being one of the most substantial and prosperous institutions of the kind in Washington County.
Mr. Schmidt is a steadfast republican in politics, and for twelve years has rendered acceptable service as city treasurer. He belongs to the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, being a Knight Templar, and is also a member of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He has never married, but lives with his widowed mother.
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HENRY W. SCHOETTGER. No one element has more to do with the permanent prosperity of a community or section than sound banking institutions. The history of nations is involved in financial transactions, and no large commercial enterprises anywhere can survive without ade- quate bank securities. In this matter the progressive little city of Arling- ton, Nebraska, is amply provided for, its leading financial institution being the Arlington .State Bank, of which Henry W. Schoettger is cashier, and is a prominent citizen in other directions.
Henry W. Schoettger was born at Quincy, Illinois, in November, 1864. His parents were William and Margaret (Toebban) Schoettger, the former of whom was born in Germany in 1812, and the latter in Germany in 1846. The father came to the United States in 1849, escap- ing from his native land after the Revolution of 1848. His first mar- riage took place in Germany and three children were born to that union. He settled at Quincy, Illinois, and remained in that city and vicinity until 1868, when he came to Nebraska and purchased a partly improved farm in Washington County, for which he paid $15 per acre. This land he made very valuable through cultivation and further improvement and to his original farm kept adding other tracts until, at the time of death, in 1894, he was a heavy landowner and a man of ample fortune.
While living in Quincy, Illinois, William Schoettger married Mar- garet Toebban for his second wife, and five children were born to this marriage, as follows: Fred, who is engaged in farming near Enterprise, Nebraska; Henry W., who is a representative citizen of Arlington, Nebraska; Frank, who still lives on the old homestead; H. D., who also resides on the old home farm; and Mrs. A. E. Woodman, who resides at Omaha, Nebraska. In political matters, the father of Mr. Schoettger was a staunch democrat. Both he and wife were members of the Lutheran Church. The mother did not reach the father's advanced age, her death occurring in 1898. Vol. 11-20
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Henry W. Schoettger enjoyed school privileges at Quincy and after- ward took a special commercial course in the Gem City Business College. After returning to Nebraska he gave his father assistance, but in 1886 became bookkeeper in the Bell Creek Valley Bank at Arlington, and ever since has been identified with bank interests. He was one of the founders of the Arlington State Bank, of which he is cashier. This is a flourishing institution, operating with ample capital and affording financial accommodation over a wide section. As cashier, Mr. Schoettger is held in high regard, his strict and careful methods being recognized by patrons as wise and judicious.
In 1892 Mr. Schoettger was united in marriage to Miss Emma Ehninger, who was born at Niles, Michigan. Her parents, John and Katherine Ehninger, were farmers near Niles, where the father died. In 1868 the mother came to Washington County, Nebraska, and bought land. She now resides with Mr. and Mrs. Schoettger. They have two children, namely : George E., who is pursuing his studies in the Nebraska State University ; and Clara K., who is a student in the high school at Arlington. The family belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Mr. Schoettger is a prominent factor in democratic politics in Wash- ington County and frequently takes part in councils and conventions with other influential democrats. He has served at times in public office, with complete efficiency, has been township collector and both village and city treasurer, and because of his deep interest in educational mat- ters has accepted membership on the school board.
JACOB KAVICH. Many of the more enterprising and prosperous busi- ness men of Dodge County are of foreign birth and breeding, prominent among the number being Jacob Kavich, a well and widely known furni- ture dealer of Fremont, who has achieved success through his own efforts. A son of the late Phillip Kavich, he was born, January 20, 1875, in Poland, the home of his ancestors for many generations.
Born, reared and educated in Poland, Phillip Kavich was there engaged in the milling business during the greater part of his life. In 1888, when well advanced in years. he came with his family to the United States, locating in Fremont, Nebraska, where he spent the remainder of his life, passing away in 1904. His wife, whose maiden name was Esther Robnowich, was born in Poland, and is now living in Fremont. She is a very pleasant and religious woman, and a devoted member of the Jewish Synagogue, to which her husband also belonged. Of the six children born of their union, five are living, as follows : Henry, engaged in the furniture business at Fremont ; Louis, of Omaha. proprietor of the Bee Hive Grocery Company; Samuel, engaged in the furniture business at Columbus, Nebraska ; Belle, wife of Max Rosen- bloom, of Omaha, a traveling salesman; and Jacob, of this sketch.
Having acquired an excellent knowledge of books in his native land, Jacob Kavich attended school but six weeks after coming to Fremont. As a lad of fourteen summers he began his business career and for three years thereafter traveled through the country, selling goods from a pack, and during the three years he was so employed gained business knowledge and experience that has been of inestimable value to him since. Giving up the pack, Mr. Kavich embarked in the furniture busi- ness, beginning in a modest way and as his means increased, gradually enlarging his operations until now he has one of the largest and best patronized stores of the kind in the city, his stock being large and varied enough to suit the tastes of all customers. Beginning life for himself
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without a dollar to his name, Mr. Kavich has met with genuine success in business, affairs and gained a noteworthy position among the self- made men of our country.
On December 25, 1903, Mr. Kavich was united in marriage with Elizabeth Pearlman, a native of Poland, and they have a fine family of seven children, namely: Ruby, born in 1904; Dorothy, born in 1907; Minnie, born in 1909; Libbie, born in 1911; Anna, born in 1913; Phillip, born in 1915; and David, born in 1918. Mr. and Mrs. Kavich are both members of the Jewish Synagogue. Politically, Mr. Kavich is an adherent of no special party, voting for the best men and measures. Fraternally, he is a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, of the Woodmen of the World, of the Knights and Ladies of Security, of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, and of the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith.
Gus H. WEBER. A newspaper man of wide experience and marked ability, Gus H. Weber, editor and proprietor of the Uehling Post, has been associated with various Nebraska journals, and has ever devoted his thought and energy to making the papers with which he was connected bright, readable and, above all, clean. A native of Switzerland, he was born December 24, 1878, a son of Albert and Anna Weber, life-long residents of that country. His father, a railroad engineer, was acci- dentally killed while yet in the prime of life. They were the parents of seven children, of whom but two, Gus H., and his sister Emma, were the only ones to come to America.
When but fourteen years of age Gus H. Weber, who was of an adventurous spirit, came to the United States, and for seven months after his arrival made his home with an uncle at Westpoint, Nebraska. He had acquired a high school education in Switzerland and had there attended a Conservatory of Music. Leaving his uncle's home, he joined Ringling Brothers' Circus, and as a member of its band toured the country for two years. Deciding to locate in Nebraska, Mr. Weber purchased the Banner, a paper published in Snyder, and managed it successfully for four years. The following three years he was in service as a member of the Twenty-Second United States Infantry Band, the greater part of the time in the Philippine Islands, and on receiving his discharge returned to Snyder and again assumed management of the Banner.
Going to Petersburg, Nebraska, the ensuing year, Mr. Weber was there engaged in journalistic work eight years and later was foreman on two of the Albion, Nebraska, papers, the News and the Argos. He subsequently worked on the Omaha Bee and the Fremont Tribune, well known papers. From Fremont Mr. Weber came to Uehling and having bought the Uehling Post has since edited it most successfully, the paper under his management being one of the brightest and most newsy and popular papers published in Dodge County.
Mr. Weber married, in 1911, at Albion, Nebraska, Mabel Cooper, a daughter of Henry Cooper, who is living retired in Petersburg, this state, and they are the parents of four bright, interesting children : Albert Con- rad, Francis Henry, John Pershing and Virginia Elizabeth. Mr. Weber supports the principles of the republican party by voice and vote. Mrs. Weber is held in high esteem by her many friends and acquaintances and is a consistent member of the Congregational Church.
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JAMES F. HANSON, coming to Fremont from Kansas with his parents in 1864, became one of the early settlers of the city and has, barring absence at college, made Fremont and Dodge County his home ever since. He was born at Wathena, Kansas, just across the river from St. Joe, Missouri, in the stormy John Brown and anti-slavery days of 1857; and his first childhood memories are those of marching soldiers of the Civil war times, and of his father and older brother taking their turns in the citizens guards watching the Missouri River nights against Missouri "bushwhackers" and a possible repetition of Quantrell's Law- rence massacre.
His parents were James C. and Ellen Christina Hanson, people of comfortable circumstances and good education, devout members orig- inally of the Lutheran Church, who came to America and settled in Kan- sas in 1854 from a suburb of the fine capital city of Copenhagen, Den- mark. The senior Hansons lived for many years in Copenhagen. The father was a soldier in the Danish war of 1848 with Prussia, and with the strong French sympathies of the family, his great-uncle was a soldier in the armies of the great Napoleon.
The Hansons were not well pleased with their first rough pioneering and war-torn experiences in America, and in 1864 set out to find some- thing better than Kansas and Missouri seemed to afford, and found it to their entire satisfaction, at first for a number of months in the then small city of Omaha, and then permanently at Fremont. The family landed first at Fremont in their "prairie schooner" drawn by four yoke of oxen, there being no railroad ; but as a Sioux Indian war was on, they spent the fall, winter and spring of 1864-65 in Omaha, returning to Fremont in the spring of 1865. James F. Hanson, the subject of this sketch, then seven years old, remembers as distinctly as if it were yes- terday, the rejoicing and the public decorating of Omaha with flags and bunting in celebration of the fall of Richmond in the spring of 1865, and the mourning and crepe of a few days later upon the assassination of President Lincoln. He attended the notable civic and military funeral services for Lincoln at the Territorial Capitol building then at Omaha.
At Fremont the Hansons witnessed the great overland traffic car- ried on in prairie schooners and stages to Denver, Salt Lake and beyond ; and the building soon thereafter of the Union Pacific Railroad up the Platte Valley, the first Nebraska railroad. After five years the family located on a "homestead" farm ten miles out from Fremont where the senior Hanson, being a blacksmith by trade, conducted a shop and was the local rural postmaster, while James F., thirteen years old, but big for his age, did the farming. The neighborhood and postoffice were named Jamestown, in honor of the senior Hanson, the first postmaster, and James Beeman, an old resident of the neighborhood,
At Jamestown the Hanson family all became members of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church and were active in surrounding rural church and Sunday school work. James F. became a Sunday school superin- tendent at seventeen and a member of the first board of trustees of Bethel Church at nineteen, a church still existing and prospering. A much-beloved sister of young Hanson, Marie E., died at Jamestown. His parents died a number of years afterward at Fremont, the father at sixty-eight years of age, the mother at eighty-one.
Mr. Hanson's education was had at the Fremont public schools and at Jamestown, and at seventeen years he began a five-years' course at Doane College, Crete, Nebraska, which he pursued with increasing reg- ularity until 1880, graduating from an elective course and receiving a
James . F. Hanson
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diploma from that excellent school that year. Among Mr. Hanson's educational accomplishments at Doane College was a thorough reading, speaking and writing mastery of the German language, which he com- pleted by an after-stay of one year with the educated and noted German families of Grosshans and Bonekemper at Sutton, Nebraska, Rev. Mr. Bonekemper having been pastor of the German Reform Church of that town and having been a graduate of Goettingen University of Germany.
Having completed his schooling, Mr. Hanson in 1881 became a member of the working force of L. D. Richards, later Richards, Keene & Co., then and since an investment concern of great strength, and of which Mr. Hanson became a member in 1885. Richards, Keene & Co. represented at that time millions of dollars of eastern money for farm loan investment, great widely extended areas of farm lands in Nebraska and Iowa, including the northeast Nebraska land grants of the old Fre- mont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley and Sioux City & Pacific railroads. Mr. Hanson became the main expert for the company on real estate values and titles, and industrial and corporate organizer in the large and public spirited activities of the company in the building up of industrial Fremont. Mr. Hanson traveled much in this connection and his subse- quent extensive investment activities over the East and in the South and on the Pacific Coast and Canada.
Mr. Hanson, in 1897, sold out his interest to Richards, Keene & Co. and developed his present business of J. F. Hanson & Co., comprising himself and his four sons, Donald E., James R., Alfred L. and Willard B. Hanson, doing business on a very considerable scale in Nebraska, Kan- sas, Missouri, Colorado and South Dakota as conservators of estates, financial and confidential brokers, corporate auditors and title men.
Mr. Hanson was married in 1884 to Miss Lelia Stanton Wightman. Mrs. Hanson was of an educational family of high standing and from a long line of New York State and Connecticut ancestors, the Wightman family having an unbroken American genealogy from Groton, Connecti- cut, from 1632 down. Her father was a graduate of Union College, Schenectady, New York, and bore the degrees of A. M. and Ph. D. Her mother was a New York State college graduate with the degree of A. M. Her father was for a number of years dean of Nebraska Wes- leyan University. Mrs. Hanson was educated in the schools of her native New York State and of Nebraska, and took a special course of music at Buffalo, New York.
Mr. and Mrs. Hanson's family' consists of six children, all living, namely, Grace M. Hanson, their only daughter, and Howard W., suc- cessfully engaged in farming at Davenport, Nebraska; and James R., Donald E., Alfred L., and Willard B., all associated with their father in the business of J. F. Hanson & Co., of which they are members. James R. and Donald E. became sergeant-majors at Camp Funston in great war; and Donald E. was private secretary to General Wood at the camp. Willard B. was in the radio service in the Navy.
Mrs. Hanson died, sixty years of age, on May 14, 1920, possessed of a strong constitution that would ordinarily have guaranteed her twenty more years of useful, happy life, but dying of a malignant incur- able disease. Besides raising her considerable family, which her friends say she did well, she was for twenty years a power in Fremont and in the State in defense and reclamation of helpless children and of unfor- tunate girls and women, and in support of prohibition and of salutary public morals. She was for years a member of the executive committee of the Nebraska Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
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Mr. Hanson has always taken an active interest in public affairs. As a member of Richards, Keene & Co., Secretary of Fremont Stock Yards & Land Co., and an executive officer for many years of the Fre- mont Commercial Club, he became a recognized local authority on manu- facturing industry and has done a great deal in the course of the years in the industrial and general community development of Fremont, secur- ing the Nebraska enactment of helpful drainage, road making and park laws, and playing a leading part in the organization of surrounding drainage districts, building of dikes and levees to keep the river out of Fremont, building good roads.
Mr. Hanson was an active adherent for a number of years of Theo- dore Roosevelt and his progressive party, sitting in the associated Repub- lican Progressive National Convention of 1916 at Chicago and being progressive candidate that year for governor of Nebraska in that closing period of the party's history. These progressive associations gave him a personal acquaintance with Mr. Roosevelt and correspondence and conferences with him.
ALBERT A. NEHRBAS. The career of Albert A. Nehrbas, president of the Fremont Milling Company, affords an excellent example and incontrovertible proof of the fact that nothing is impossible to the indus- trious, thrifty and upright man in this country. Starting out in life with absolutely nothing, having had no special training, not even the ordinary educational advantages, backed by no capital or influence, he has steadily advanced until today he is at the head of a large industrial plant, and is recognized as a man of moment in his home city.
Albert A. Nehrbas was born at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on January 21, 1868, a son of George and Rachael (Miller) Nehrbas, natives of Germany and Pennsylvania, respectively, who were married in Penn- sylvania. In 1886 George Nehrbas brought his family to Fremont, Nebraska, and here he worked as a carpenter, until his retirement, but while living in Pennsylvania, he was an iron worker. Seven children were born to him and his wife, of whom five are now living: Albert A., who is the eldest; Laura, who is unmarried, lives with her parents ; George, who has worked for the Fremont Tribune for thirty years; Letitia, who married T. L. Watson, a traveling man of Kansas City, Missouri; and Charlotte, who married David Fowler, bookkeeper for Wiley & Moorehouse. The family all belong to the Lutheran Church. They are strong in their support of the doctrines of the republican party. After attending school in Pennsylvania for a brief period, Albert A. Nehrbas began to be self-supporting as a clerk in a grocery store, and later entered one of the rolling mills of Pittsburgh, Penn- sylvania, with which industry he was connected until the time of the family migration to Fremont in 1886. Upon his arrival in this city he secured employment with May Brothers, and then engaged with the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, remaining with it for ten years, alternating the selling of tickets with work in the freight office. All of this time he was saving his money with a definite end in view, and in 1902 was able to realize his ambition to own a milling business of his own, at that time buying a substantial interest in the Fremont Milling Company of which he is now the president. Quite recently this com- pany has acquired by purchase the property of the Brown Mill, and consolidated the interests of the two organizations. Mr. Nehrbas is also a heavy stockholder in the Fremont Building & Loan Association, but takes no active part in the latter, all of his energies being expended in the conduct of his mill.
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Like the other members of his family Mr. Nehrbas is a republican, but has never aspired to public honors. Fraternally he belongs to the Elks and Odd Fellows. Mr. Nehrbas is unmarried. From boyhood he has striven to develop those qualities which now enable him to multiply his productiveness and his value to his community, in his case they being grit, vision and a really marvelous ability to overcome obstacles.
HENRY TANK. There is no other occupation which yields such grati- fying results as does that of farming, and especially is this true in Nebraska, the fertile lands of that commonwealth responding splen- didly to the care and attention lavished on them by the more progres- sive of the agriculturalists. Dodge and Washington counties form a portion of the state that has been specially favored by natural conditions and these in turn have been developed in a commendable manner until this region now stands as a monument to the foresight and industry of its pioneers. One of the men who is making a great success of his farming and stockraising, and yet is finding time to attend to his duties as a public-spirited citizen is Henry Tank of Maple Township.
Henry Tank was born in Dodge County, February 23, 1875, a son of Hans and Katherine Tank, natives of Germany. Hans Tank participated in the war between Germany and Denmark, and came to the United States in 1869, and making his way West to Nebraska, was first in the employ of Mr. Sievers, one of the first settlers of the county. Carefully saving his money, Hans Tank was soon able to begin farming for him- self, and if it had not been for the forces of nature, would doubtless have soon become independent for he was very industrious and econom- ical, but unfortunately for him he began farming at a period when this region was liable to be afflicted with the scourge of grasshoppers, and more than one crop was lost in this manner. Then a devastating prairie fire wiped out all of his improvements and destroyed his crop. How- ever, he belonged to that type of self-reliant human beings who will not allow himself to be discouraged no matter what the conditions may be, and he went to work repairing the damages and in time prospered. He was spared to see the neighborhood he had selected acquire a sub- stantial standing in this state and his farm become one of the valuable ones of Dodge County, for he attained to the age of eighty-two years, his wife passing away, however, when seventy-four. They had twelve children, two sons and six daughters still living.
Growing up on his father's farm Henry Tank attended the local schools and remained at home until he had attained to his majority, at which time he began farming in partnership with his brother, the two renting land from D. W. Dorsey for ten years and working the 160-acre farm together, but at his death Henry Tank bought his share of the 160 acres. Later he added to his farm until he now owns 400 acres of splendidly developed and improved land, and here he is engaged in general farming and stockraising, specializing on Red Polled cattle and Jersey Red hogs. In addition to his farming activities, Mr. Tank is a director of the Farmers Elevator of Nickerson, and of the First National Bank of Ames.
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