J B. GERARD

GERARD

Posted By: Jake Tornholm (email)
Date: 4/20/2020 at 13:58:02

J B. GERARD, an agriculturist of section 5, Mercer township, was born February 22, 1823, in Lorraine, France, and learned and followed the cabinet trade there. In 1848 he emigrated to America, landing at New Orleans with the Icarian community. Then for twelve years he was a resident of Nauvoo, Illinois, where in 1856 he married Theodorine Othello, who joined the community that year. She was a native of Geneva, Switzerland. After a connection with the community of Iowa for three years, Mr. Gerard, in 1863, withdrew from it and engaged in farming, which he has followed ever since. In that year he purchased sixty-five acres if Adams county where he now resides, and by the industry and good judgment of himself and wife and the help of good children he has made a comfortable home, and even laid the foundation for a small fortune. His place is three and a half miles east of Corning.

He has had eight children, all boys and living, who have received an average farmer's education. Six of them are farmers (five on their father's farm of 600 acres); one is a miner in the Black Hills, and the youngest is a pupil of the Corning high school.